Kildare man might go to mars.

bogwalrus

An astrophysicist with the Science Gallery in Dublin is the only Irish man on a shortlist of 1,000 people hoping to become the first humans to live on Mars.
Private space exploration company Mars One hopes to land a colony of four astronauts on the red planet by 2025.
The only catch? The astronauts chosen for the mission can never return to Earth.
Over 200,000 people applied to begin life again on Mars – this number was whittled down to 1,058 last week.


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/meet-irish-man-shortlisted-mars-never-come-back-125716855.html#Jt8nqAx

nokia69

he has no chance of going to Mars, this Mars one thing is a joke

its strange that the media keep printing stories on these fools but they ignore the real work that spaceX are doing which will result in a Mars mission

coylemj

Offaly man might go to Jupiter!

I've no doubt that the people 'selected' come from a wide range of countries and occupations precisely in order that an equally wide and diverse media will fall for this rubbish and report same - 'Kildare man selected for Mars trip!' - insert your county or country here.

It's total garbage.

bogwalrus

I watched a few videos on the individual backing the project. He seems pretty convinced he will be responsible for putting people on mars. Yes it might take another 20 or so years but is it really that hard to believe a private mission to mars could happen?

MeteoritesEire

seems very pie in the sky for sure
His AMAs on reddit always get annihilated --he's torn to shreds

one from a year ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ufb42/ama_i_am_founder_of_mars_one_sending_four_people/

one from 13 days ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/

one of the 1058 selected applicants also did an AMA 11 days ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1u478d/iama_one_of_the_1058_applicants_selected_for/

Surrey Satellite TEchnology press release indicating their involvement for a concept study

http://www.sstl.co.uk/News-and-Events?story=4316

Lockheed Martin press release indicating their involvement

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2013/december/1210-ss-marsone.html

I'd really like it to succeed but the financial numbers and the time frame don't add up.It will be a long way off if ever

bogwalrus

Lockheed seem very happy to be involved. All it takes is a ton of cash and ambition for this to be a reality. If he has a way to the get the cash and he already seems very determined then I believe his project will help contribute to the first human mission to mars. Even if he fails he will surely have contributed a lot so is this not positive eitherway?

nokia69

bogwalrus wrote: »

I watched a few videos on the individual backing the project. He seems pretty convinced he will be responsible for putting people on mars. Yes it might take another 20 or so years but is it really that hard to believe a private mission to mars could happen?

yes a private mission to Mars is possibe, a mission to Mars could be done for about 20 to 30 billion, so if bill gates, jeff bezos or someone with that kind of money wanted to do it, then it could be done

but I don't think thats the way it will happen

in about 10 years China will put a man on the Moon and the US will then respond with a Mars mission using the BFR that spaceX have started work on, Musk will have the rocket and the plan in place and my guess is the cost will be so low, that who ever is the US president at the time will have no choice but to back the plan

so it will be private rockets paid for with public money

Mickeroo

nokia69 wrote: »

he has no chance of going to Mars, this Mars one thing is a joke

its strange that the media keep printing stories on these fools but they ignore the real work that spaceX are doing which will result in a Mars mission

I'd be interested in reading about that spaceX stuff, got any links?

ThatDrGuy

nokia69 wrote: »

yes a private mission to Mars is possibe, a mission to Mars could be done for about 20 to 30 billion, so if bill gates, jeff bezos or someone with that kind of money wanted to do it, then it could be done

but I don't think thats the way it will happen

in about 10 years China will put a man on the Moon and the US will then respond with a Mars mission using the BFR that spaceX have started work on, Musk will have the rocket and the plan in place and my guess is the cost will be so low, that who ever is the US president at the time will have no choice but to back the plan

so it will be private rockets paid for with public money

Poor Mr Musk. The fate of a thousand half-assed space schemes is entirely contingent on his falcon heavy rocket which doesnt really exist yet, nevermind been tested/certified.

