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This forum is fortunate to have members with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, to help with the significant challenge of trying to think through the realities of travel to and life on Mars. This topic was inspired by a remarkable Zoom session on September 25. The only members in attendance were kbd512, RobertDyck and the Mars Society Volunteer, and no recording was made.
After a starting question by RobertDyck, about the dimensions of under-bunk storage aboard US Navy ships, Navy Veteran kbd512 treated us to two hours of tours of many US Navy ships, and added context to the images Google found from his personal experience on board several ships for extended periods of time.
In the Large Ship topic, kbd512 has offered several posts that touch on the subject of the tight quarters that the current Large Ship design will impose upon passengers and crew. In general, it is my impression that kbd512 is sanguine about the experience awaiting Large Ship travelers. After attending kbd512's presentation last night, I have a better understanding of why he is confident that the conditions on board Large Ship might not only be survivable, but actually enjoyable.
This topic is available for any NewMars member to offer personal insights about the conditions that Large Ship travelers will face.
Please note: This topic is NOT available for rants of any kind.
There are plenty of topics available in this forum for rants, and under the leadership of SpaceNut, there is a high tolerance for excesses along those lines.
I'm looking for serious discussion of a serious concern. A bit of levity is fine.
I'd like this topic to be suitable for reading by students who are learning about space flight and the Mars project.
(th)
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The psychology of civilians is not identical to that of people who join the navy, in turn not identical to the subset of navy people who serve aboard submarines. Neither is a good guide to what you might face with civilians cooped up for months in a big ship. Submariners are one unique group, even in today's boats, which are quite spacious compared to older models. Civilians are going to be far more wildly variable in their psychological makeup, and you will get less warning about problems that could crop up.
Here is the problem you will encounter, and I do mean "will". It will take some weeks for the problems to surface. But aboard a space ship, there is no turning back, and there is no emergency rescue to send somebody back. You will have to deal with this aboard the ship.
It takes something different than a brig or a standard medical facility; it takes a "rubber room" and mental health medical personnel, and you will have multiple examples to treat by the time you reach Mars from Earth. The tighter the confinement, the more of these will surface. You probably will have to bring them home over the return voyage, as any operating community on Mars will not be able to tolerate keeping "whackos" in their midst, even if treatable.
You cannot let them wander about the ship (or the community on Mars). Too much damage can be done. You have to treat them in some sort of confinement and send them home in some sort of confinement, or you have to space them. I see no other choices.
Out of 1000, I bet at least 10 or 20 of these cases will crop up. Just a guess, but I see all sorts of crazies around me every day. Most on the roads, but not all of them. Some of them gibber on the radio or the TV.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW Johnson: thank-you. I greatly value the experience and knowledge of kbd512 for having served on a large ship. And many things, such as under bunk storage, I would like to copy. However, I have pointed out before that this ship is a passenger vessel carrying civilians, there will be differences. I have tried to use my very limited experience on day excursions aboard a passenger ship. And more importantly TV shows that depict life aboard real cruise ships (Mighty Ships). For sick bay operations, I looked up online documents with advice for any medical doctor considering working for a cruise ship, with details about work load and conditions to expect and general life for a doctor working on a cruise ship. I did cite a website that described a ferry in Scandinavia, which is a civilian transport rather than a luxury cruise ship.
As GW pointed out, even life aboard a US navy submarine is different than US Supercarrier. By the way, British full-size aircraft carriers were about 40,000 ton displacement. US carriers, starting with the Forrestal, were roughly 100,000 tons. They're "super".
Life aboard our Large Ship will have many similarities to an American aircraft carrier, but also many differences. One example of civilians cooped up for months on a cruise ship is use of ships as quarantine for COVID-19. The Diamond Princess was one. Look there.
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I hesitate, but you want psychology. Here's a story of something bad. The host of this channel tries to support men. He rails against the media when they say "women good, men bad". So if it sounds at times that he criticizes women, realize he isn't really against women, but against criticism of men. A good part of his channel is dating advice for men, and warnings against bad women. His back story is he got burnt badly by a woman. With that in mind, here's a story that relates to psychology in space.
YouTube: Slow news day let's go down a rabbit hole.
The host says the Wikipedia page on this woman has been "scrubbed". I found what he was looking for on that very Wikipedia page. At the top it says:
Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor (born April 9, 1976) is an American physician, engineer, and NASA astronaut. She visited the ISS as a flight engineer for Expedition 56/57 on the International Space Station.
Notice the links for both Expedition 56 & 57. Serena Auñón-Chancellor was part of both expeditions, entering ISS with the first, returning to Earth with the second. Dates are on web pages for each expedition.
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Whatever happened there was clearly done from the inside of the module, and after paint was applied. If it happened on Earth, it would be immediately noticeable that atmosphere was venting to space when the module was pressurized. I wasn't there and won't take anyone's word about what happened, because American and Russian media are known cheerleaders / propagandists for their respective countries. I would be very interested to know if the damage was caused by an astronaut. There was no direct refutation by NASA that such a thing never happened, merely a statement to the effect that they support their astronaut. I'm happy to know that they support their own people, but that makes me think there might be something to this. Whether this was a mistake made by ground repair personnel or an intentional act caused by an astronaut, we need to look into methods to prevent mistakes and intentional acts of sabotage from compromising the hull integrity of the large ship. The actions of one man or woman cannot be allowed to endanger everyone else.
