2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

louis · 2019-04-15 05:31:45

If the target date for humans on Mars is still 2024, then how soon do Space X need to select a crew team and how many in the overall team?

I think from a lot of discussion here in the past, a Mars mission involving 6 people found a lot of favour. You could have two separate crews of three or put them all in one Starship. There are arguments for both approaches. I think I would favour a two-Starship approach.

But that would imply I think a squad of perhaps 12 potential crew members which you would choose from. This is going to be a complex mission and crew selection will not be down simply to ability to undertake the task. I am sure the "optics" will come into it. Musk has to show this is a mission for all humanity so you will want people from all the major races on Earth, though I would expect them all to be American. There also has to be a gender mix, if not a 50-50 balance and maybe non-heterosexual crew as well.

In order to get down to a squad of 12 with the right range of skills, psychological profile and identity etc, I think you would need to start with a pool of probably 100.

It seems to me if you are really serious about getting to Mars by 2024 then you are going to have to start assembling your pool of 100 pretty soon, as we are only 5 years away probably selecting in the current age range of 25-40. Key skills for Mission One: medical, engineering (of various types - experts in rocketry, life support technology, metallurgy, 3D printing, electrical engineering etc), IT systems, driving skills and geology. All persons need to be exceptionally fit physically have a good pyschological profile, resilience, good social skills and ability to cope with confinement in relatively small hab spaces. The obvious places to start trawling would be US colleges, US military and lead companies with a strong engineer profile.

tahanson43206 · 2019-04-15 06:09:00

For Louis .... this topic should have some running room!

It seems to me that SpaceX would not attempt something as ambitious as you have proposed, but instead (I would think) they would look to others who have spent years and in some cases decades working the problem.

In recent months, there was a post in this forum about a new Russian Mars Simulation, but I couldn't find it. The Russians have conducted long studies in the past, and there are a number of experiments under way.

A Google search yielded a long list of past and current simulation experiments.

And (it might be worth pointing out) that NASA has been doing crew selection for a while now, and there are a LARGE number of people who have participated in evaluations, of whom only a few have gone on to fly, due to the small number of opportunities.

The submarine forces of multiple nations have (by now) graduated thousands of people who might be interested in a trip to Mars as a change of scene.

(th)

louis · 2019-04-15 16:29:15

I'm a simulation sceptic and I wasn't referring to simulation but selection. Simulating with people who will never go to Mars is pointless in my view, especially if the simulation is very limited. But simulation with potential Mars crew members, possibly on the surface of the moon - that would be much more relevant.

Crew squad selection is going to take at least a year in my view. A lot of the people you want to recruit will need to give long notice or complete degrees/PhDs and so on. Then the training programme is surely going to at least two years.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Louis .... this topic should have some running room!
It seems to me that SpaceX would not attempt something as ambitious as you have proposed, but instead (I would think) they would look to others who have spent years and in some cases decades working the problem.
In recent months, there was a post in this forum about a new Russian Mars Simulation, but I couldn't find it. The Russians have conducted long studies in the past, and there are a number of experiments under way.
A Google search yielded a long list of past and current simulation experiments.
And (it might be worth pointing out) that NASA has been doing crew selection for a while now, and there are a LARGE number of people who have participated in evaluations, of whom only a few have gone on to fly, due to the small number of opportunities.
The submarine forces of multiple nations have (by now) graduated thousands of people who might be interested in a trip to Mars as a change of scene.
(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-04-15 17:10:48

Not sure how the BFR Strship will go about the crew slection but I believe even the first crews to the ISS will also be nasa selected even on the new ship made by spacex for that purpose and for the Boeing starliner as well.

rockets_1024.0.0.jpg

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/us/nasa- … index.html

Aug 3, 2018 - (CNN)NASA has tapped nine astronauts to become the first to launch to space from American soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011. The seven men and two women will also be the first astronauts to fly in capsules developed and and built by the private sector as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

In 2014, SpaceX received $2.6 billion from NASA for one of the final phases of the Commercial Crew Program, which aims to fly astronauts on American spacecraft starting summer 2019. (NASA gave Boeing $4.2 billion to develop its CST-100 Starliner module, with the same goal.)