The biggest issue for a Mars mission would be landing on the planet. The atmosphere is so thin you can't aerobrake worth a damn. That's why curiosity had to use it's convoluted method for landing. NASA said the upper theoretical maximum for that system is about curosity mass + 30%. So any mission to brake would have to use a lot of chemical retro thrust. Which adds to the mass of the mission. Which adds to the amount of thrust needed to get it to Mars and that adds more mass again. A Mars ship has to be seriously big and would need an orbiter/lander and would have to be preceded by multiple supply modules. I doubt the mission could be done for shy of 500 billion euro. The curosity parachute alone cost 189 million dollars to develop. Timing is also essential as there are very few windows in the next 50 years when you can do a return mission.

Tin Foil Hat

Mars is dead. As will any human be shortly after landing on it. No nutrients. No breathable atmosphere. This is nonsense.
Or am I missing something?

nokia69

Mickeroo wrote: »

I'd be interested in reading about that spaceX stuff, got any links?

most of it would be from interviews and videos on youtube, since he started spaceX Musk has been saying he wants to go to Mars, and ten years ago most people just laughed at him, which is fair enough when they lost 3 falcon 1 rockets in a row

far less people laugh at him now and part of the reason spaceX have improved is because they are sucking up all the best aerospace engineers in the US

spaceX are at the point now where the work on the falcon 9 and falcon heavy is finished, both rockets are enough carry any load that NASA the DOD or private industry want to send to space, but spaceX are now working on a new family of engines for rockets that will send people to Mars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine)

9 raptor engines together would be bigger than the SLS and 27 of them would be enough for a manned mission to Mars

the raptor engines will be tested at stennis space center and spaceX are paying for the changes need to test a methane engine, this keeps NASA happy and no doubt Musk will be paying a visit to talk to the senator from Mississippi to remind him that spaceX are bringing jobs to his state, there is also politics to keep an eye on

work on the raptor may not take very long since the head of Propulsion at spaceX worked on a hydrogen engine before he joined spaceX

http://magazine.lmu.edu/archive/2011/rocket-man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-106

watch the next spaceX launch in feburary if it goes well they will return their first stage to the launch pad

ThatDrGuy

falcon heavy is finished

Apart from being assembled, tested, certified or launched...

nokia69

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Apart from being assembled, tested, certified or launched...

it might be assembled, we have know way of knowing, its just 3 falcon9 cores joined together, it took so long because they were upgrading the falcon9

its a key part of their business so it will fly late this year or early next year

of all the things spaceX want to do the falcon heavy is one of the easy things

Bepolite

Living in Kildare would make me never want to return to Earth.

nokia69

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Poor Mr Musk. The fate of a thousand half-assed space schemes is entirely contingent on his falcon heavy rocket which doesnt really exist yet, nevermind been tested/certified.

The biggest issue for a Mars mission would be landing on the planet. The atmosphere is so thin you can't aerobrake worth a damn. That's why curiosity had to use it's convoluted method for landing. NASA said the upper theoretical maximum for that system is about curosity mass + 30%. So any mission to brake would have to use a lot of chemical retro thrust. Which adds to the mass of the mission. Which adds to the amount of thrust needed to get it to Mars and that adds more mass again. A Mars ship has to be seriously big and would need an orbiter/lander and would have to be preceded by multiple supply modules. I doubt the mission could be done for shy of 500 billion euro. The curosity parachute alone cost 189 million dollars to develop. Timing is also essential as there are very few windows in the next 50 years when you can do a return mission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

500 billion is crazy money, do you work for NASA

take a look at the grasshopper videos, thats how landing a large mass on the surface of Mars can be possible

ps200306

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

Mars is dead. As will any human be shortly after landing on it. No nutrients. No breathable atmosphere. This is nonsense.
Or am I missing something?

Nope. That sounds about right. Humans aren't going to live on Mars anytime in the next century, and possibly ever. We haven't bothered going back to the moon in 40 years, and Mars is only marginally more hospitable, and vastly further away. We might visit there if, by some miracle, we develop cheap nuclear fusion that would reduce travel time to a week each way. Even then, what would be the point?

