New Mars Forums

That a good side note, I will also include it.

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Sources from post #318 (Books:)

Mars Prospect Energy and Material Resources
Mars - Wie wir den roten Planeten besiedeln
Use of extraterrestrial resources for human space missions to moon or Mars

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I also think that would be a good idea. Then we would have two approaches, which makes things more interesting.

CREW SIZE

From a moral point of view, the number of crew members should be kept small. But what is actually even more important than keeping the crew small is keeping the crew safe! So in order to achieve the mission objective, do science, and bring the crew back safely, there are several requirements for the crew. There are four critical factors that affect crew size:
First, there are personnel requirements, which primarily include scientific and technical skills. Second, there is the workload, which should be an interplay of productive work as well as rest breaks. Third is psychological factor. A mission that lasts over 2.5 years will bring some problems, mainly due to confinement and isolation. Fourth is the composition of the crew, should it be more homogeneous or heterogeneous (in terms of nationality, gender, age and experience).

Personnel requirements
A minimum crew for operations, maintenance, and overhead is needed, about 2 to 3 people. The mission critical person would definitely be a mechanic for the electrical systems or life support systems.  The lives of the crew would depend on his/her skills. Therefore, this person should be an experienced mechanic with hands-on skills to troubleshoot most problems. A person or rather persons with medical skills are also irreplaceable. All crew members need basic medical knowledge and are trained in first aid.
Further, a field scientist/geologist would also be needed to explore the Martian landscape to find resources for the ISRU and to understand the history of Mars. Further, a geologist would be needed to find new evidence to answer the question of past or present life.
A partial list for mission jobs might include:
Technological Skills:
Commander
Spacecraft Engineer
Manufacturing Engineer
Navigation
Communication
Software Engineering
Scientific skills:
Geology
Biology
Medicine
Atmosphere
Meteorology
Astronomy
It is not necessary to bring an expert for each field. It is not necessary to bring a "pilot" or commander. Yes, we need them, but a commander could be mainly a mechanic who has the skills to lead the crew. Redundancy is needed to make the mission as safe as possible. The mission critical people should definitely be at least dual. So the crew maximum would be all 12 skills plus redundancy in the mission critical people, which would be around 20 people.

Workload
In the 1970s, there was a "Skylab mission" where the astronauts had a tough schedule. For this reason, the crew went on strike for one day. Therefore, a good time segment is very important. 
To determine the workload, it is useful to note what work needs to be done and what should be done. All issues related to safety and life support have the highest priority, followed by exploration and science.
There have been several studies on the workload and psychological effects in a Mars-like environment such as in the Arctic/Antarctica, in low Earth orbit, in isolation chambers, and in underwater submarines.
After landing on Mars, the first month will likely be the hardest. There are three options for the building: 1. bring the whole building, 2. print the building in advance, or 3. build it on site, after landing. Regardless of which case occurs, the team will have a heavy workload. They will need to install power supplies and life support systems. If they are a larger team, they can divide the work more efficiently, but they will also have to do more work. In such a case, with a shortage of people, a larger crew at the top end (about ~ 16) is better. However, this should not happen so often, so such a large team would probably be superfluous. The team then moves into the maintenance phase, which is more repetitive but also more demanding. This would mainly involve cleaning and repairs. Coinciding with the start of science and exploration. Lamamy et al. (2005) noted that for a four-person crew, probably 80% of the crew time would be devoted to self-maintenance and about 20% of the crew time would be devoted to science and exploration. With a crew of six, this ratio would possibly change to 60-40. It should be noted that these numbers are quite subjective at this early stage.  However, with a larger crew, the ratio would allow more room for science and exploration. So with a crew of 8 or more, the crew would have plenty of time for science and would not be constantly engaged in self-maintenance.
What also needs to be considered is the schedule of how and when the crew operates. For example, the ISS crew gets a schedule from the Earth crew, and that works well. But on Mars, a response from the Earth crew would take about 40 minutes because of the long distance. Accordingly, the crew has to operate largely autonomously. This also has an impact on various other psychological factors.