So far seed money from Nasa has not appeared but at some point it will....

louis · 2019-04-15 18:41:03

Yes, that's the impression I got.

But with the Mars Mission, I think Space X will be on their own, although I guess they could attract, or be loaned, people from the NASA roster.

SpaceNut wrote:

Not sure how the BFR Strship will go about the crew slection but I believe even the first crews to the ISS will also be nasa selected even on the new ship made by spacex for that purpose and for the Boeing starliner as well.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xOZJPpb … 24.0.0.jpg

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/us/nasa- … index.html
Aug 3, 2018 - (CNN)NASA has tapped nine astronauts to become the first to launch to space from American soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011. The seven men and two women will also be the first astronauts to fly in capsules developed and and built by the private sector as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
In 2014, SpaceX received $2.6 billion from NASA for one of the final phases of the Commercial Crew Program, which aims to fly astronauts on American spacecraft starting summer 2019. (NASA gave Boeing $4.2 billion to develop its CST-100 Starliner module, with the same goal.)
So far seed money from Nasa has not appeared but at some point it will....

Terraformer · 2019-04-16 04:36:10

Musk has to show this is a mission for all humanity so you will want people from all the major races on Earth, though I would expect them all to be American. There also has to be a gender mix, if not a 50-50 balance and maybe non-heterosexual crew as well.

Nah. No need for diversity hires.

I doubt they'll all be American. What better olive branch than offering the other spacefaring nations seats onboard? Russia and China at least, and probably Japan, India, and a few European countries.

louis · 2019-04-16 07:13:47

Well I disagree. Firstly, I don't think they will be diversity hires in the sense of simply filling some quotas. But I think they will want to have a spread of faces and skin tones. Within the USA there are probably thousands of people who could qualify for the mission so they will have quite a range of people from which to choose. We'll see, that's my guess.

Secondly, I think they will all be American. I think there may well be legal difficulties once you introduce citizens of other countries. Certainly, it would make sense I think to employ only American citizens. Then there is no doubt that it is an American enterprise undertaken by an American company with American citizens.

Terraformer wrote:

Musk has to show this is a mission for all humanity so you will want people from all the major races on Earth, though I would expect them all to be American. There also has to be a gender mix, if not a 50-50 balance and maybe non-heterosexual crew as well.
Nah. No need for diversity hires.
I doubt they'll all be American. What better olive branch than offering the other spacefaring nations seats onboard? Russia and China at least, and probably Japan, India, and a few European countries.

louis · 2019-04-16 07:33:07

"Currently a six-month mission to the ISS requires up to five years of astronaut training. This level of training is to be expected and likely to be expanded upon for future space exploration missions. It may also include in-flight training aspects. It may be possible that the ISS will be used as a long-duration astronaut training facility in the future."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_training

So my 5 year guess wasn't far off!

I am sure that could be sped up (NASA seem to do everything very slowly!) but on the other hand, a Mars mission would surely be more complex than an ISS mission, don't you think?

Terraformer · 2019-04-16 14:59:01

I think there may well be legal difficulties once you introduce citizens of other countries.

It will be a US flagged vessel operating in what is effectively international 'waters'. Any legal difficulties with having non-American crew will be trivial compared to the other ones they'll face. Since foreign astronauts regularly fly on US missions, there shouldn't be any obstacles to SpaceX offering seats to other countries.

SpaceNut · 2019-04-16 17:04:32

The Russian flights also require those that ride to go through there training program as well as learn to speak and read russian so as to be able to operate the launch rocket plus capsule as directed by there commander of the mission.