I'd say yer man in Kildare should get out a bit more. There's nicer places than Mars.

nokia69

ps200306 wrote: »

Nope. That sounds about right. Humans aren't going to live on Mars anytime in the next century, and possibly ever. We haven't bothered going back to the moon in 40 years, and Mars is only marginally more hospitable, and vastly further away. We might visit there if, by some miracle, we develop cheap nuclear fusion that would reduce travel time to a week each way. Even then, what would be the point?

I'd say yer man in Kildare should get out a bit more. There's nicer places than Mars.

the reason NASA haven't bothered going back to the Moon is because Nixon canncelled the saturn V to build the shuttle this ment that NASA were stuck with a system that could only send people to LEO

once a big enough and cheap enough rocket exists then people will return to the Moon and also go to Mars

people want to do these things

ps200306

nokia69 wrote: »

once a big enough and cheap enough rocket exists then people will return to the Moon and also go to Mars

people want to do these things

Nixon obviously didn't.

And there's a limit to how cheap you're ever going to get with vehicles powered by chemical energy. There's no way around Delta-V.

nokia69

ps200306 wrote: »

Nixon obviously didn't.

And there's a limit to how cheap you're ever going to get with vehicles powered by chemical energy. There's no way around Delta-V.

I agree

but if there was a cheap reusable heavy lift rocket then there would be people on the Moon and Mars very soon

spaceX seem to think that this is possible and judging by the pictures and videos it looks like they might be right

ThatDrGuy

it might be assembled, we have know way of knowing, its just 3 falcon9 cores joined together, it took so long because they were upgrading the falcon9

its a key part of their business so it will fly late this year or early next year

of all the things spaceX want to do the falcon heavy is one of the easy things

3 cores working together flawlessly is about 10 times harder than one working flawlessly. I certainly hope they do it, but one off calculation could explode a huge rocket or force self destruct. That could set them back years. There are a whole lot of eggs in one heavy basket at the moment.

nokia69 wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

500 billion is crazy money, do you work for NASA

take a look at the grasshopper videos, thats how landing a large mass on the surface of Mars can be possible

Eh no. Grasshopper goes up, down ,lands. Mars craft has serious delta v. It has to slow down from Earth Mars trajectory speeds( Hofman transfer) which for Mars is about 3.5km a second!. Without an aerobrake massive amounts of fuel is needed to slow down so it doesn't splat into mars ( see non american mars landers).

ThatDrGuy

Grasshopper type vehicle could be used to dock with much larger mass orbiter/transfer stage of course.
But that would be far beyond falcon heavy's lift. So would require assembly in earth orbit of a large modular spaceship which would be seriously expensive.That also doesn't solve the problem of landing habitats/fuel generators - all of which would have to have a theoretical mass limit of Curiosity plus 30% which is about 1200kg or a toyota yaris worth. It's possible but you need super deep wallets.

nokia69

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Grasshopper type vehicle could be used to dock with much larger mass orbiter/transfer stage of course.
But that would be far beyond falcon heavy's lift. So would require assembly in earth orbit of a large modular spaceship which would be seriously expensive.That also doesn't solve the problem of landing habitats/fuel generators - all of which would have to have a theoretical mass limit of Curiosity plus 30% which is about 1200kg or a toyota yaris worth. It's possible but you need super deep wallets.

the falcon heavy is not the Mars rocket, its built to send payloads to GTO

the rockets that use the new raptor engine will be the Mars rockets, it looks like they will send 100 tonnes to LEO for a single core and close to 300 tonnes to LEO in raptor heavy configuration

with rockets that big its possible to land large payloads on the surface, its not easy but it is possible

Akrasia

The biggest issue is landing on mars. without Aerobraking slowing down is a big problem

The only option I think is plausible is to send the fuel up into LEO first and re-fuel the heavy lifter in orbit before sending it to Mars. It would even be possible to send another re-fueling station to orbit around Mars if extra juice is required for either the landing or the return Journey.