We're going to need a brig and security detail to deal with fights and insanity. If you don't want guns, then we're going to need something rather medieval like a cat-o-nine-tails, in case someone has a kitchen knife and won't put it down. Whether people find it distasteful or not, there will have to be some measure of discipline and capital punishment for murder. A fledgling colony can't afford to devote precious labor / energy / material resources to murderers. That sounds a bit harsh, because it is, but it's also the truth.
People are being transported to Mars to create a second branch of human civilization. Vacations can be taken aboard any cruise ship here on Earth for a lot less money. Living and working in space is a very serious business. Nature will deal with any mistakes, as well as any lapses in judgement, every bit as harshly as any form of military discipline. Everyone else is not obligated to suffer or be killed because one of their fellow colonists cannot or will not behave in a reasonably civilized manner.
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Thanks for interesting and helpful additions to this topic by GW Johnson, RobertDyck and kbd512!
It seems to me reasonable to consider scrubbing passengers before they are accepted for a flight that would impose this level of stress on 1060 human beings.
The idea of accepting anyone who can come up with the ticket price seems unwise to me.
The folks who are being accepted for test runs in isolated Mars or space simulations are carefully evaluated ahead of time.
It will be many years before anyone can get onto a Mars bound spacecraft the way we humans routinely pack ourselves into aircraft, ferries or other transportation equipment for short trips.
A reasonable test is to pack the proposed crew and passenger set into a land based simulator. The simulator would be a small building that is 19 meters wide, 4 meters tall, and 238 meters long. All supplies would be delivered from the outside, and all waste products would be delivered to the outside, and there would be unlimited communication with the outside world via the Internet. The purpose of the exercise is to enable the passengers and crew to reassure themselves that this is something they ** really ** want to do. The length of the simulation could be less that 8 months, but it seems to me a ** real ** test would last for as long as the trip lasts.
kbd512 has reminded us that a human being might crack under the conditions RobertDyck has proposed. There isn't going to be ** any ** space in that tiny volume for an extended confinement by a person who has become psychotic.
It would seem to me reasonable to spend whatever it takes to insure the folks who are going to put themselves through this grueling exercise can come out intact on the other side.
(th)
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I remember the news story about leak through a hole. I never did hear at the time where it was, or even how it was fixed. At that same time, there were also stories floating about that concerned other sabotage found in some other Soyuz items, but I never heard much, other than that. My point is not to read too much into speculations from the internet. Most of the crap I see from "out there" is just that: crap.
Even so, it does bring up a good point. Given that psychological problems will crop up, the risk of an insane person doing damage to the ship (or space station, or anything else) is high. There is no way around that, other than to design things in a way that limits access to the pressure shell. And yet, you must have rapid access to that same pressure shell to repair any leaks. Serious conflict there.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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I think I would rather have monitoring systems that perhaps "listen" for vibrations indicating someone is using a drill on the hull, exercising the two-man rule when working on life support equipment, the same as the US Navy has for highly classified information, and ensure that poisons are not introduced into the food supply. Few things are more corrosive to mutual trust than the actions of insane people, because for the vast majority, doing this stuff would never occur to them. Having multiple galleys serving different meals is one way of countering the poisoning problem, even if it's a simple mistake in food preparation. The life support equipment is sensitive enough that it must be protected. The communications suite should send out "heartbeat" messages that also contain the status of the ship, position, life support equipment status, and consumables status without further human interaction. A "heartbeat ping" was the critical missing link to uncovering what happened to flight MH370.
We need at least 2 bridge decks, whereby one crew is double-checking the other's navigational info, so both bridges can control ship's propulsion, attitude, navigation, and communications systems. This is no different than having a cockpit with a pilot and co-pilot, except that we have redundant function. Each bridge watch will be 8 hours. We need a Pilot, Navigator, Engineer, and Communicator. During critical maneuvers, both bridges will be fully staffed, with the Captain on one bridge and the XO on the other. All hands briefings will be conducted before critical maneuvers. The entire ship's company will be fully suited and seated in the central hub section, the strongest part of the ship, after the habitation rings have spun down. Apart from reducing the possibility of injury, this de-facto "roll call" will let everyone know that it's "game time", and they need to be ready to act quickly if something goes wrong. I also assume these ships will operate in convoys, with each successive ship following the leader into and out of gravity wells. To reduce the possibility of collision, they will maintain proper spacing at all times.
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For kbd512 re #8
This post looks just as good (or perhaps even better in the second reading)...
I logged in just now to report on an upcoming PBS special on NASA's study ahead of long duration missions...
PBS - Monday, May 6 at 10 pm
Space: The Longest Goodbye
NASA psychologists prepare astronauts for the extreme isolation required by a Mars mission, as the crew grapples with the tension between their dream of reaching new frontiers and the basic human need to stay connected to home.
The above was contributed by a relative.
(th)
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