As far as american ships we have not had all that many riding and with the shuttle they were indeed passengers along for the ride.

louis · 2019-04-16 18:19:53

We're talking about a new world here, not nebulous space. All I can say is my gut feeling is that it just makes everything much more straightforward if they are all (exclusively) American citizens. Imagine if you chose a Russian citizen - quite plausible given their excellent record in space - and it just so happened that the Russian citizen is going to be the first person to step foot on Mars...you think Putin and his Machine won't make something of that? And I don't just mean PR - I mean from a legal standpoint.

Terraformer wrote:

I think there may well be legal difficulties once you introduce citizens of other countries.
It will be a US flagged vessel operating in what is effectively international 'waters'. Any legal difficulties with having non-American crew will be trivial compared to the other ones they'll face. Since foreign astronauts regularly fly on US missions, there shouldn't be any obstacles to SpaceX offering seats to other countries.

Terraformer · 2019-04-17 04:48:48

Who gets to do what first would be up for the politicians to decide. If it's an American mission, it would most certainly be an American who gets assigned that role.

Do you seriously think they'd just stampede for the exit once they land? These are *astronauts* we're talking about. Professional adventurers. People who are entrusted with vessels worth billions of dollars. If the Americans make it clear it's an American who will get the first footsteps, it will be an American.

By the way, the ISS has been commanded by a Canadian before, even though it's primarily a Russian-American project and the only manned flights have been Russian or American.

louis · 2019-04-17 07:36:30

You make my point for me: citizenship is, as you accept, important. If it's important, it's a complicating factor. Why add to the complications by having non-Americans as members of the crew. The only context I could see for doing that is if you couldn't find 12 squad members among the 300 million plus US citizens: unlikely since the US is a world leader in all relevant fields such as IT, engineering and medicine.

Terraformer wrote:

Who gets to do what first would be up for the politicians to decide. If it's an American mission, it would most certainly be an American who gets assigned that role.
Do you seriously think they'd just stampede for the exit once they land? These are *astronauts* we're talking about. Professional adventurers. People who are entrusted with vessels worth billions of dollars. If the Americans make it clear it's an American who will get the first footsteps, it will be an American.
By the way, the ISS has been commanded by a Canadian before, even though it's primarily a Russian-American project and the only manned flights have been Russian or American.

kbd512 · 2019-04-17 18:36:14

Louis,

I think the intent was to go to Mars as all of humanity, rather than just one nation. Obviously the first crew can't consist of every nation, but this is about setting precedent. If we can't convince anyone else to join the project, that still won't stop us from going. However, buy-in from other nations would increase the overall value-add of this project. Colonizing another planet is the mother of all major undertakings. Landing men on the moon was child's play by way of comparison. More intelligent and talented people, wherever they hail from, is better.

louis · 2019-04-17 19:26:59

It's a nice thought but there are a lot of bad actors out there (totalitarians, corrupt dicators, religious maniacs and loony tunes). Either you have a project over which you maintain control or you don't. I want to see a Mars colonisation project that transfers the best of human values to Mars not the worst.

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
I think the intent was to go to Mars as all of humanity, rather than just one nation. Obviously the first crew can't consist of every nation, but this is about setting precedent. If we can't convince anyone else to join the project, that still won't stop us from going. However, buy-in from other nations would increase the overall value-add of this project. Colonizing another planet is the mother of all major undertakings. Landing men on the moon was child's play by way of comparison. More intelligent and talented people, wherever they hail from, is better.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-01-02 20:03:23

Elon Musk Says He’ll Have Boots on Mars Within Ten Years
https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-mars-ten-years