Psychological factors
The aforementioned studies also collected useful data on psychological factors. They are listed in total in Table 3. I will only go through the most important points. The results were all similar: most crew members had a pleasant and harmonious time. Nevertheless, they all missed their family/friends, or unfamiliar faces and other things. One of the biggest hurdles was isolation and confinement. Constantly next to others and almost no space of their own.  They also found that larger crews have a higher rate of deviance and conflict than smaller crews. Therefore, crew size should be kept small in terms of psychological aspects. But still many psychological aspects are not well researched. For example, the earth-out-of-sight phenomenon. It is not clear how much the crew is affected by this phenomenon.
Composition
Composition is in terms of nationality, gender, age, and experience. In general, deviance and conflict increased with mission duration, with the deviance peak in the tired quarter. Dudley - Rowley investigation of teams respond in a heterogeneity or homogeneity group. Heterogeneity differentiates people from each other, this makes thinking about a long duration more interesting. However, they start with higher levels of deviance, conflict, and dysfunction - but they decrease. Perhaps this is how some innovative solutions emerge, because of the different skills and experiences. In homogeneous teams, the start was quite comfortable. After the middle to the end of the third quarter, conflicts increase sharply. Especially gender plays a role in the composition. To date, there has been no systematic research on the behavior and performance of mixed- and same-sex groups that arise under confinement and isolation. Nevertheless, there are several risks associated with sexual activity:
formation of couples
interpersonal tensions due to jealousy
sexual deprivation can be harder to bear in the presence of people perceived as sexually attractive
sexual harassment
unwanted pregnancy
Only the last risk cannot be associated with homosexuality, but the other one can. So this does not make a same-sex group more favorable. There are also some proposals to send married couples on a Mars mission, but this does not seem realistic, as high technical skills are required.

So how many should go and in what constellation?
Based on the facts, an eight-person crew consisting of a mixed & heterogeneous team seems most likely. A crew of eight allows for a dedicated crewmember for the most critical function, while still allowing for some redundancy in capability coverage and still keeping the mission feasible and affordable.
With a smaller crew, there would likely not be enough time for science and would lead the mission primarily to a survival camp. A crew with more people, say 11 or 12, would also seem reasonable. But there are two main reasons for a smaller crew: the first is to keep the payload as small as possible to allow for a realistic price. In the past, most attempts failed not because of technical problems but because of lack of funds. Second is a moral consideration: regardless of any safety precautions, this mission will be extremely risky. Therefore, the number of crew should be kept to a minimum for the first mission.

Workload

I have summarized the main tasks, did I miss a task?

Main tasks:
-Maintenance (lss, cleaning, repairs).
-Building the settlement (if necessary)
-Production of fuel
-Exploration (search for water & resources)
-Collection and treatment of water
-Energy system "installation"
-Science (search for past or present life).

Thomas re #267
I am constantly looking for new arguments concerning crew size. As Thomas said, if someone has new arguments, I will adopt them.

Yes, I saw his recommendation and he had some important points. Especially in regards to the workload for the settlers.

I will post a rationale for my number by the end of this week.

Louis

Looks interesting thanks!

CV/ learning status
Thomas asked me to give a brief CV/ learning status, so here it goes:

School
After elementary school I went to a high school ( "Marie-Curie-Gymnasium" in Germany).

Internships
During high school, I did internships during the vacations, in 10th and 11th grade. The internships were with a well-known architectural firm called RKW +. There I designed a building from scratch and went through the whole design process, which is similar to the settlement design process.

Architecture competition
After the internships, I participated in an architecture competition for students, where we
were to design and draw a skyscraper.  I won a “Sonderpreis” (special prize).

Study
Shortly after graduating from high school, I took an entrance test for ETH Zurich.
Now I study physics at ETH Zurich and design a settlement desgin with all of you

Sound interesting and I appreciate that you added a source. Thanks!

Thanks Robert, for the summary! Where can I find the document? Or rather in my private messages? I am not so familiar with the forum yet, or maybe you can send me the document to my email address nallwicher@yahoo.de?

Ahh okay. Thanks, now it works.

I have seen many calculations for a city with a million inhabitants, this is good and we need to keep them in mind.  For now, a settlement design with about 4 - 20(?) people should be considered. As Oldfart1939 mentioned, we need to discuss "how many will go?" first. Then we can calculate things like energy requirements, etc. I have seen some suggestions for a crew of 6 people and 17 people.
Does anyone have another suggestion or a new argument?

RobertDyck,
regarding the Hillside Settlement 1:
Sounds great your concept and very nice pictures for 2005. I can't open the file type unfortunately, maybe you have another type? I would like to have a closer look.