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Mars: Historical Log
Numbers can be manipulated:
<1988 had 60% failure rate
1988-1999 had a 80% failure rate
2000-present had 20% failure rate
US rate is ~30% failure rate
palmer_md
Member
ok, that looks a lot better. Most of the failures are in the 1960's and 70's. Thanks for sharing the link to the data.
Huh. I guess the Martians are running out of surface to orbit missiles?
Well, there's that time that the craft's programming team used metric units, and the ground station team used imperial units... and nobody noticed until too late and the probe plowed in to the Martian surface:
The Time NASA Lost a Mars Orbiter Because of a Metric System Mixup
I hate it when that happens.
Ulmo
Active Member
Right, and we shouldn't stop at Mars. We should have a number of colonies, as many as makes sense, as many as possible. Other large moons, space ships, etc.. It's looking like they say our body wants spherical gravity, not centrifugal gravity, otherwise I'd suggest space ships. We should put highly evolving subspecies of humans on space ships anyway. What if what happens to Earth gets transmitted to Mars too? Or even from Mars to Earth?
Ulmo
Active Member
There's all sorts of staging efficiencies we can use to make our longer reach stronger and longer. We could launch a bunch of pre-positioned payloads on both Mars and the paths to and from Mars. When the humans land there, there could already be habitats, mining facilities, manufacturing facilities, tractors, supplies, equipment, etc.. Not only would the first colonists have a fighting chance at living, but they would have a lot of civil work to do. Jobs could be created pretty quickly, and it wouldn't be that hard to find a couple dozen people who want to go live there. Someone could pick a few highly probable good sites to start at, send facilities to all of them, and try to figure out a way to transport equipment and personnel between them in case they find some more suitable than others or all of them useful in some way. I'm not really sure what type of transport they could use, though. There is sunlight there. Perhaps they could use that. Some sort of electric propulsive vehicle. Who knows.
In a large centrifuge, say 2 km diameter, you can't tell the difference. The only serious issue for a centrifuge is the cross coupling of the rotation of the centrifuge with head rotations. For most people, anything over about 1 - 2 RPM makes them nauseous, although training helps in many cases. This size is more than most people would consider a "ship", but something like an O'Neil Cylinder would work, and with thrust and time could move.
If the goal is avoiding human extinction, whatever scheme is used must be completely self sufficient in life support, economy, politics and beliefs. IMHO the greatest existential threat to humankind by far is war, e.g. biological weapons. To survive it, the people would have to believe they belonged to a new independent nation that wouldn't be drawn into such a conflict, and have the resources so they could survive on their own.
How Mars would be able to develop an independent life support system, much less economy, is very unclear to me.
Efforts should be focused on reaching Alpha Centauri in unmanned craft with nuclear propulsion systems, then we could focus on sending humans to where it is survivable.
As for Mars, given conditions on that rock, the better alternative to a penal colony is an incinerator.
As for Mars, given conditions on that rock, the better alternative to a penal colony is an incinerator.
deonb
Active Member
We're not at the level of technology yet where we can send a probe to Alpha Centauri with any kind of meaningful response time. We have to practice more at space travel to get it right. Going to Mars is great practice.
Also, once you have the underground bunkers up and running so that you can put workers in there to operate, maintain & build drones, I would hardly call it a penal colony. Heck, most Silicon Valley / Seattle engineers won't be able to tell the difference!
Pretty picture of Mars from Hubble space telescope. Also for stargazers out there, apparently May 22 is Mars opposition! Apparently good views!
Link (NASA):
New Hubble Portrait of Mars
Also interesting article about research into why Mars lost its water.
Of Liquid Water and Martian Tsunamis
Link (NASA):
New Hubble Portrait of Mars
Also interesting article about research into why Mars lost its water.
Of Liquid Water and Martian Tsunamis
ecarfan,
I agree that private company could go to Mars eventually. If it is tried in near future, it will fail for safety and economical reasons. Safety for about 3 years will be too expensive without proper testing. I don't want tourist trip to Mars and then forget it for next 50 years. When we go, we should go to stay. Government needs support from half of the population, before they can go to Mars. Private company needs only enough money.
Argument: "We need to go to Mars because we need a backup planet."
Get answers like this:
Lucianne Walkowicz: Let's not use Mars as a backup planet | TED Talk | TED.com
I don't agree with her. Most serious problems are: How to convince people that man made climate change is a problem? How to stop dictators using weapons to stay in power and to expand their empires. Backup planet does not make those any worse.
We need to get off Earth. Mars would be good place in very long term, but it is wrong place to start.
Krugerrand,
Martians should worry about clothing and about many other, simple on Earth, things. It is cold there! How would Mars base produce energy? It might be impossible to get permission to launch nuclear reactor. Mars has fast winds, but air is so thin, that there is not much energy to collect. Solar energy is available, except during dust storm, which could last weeks. That would make very cold Mars base.