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-04-10 06:34:42

The First NASA crewed flight near the Moon, around the Moon might be 2025 or later, which means Mars could be still another 10 years away, unless China or the Private sector do something different. Wernher von Braun and Kennedy looked at ideas and proposal back in the 1960s. Robots have landed on Titan, machines landing and exploring on comets, on the Moon, on Mars, as of today in 2022, only rovers have been on Mars. There is now much study in long duration space flight but the farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon. The Chinese have leaked out some info deliberate and in public showing they have interest in space saying they would start deep-space exploration focusing on perhaps Comets or the Sun or maybe the Moon or Mars over the next five or ten years, nobody is really sure what China will do but they have plans for new rockets and have an ongoing space station program. Several Mars mission concepts and proposals have been put forth by Russian scientists, they would look to places like Europe for funding but now with the War in Ukraine there will be sanctions between Western Nations and Russia. A conceptual architecture was published by Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and RAL Space in Britain, laying out a possible design for a crewed Mars mission and there are also ideas from the Private Companies and Commercial Sector. The Blue Moon is a robotic space cargo carrier and lander design concept for making Jeff Bezos Amazon cargo deliveries to the Moon, planned to be operated by Blue Origin. McCandless Lunar Lander is a concept is one of the commercial cargo vehicles for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) by the aerospace company Lockheed Martin, it is based on the robotic Mars landers and named in honor of the late astronaut and former Lockheed Martin employee Bruce McCandless II. Another XL-1 is a small cargo lunar lander part of the Lunar CATALYST program the XL-1 is designed to land 100 kilograms (220 lb) payloads onto the surface of the Moon.

Station In A Weird Orbit?

NASA Calls On Private Industry To Ship Cargo To Moon-Based Space Station
https://www.wmfe.org/nasa-calls-on-priv … ion/133057

SpaceX’s first paying ISS passengers say they’re not ‘space tourists’
https://www.popsci.com/space/spacex-axiom-iss-mission/

Will the International Space Station survive the war in Ukraine?
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion … n-ukraine/

louis wrote:

Imagine if you chose a Russian citizen - quite plausible given their excellent record in space - and it just so happened that the Russian citizen is going to be the first person to step foot on Mars...you think Putin and his Machine won't make something of that? And I don't just mean PR - I mean from a legal standpoint.
Terraformer wrote:
I think there may well be legal difficulties once you introduce citizens of other countries.
It will be a US flagged vessel operating in what is effectively international 'waters'. Any legal difficulties with having non-American crew will be trivial compared to the other ones they'll face. Since foreign astronauts regularly fly on US missions, there shouldn't be any obstacles to SpaceX offering seats to other countries.

NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts land after 4-hour journey back to Earth from ISS
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech … orbit.html

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-04-10 06:49:06)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-02 05:39:20

Around the Moon with NASA’s First Launch of SLS with Orion
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/around-the … with-orion

It cost a researcher only $25 worth of parts to create a tool that allows custom code to run on the satellite dishes. At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Wouters will detail how a series of hardware vulnerabilities allow attackers to access the Starlink system and run custom code on the devices.
https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-in … dish-hack/

S.Korean lunar orbiter to undergo critical trajectory manoeuvre
https://easternmirrornagaland.com/s-kor … manoeuvre/

SpaceX's Mars vehicle Starship to launch Japanese communications satellite in 2024
https://www.republicworld.com/amp/scien … eshow.html

SpaceNut · 2022-09-02 13:03:36

could have been achieved if they had stuck with the Red Dragon and Falcon Heavy but instead it's a date that will pass before we even see a starship leave orbit.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-24 11:56:00

The Forever September or Eternal September or the September that never ended is old early interwebs Usenet slang for a period beginning around 1993 when Internet service providers changed form high IQ people and began offering Usenet access to many world commoner hoodrat Low IQ new users, this was before mobile cell phones, so imagine what they, old high IQ types shocked by riff raff undesirable people. What these original educated posh high IQ original interwebs people think of the current interweb generation from all over the world making selfies during robberies, civil wars and facebook rapper tiktok challenges.