Expensive, but not impossible.

markfla

I believe our only realistic hope is if the skylon project gets off the ground. And it looks very promising, rockets will be a thing of the past

ThatDrGuy

nokia69 wrote: »

the falcon heavy is not the Mars rocket, its built to send payloads to GTO

the rockets that use the new raptor engine will be the Mars rockets, it looks like they will send 100 tonnes to LEO for a single core and close to 300 tonnes to LEO in raptor heavy configuration

with rockets that big its possible to land large payloads on the surface, its not easy but it is possible

Mars One plan based off falcon heavy. Is that 300 metric tonnes? That would be quite a bit more than Sat5 if so( falcon heavy is less than half Sat5). 300 tons in LEO for a reasonable price and the solar system would open up quite a bit. Could do a Mars mission with that kind of lift. Where did you see that info?

MeteoritesEire

markfla wrote: »

I believe our only realistic hope is if the skylon project gets off the ground. And it looks very promising, rockets will be a thing of the past

interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

nokia69

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Mars One plan based off falcon heavy. Is that 300 metric tonnes? That would be quite a bit more than Sat5 if so( falcon heavy is less than half Sat5). 300 tons in LEO for a reasonable price and the solar system would open up quite a bit. Could do a Mars mission with that kind of lift. Where did you see that info?

forget Mars one its a joke, they are not going to launch anything

the info is based on the raptor engine that spaceX are working on, if you put 9 raptor engines together and you could sent 100 tonnes to LEO

I think they will use 9 engines because it means the rocket can still work if one of the engines fail, and it looks like 9 engines work well with first stage recovery

also a raptor9 in reuseable configuration would send between 50 to 60 tonnes to LEO, very close to the falcon heavy

expectationlost

nasa reannouched their space launch system, they big deep sapce rocket

but a former administrator said it was 50 year old technology being built to give jobs to congressmans districts http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2014/01/huntsville-designed_space_laun.html not sure what she wants it replaced with, other then perhaps private sector shoud be doing it.

think that spacex rocket innovation is somewhat oversold, it didn't come from them, its based on cancelled government contractors projects

BuilderPlumber

Just saw this on the Saturday Night Show and read about it here and elsewhere since then. It is a strange concept and the main obstacles are many.

-Clearly, getting there and landing are the first issues.
-After that, what needs to be brought for the 4 people to make life up there as comfortable as possible? They will need food and loads of it. I take it they bring up enough for maybe 2 years and then an unmanned rocket needs to be sent up every now and again to resupply them. They will also need water for cleaning and also oxygen. They need shelter from the extreme cold. After the survival, people will need things to stop them going mad. Computers, music, DVDs, books, wine, etc. They will need electricity and fuel. And communications with Earth.
-blindness can result from the strange gravity apparently. Also, radiation can increase risks of cancer. The strange environment could also cause other unknown on earth diseases and conditions and could likely also trigger auto-immune conditions like MS. Needless to say, depression is inevitable in the longrun and they need to take medicine for this.

Man has never set foot on the planet and no advanced life exists there for sure. The things people often take for granted are no longer there. A walk in the park or countryside with green countryside and lovely spring weather listening to blackbirds sing or woodpigeons coo will be replaced by a short walk in freezing cold, silent, non-life environment where radiation dictates you can't stay out for long. Watching your county's hurling team do well in the All-Ireland with your family and friends will be replaced by being up there alone getting the news from the website provided the technology stays working. Etc Etc. The normal things we take for granted gone. Hell, one could even end up missing all the corrupt politicians and the bickering in the Dail over Irish Water!!

Now, the worst case scenario is (assuming they survive the landing) that technology fails, leaving them totally isolated from earth. Then, if food supplies run out and the launch of food up to them goes wrong, they could be left to die up there. Cannibalism and erratic violence could develop and they could also die of the cold or radiation if they can't keep warm or safe.

The best case scenario is that everything goes to plan, they form a colony and can reproduce earth like conditions up there as much as possible and of course a way home is also developed.

Personally, though, I don't think this will happen and Mars One is a fundraiser to make its owner rich and famous. It is not quite a scam but I think it is overly positive about such a dangerous mission where all is not certain. If the planned date is 2024 or whatever, you can bet the real date will be a lot later.

ps200306

You've listed a few of the challenges, BuilderPlumber, but I think it does much further than that. Sure, you could have a permanently manned outpost on Mars, like we do in Antarctica, with supplies constantly replenished from back home. There might even be some rationale for such a thing based on doing valuable scientific research. But the people would not live there permanently, and the cost of shuttling them and their copious supplies back and forth would be utterly stupendous, and you'd get a lot of robotic missions for the price.