Of course they will take clothing, electronics, medicine, bearings,... with them. Can anybody make this list complete without any experience on living on other planet or moon? Sewing machine is not enough. Machines to produce fabric for it are also needed. All this is possible to do on small scale, but small scale manufacturing uses much more work-hours / product. Most limited resource would be working hours.
What will they do when they discover that they need something not foreseen or that they run out of something? (Perhaps an accident ruins their storage.) In worst case they have to wait for next launch window, 26 months, + travel time. That's almost 3 years.
So mars colony needs continuous supply from Earth, but cannot sell anything back to Earth. This is not a sustainable situation. Products needed may not cost much. Transport to Mars does.
No. Denim does not last very long time on me. It would if I were only sitting and typing, but that would be luxury on Mars. So would denim.
RDoc,
Moon base is needed first, then we have raw materials and experience for O'Neil Cylinders or Mars base. 'between 6 and 12 months' is travel time from Mars with current engines, if Earth is not on another side of the Sun. First you need to wait Earth catch up with Mars. This happens once in 26 months.
CTemp222,
Water roof would give radiation and some meteorite protection. About 10 m would give same radiation protection as our atmosphere. Simpler and safer to live under ground with swimming pool.
I agree that private company could go to Mars eventually. If it is tried in near future, it will fail for safety and economical reasons. Safety for about 3 years will be too expensive without proper testing. I don't want tourist trip to Mars and then forget it for next 50 years. When we go, we should go to stay. Government needs support from half of the population, before they can go to Mars. Private company needs only enough money.
Argument: "We need to go to Mars because we need a backup planet."
Get answers like this:
Lucianne Walkowicz: Let's not use Mars as a backup planet | TED Talk | TED.com
I don't agree with her. Most serious problems are: How to convince people that man made climate change is a problem? How to stop dictators using weapons to stay in power and to expand their empires. Backup planet does not make those any worse.
We need to get off Earth. Mars would be good place in very long term, but it is wrong place to start.
Krugerrand,
Martians should worry about clothing and about many other, simple on Earth, things. It is cold there! How would Mars base produce energy? It might be impossible to get permission to launch nuclear reactor. Mars has fast winds, but air is so thin, that there is not much energy to collect. Solar energy is available, except during dust storm, which could last weeks. That would make very cold Mars base.
Of course they will take clothing, electronics, medicine, bearings,... with them. Can anybody make this list complete without any experience on living on other planet or moon? Sewing machine is not enough. Machines to produce fabric for it are also needed. All this is possible to do on small scale, but small scale manufacturing uses much more work-hours / product. Most limited resource would be working hours.
What will they do when they discover that they need something not foreseen or that they run out of something? (Perhaps an accident ruins their storage.) In worst case they have to wait for next launch window, 26 months, + travel time. That's almost 3 years.
So mars colony needs continuous supply from Earth, but cannot sell anything back to Earth. This is not a sustainable situation. Products needed may not cost much. Transport to Mars does.
No. Denim does not last very long time on me. It would if I were only sitting and typing, but that would be luxury on Mars. So would denim.
RDoc,
Moon base is needed first, then we have raw materials and experience for O'Neil Cylinders or Mars base. 'between 6 and 12 months' is travel time from Mars with current engines, if Earth is not on another side of the Sun. First you need to wait Earth catch up with Mars. This happens once in 26 months.
CTemp222,
Water roof would give radiation and some meteorite protection. About 10 m would give same radiation protection as our atmosphere. Simpler and safer to live under ground with swimming pool.
roblab
Active Member
What interests me is that NObody talks about overpopulation. Oh, sure, we need more people to make more stuff, increase the GDP, etc. But more people also make for population pressure, wars, starvation. If we had fewer people, we wouldn't need Mars.
And Mars is virtually uninhabitable. You could live easier in the Wyoming desert. There's nobody there. Because there's nothing there. Lots of places on earth that have room, and a lot closer to everything we need to live. Mars, not so much.
But Mars might do for a jump point to the Avatar planet. Oh, right. No fuel on Mars. No Rocket companies. Oh, well.
And Mars is virtually uninhabitable. You could live easier in the Wyoming desert. There's nobody there. Because there's nothing there. Lots of places on earth that have room, and a lot closer to everything we need to live. Mars, not so much.
But Mars might do for a jump point to the Avatar planet. Oh, right. No fuel on Mars. No Rocket companies. Oh, well.
Chet
Member
Read Robert Zubrin's book describing his "Mars Direct" plan. Mars has the resources necessary to make rocket fuel.
I don't think you're looking very hard. It's a very public, open conversation with a lot of good arguments on both sides. Worldwide population growth rate peaked in the late 60s. By 2100, it's forecast to go negative. I generally side with the argument that more minds mean more solutions. Hunter-gatherers were low impact but they'd just wait out an extinction event. That's no way for a species to progress, at least in my opinion.
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