If launched from the USA then your crew will be American, but who knows which other group could come along maybe Europe / Canada or Japan, maybe a dual citizen but allied nations and politics will play a role. Axiom a Private group, Kamal Ghaffarian, Michael Suffredini that group if involved seems to almost have this obsession with putting islam and mohammedanism into space? He was on reddit the sewer of the internet.
https://i.imgur.com/2doeyGG.jpg
Someone asked 'Are you hiring for the CEO position with minimal experience?', to which I guess he gave a witty reply.
It's a pity I don't have a reddit account and missed his AMA, I might have asked why are you exporting mohammedan pedo culture into space, I assume this comment would have me banned by reddit's other pervert criminal pedophile 'moderator' administration.
He likes Star Trek, thinks Flat Earthers see in 2 dimensions and says 'If you're in your teens it's very possible you will see people living on Mars.' However I'm not sure how exporting islam to space is advancing humanity.

Somebody also asked him Ayo Mike... do ya thank if we eva find aliens dat dey be black?
to which he replied 'Personally I've always thought they would be green.'
and the 'Forever September' idiot came back and said White boi go on witchu.. who it is ya thank ya talken ta? Ya ain wan nun dis

Artemis Legality missions on the Moon would be a Lunar disaster or a success but will serve as a testing ground for the first human missions to Mars

Who gets to mine Mars or claim a resource, more Military Advanced more Rich or Technological nations stand to gain the most from access to space, with a recent international agreement allowing them to lawfully mine the Moon and other objects in space

Artemis Accords signatories hold first meeting
https://spacenews.com/artemis-accords-s … t-meeting/

and what if Nations had declared an area of the Venus or Mars or Titan or Ganymede or the Moon a place of historic value?
Russia had access that others in the past would have envied in the past but New politics on Earth, blood and treasure wasted? expansion and imperialism.

A War in Ukraine and a Russian crew selection no more?

Video: Huge traffic jam at Russia-Kazakh border after Putin's military mobilisation
https://metro.co.uk/video/huge-traffic- … n-2780339/

If the West slows down and stumbles then China might one day have the ability to win and go it alone.

Take most of what Space-X public talk publicity broadcasts and tweets for a pinch of salt, target date for humans on Mars was 2024 he might even make a ridiculous claim it is still 2024, sometimes Musk oversells himself but even in doing so he generates press and publicity.

Europe cancelled its joint missions with Russians, the MARS-500 mission was a psychosocial isolation experiment conducted between 2007 and 2011 by Russians, after the Invasion of Ukraine came sanctions, an idea for the ExoMars Kazachok Surface Platform to help a Rover get to the surface thrown in the trash, it was a planned robotic Mars lander that maybe a Private group like Space-X could help replace?

Joint Europe-Russia Mars rover project is parked
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60782932

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-24 12:24:31)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-28 08:10:41

Kazakhstan Seizes Russia's Launch Facility at Baikonur
https://www.universetoday.com/160720/ka … -baikonur/

NASA and Canadian Space Agency Reveal the Artemis II Lunar Orbit Crew (Official NASA Broadcast)
https://www.aerocontact.com/videos/1155 … -broadcast

SpaceNut · 2023-05-17 19:20:48

The dream of a Mars future

Terraforming Mars by Stefan Morrell, National Geographic

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2019-04-15 05:31:45

2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#2 2019-04-15 06:09:00

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#3 2019-04-15 16:29:15

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#4 2019-04-15 17:10:48

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#5 2019-04-15 18:41:03

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#6 2019-04-16 04:36:10

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#7 2019-04-16 07:13:47

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#8 2019-04-16 07:33:07

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#9 2019-04-16 14:59:01

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#10 2019-04-16 17:04:32

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#11 2019-04-16 18:19:53

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#12 2019-04-17 04:48:48

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#13 2019-04-17 07:36:30

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#14 2019-04-17 18:36:14

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#15 2019-04-17 19:26:59

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#16 2022-01-02 20:03:23

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#17 2022-04-10 06:34:42

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#18 2022-09-02 05:39:20

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#19 2022-09-02 13:03:36

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#20 2022-09-24 11:56:00

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#21 2023-03-28 08:10:41

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

#22 2023-05-17 19:20:48

Re: 2024 Humans to Mars - crew selection

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