A self-sufficient colony is a different thing altogether. I think we underestimate the extent to which life on earth, ourselves included, is a vast interconnected web -- from the bacteria that fix nitrogen in plant roots, to the ones that live in your gut. Implementing a closed earth-like biosphere has been tried before but I don't believe it comes anywhere close to demonstrating feasibility for colonising a planet as hostile as Mars. Personally I think it's a cockeyed fantasy.

BuilderPlumber

ps200306 wrote: »

You've listed a few of the challenges, BuilderPlumber, but I think it does much further than that. Sure, you could have a permanently manned outpost on Mars, like we do in Antarctica, with supplies constantly replenished from back home. There might even be some rationale for such a thing based on doing valuable scientific research. But the people would not live there permanently, and the cost of shuttling them and their copious supplies back and forth would be utterly stupendous, and you'd get a lot of robotic missions for the price.

A self-sufficient colony is a different thing altogether. I think we underestimate the extent to which life on earth, ourselves included, is a vast interconnected web -- from the bacteria that fix nitrogen in plant roots, to the ones that live in your gut. Implementing a closed earth-like biosphere has been tried before but I don't believe it comes anywhere close to demonstrating feasibility for colonising a planet as hostile as Mars. Personally I think it's a cockeyed fantasy.

That is all very true: unmanned missions are cheaper and get the work done. Perhaps, a manned mission where they come back would be of benefit in the future but I think more research is needed to make this as safe as possible.

A colony where food supplies are actually to be grown on Mars (I did some research: I had previously assumed supplies would be replenished from earth as needed) is madness. True, earth's life is all interconnected and bees and insects as well as bacteria do a lot more than we know.

What would happen if the plants did not grow up there as planned? We hear all the positive about this mission: assumptions are that seeds will survive intact on the journey and on Mars and that they will definitely grow like on Earth. There is a huge uncertainty here.

But even if the best case scenario came to pass (i.e. that the 4 successfully land there, successfully grow their food and successfully survive cold and radiation and live a normal lifespan), there are still the 'softer' issues. Think of some of these:

-Life without pubs and alcohol (and I don't mean like the Middle East where you can arrange it in private or bribe their corrupt government or police officials: Mars may look as arid as the southern provinces of Saudi Arabia but at a whole new dimension as there is no settlement whatsoever or no drink or no social life).
-Life without tea or coffee. Ditto. If you couldn't care less about alcohol or consider pubs noisy, overrated joints, you can't sit back and have a cup of tea or coffee. And even those who do like alcohol also would like tea and coffee and they can't have this either. As research students, all onboard would probably have been caffeine addicts.
-Life without certain food. The food sources would include no forms of meat, chocolate or dairy produce obviously. Vegetarian but very limited and repetitive vegetarian.
-Imagine if it is now and you're Irish. You could miss seeing for instance what Nidge and co are going to be doing on the new Love/Hate series next year or miss whatever other series you follow. I assume internet connection, if available at all, would be very poor and you would be unable to watch RTE player and similar type sites, even Youtube.
-You could in theory bring some existing music, TV series and films up with you but enough to cover 60 years?? You could take series 1-4 of Love/Hate for example but not series 5 for example. You'd have to make up your own series 5! Maybe the Swarzenneger Film Total Recall, set on Mars, may be interesting to bring for comparison! I bet though it would make depressing viewing as the reality would be worse.
-Obviously, all family and friends not with you. You can only hope that the other people with you not only like you but love you!
-You can't ever go to a match, a concert, a meal in a restaurant, etc.

Even if diverse food, ability to provide entertainment and brew beer, make wine, cultivate tea or coffee, etc. was achieved, it would be something more than likely in the very longterm if even that. The first generation settlers, even if all was to go well, would be misery (other than if the Afghan, Iraqi or Syrian applicants were the ones to get through of course!).