Scientists call for Base-Camp Outpost on Mars

[Indiana Jones]

in just twenty years time.
During the more than 40 years since the last Apollo mission, no human has set foot on a planetary body beyond Earth.

Among those who were witnesses to the first and last moon landings, there is skepticism that we will ever step onto another planet sized body again.

“ - President Obama informed NASA last April that he "believed by the mid-2030s that we could send humans to orbit Mars and safely return them to Earth. And that a landing would soon follow - ” said agency spokesman Michael Braukus.”

The following news appeared in Yahoo! News the first of this week. The thrust of the proposal was that if a mission to Mars was only in one direction, and manned by people (4-on two separate vehicles) who would willingly go with the understanding that their return was not planned for, that the costs would be a fraction of one with a plan to return. The crew could best spend their time setting up infrastructure for a permanent colony with the equipment that had been sent by earlier unmanned missions.

“ - The first colonists to Mars wouldn’t go in "cold." Robotic probes sent on ahead would establish necessities such as an energy source (such as a small nuclear reactor augmented by solar panels), enough food for two years, the basics for creating home-grown agriculture, one or more rover vehicles and a tool-kit for carrying out essential engineering and maintenance work. - ”

The paradigm of the proposal is comparable to that of the settlement of the “New World." Those who arrived from Europe aboard the Mayflower in 1620 had no plans of returning to their former homeland.

Their journey took 66 days. A trip to Mars requires 6-months in the best orbital situation. This is about two-and-a-half times the Mayflower transit for a one way journey. In this plan, fuel could be used more extravagantly; so If a return was planned, a trip which used fuel out and back most efficiently would require about 44 months, with 26 months spent on planet.

A large part of those 26-months would be spent logistically, partly preparing fuels for the return mission. During the trip, about 18 months would be spent in zero gravity, and the 26 months on planet would be spent in gravity only 38% of earth’s. Undoubtedly there would need to be an intense rehabilitation program after being exposed to a long period of zero gravity and for an extended period, Mar's gravity.

If the trip was only one way, the time spent on preparing for the return could be spent in making their habitation permanent, and laying the foundation for future permanent habitants, which would recruited on an ongoing basis.

The pioneers suggested by the two scientists who make this proposal would be people who “were a bit older, around 60 or something like that.” Consider the people who explored Antarctica a century ago; since they saw that many of those who had gone before never returned they understood the risks. They were up to a challenge even though they went less prepared than our hypothetical Mars pioneers.

This kind of a mission will never come from the NASA agency. I suggest that is because it would be politically incorrect to consider such a plan. As the colonization of North America was economically driven, this will be too. The people who landed at Plymouth Rock, had no expectation of becoming rich. Only their “sponsors” did; by investing in the passengers, they were after a stake in relatively unknown possibilities for future trade, and as yet undefined opportunities.

An optimistic take on this one-direction-colonization would be that technology would catch up with the reality of the pursuit, and in a few decades some would be able to return; but to what purpose? They would have been transformed by their experience in ways that would make their return to earth a hazardous proposition.


Here's the TEXT OF PAPER by the two scientists

TITLED: To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars
Dirk Schulze-Makuch, Ph.D.1, and Paul Davies, Ph.D.2,
1School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Washington State University
2Beyond Center, Arizona State University

Davies is a physicist whose research focuses on cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. He was an early proponent of the theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars in rocks ejected by asteroid and comet impacts.

Schulze-Makuch works in the Earth Sciences department at WSU and is the author of two books about life on other planets. His focus is eco-hydrogeology, which includes the study of water on planets and moons of our solar system and how those could serve as a potential habitat for microbial life.

[C. Flower]

Interesting.

I would like to know what kind of pay load would make it economically viable.

[Indiana Jones]

Interesting.

I would like to know what kind of pay load would make it economically viable.

This is the best I've come across on our future on Mars, and the necessary economic system to enable its development:

The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization -
Robert Zubrin, Lockheed Martin Astronautics


Zubrin envisions and discusses the unique resources of Mars, the technological requirements of all phases of development and the relationships of the relevant bodies of the solar system; Earth, moon, mars, asteroids, etc.

He says that unlike the moon, Mars is unique in that it possesses not only all the raw materials needed to support life, “but a new branch of human civilization.”

The cost of transferring fuels and cargo like food-stuffs to the asteroid belt from earth is 53 times greater than from Mars, so even if the costs from Mars were ten times greater at Mars than Earth there is an enormous advantage to launch from Mars. He concludes that as a result of those advantages “anything that needs to be sent to the asteroid belt that can be produced [grown or processed] on Mars will be produced on Mars.”


He refines his summery of interplanetary commerce as a “triangle trade” system between Earth, Mars, the asteroid belt, and possibly to include the moon in the following way:
Earth supplying high technology manufactured goods to Mars, Mars supplying low technology manufactured goods and food staples to the asteroid belt and possibly the Moon as well, and the asteroids and Moon sending metals and possibly helium-3 to Earth.

This is analogous to the same model used by Britain during her colonial period with her North American colonies and the West Indies - with manufactured goods going to North America, food staples and needed crafted materials going to the West Indies, and the West Indies sending cash crops such as sugar back to Britain.


HERE'S A LINK TO THE GENERAL FILE FROM WHICH I FOUND THE ABOVE MATERIAL

The next best that I've read is the fictional "account" in the "Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

.

[Rich]

My worry is not the cost of it, I will not support it unless there is a provision for the building of a huge prison where we can put assorted bankers and politicians!!!!

[C. Flower]

Rover hit "base camp" on Mars in the last hour.

A fantastic engineering achievement.

Two years of investigation on weather conditions, and the possibility of life on Mars.

Great reporting on RTE from Leo Enwright.

One Martian year = two years earth time !

[Slim Buddha]

Interesting.

I would like to know what kind of pay load would make it economically viable.

A payload of the world's bankers, their political fellow travellers and Friedmanite economists, all rendered down as fatty pulp, to be deposited on Mars' Sea of Tranquillity as an inducement to any life forms there.

My hope is that an accompanying remote camera will catch the shot of a stray Jack Russell cocking its leg beside said payload.

[C. Flower]

A payload of the world's bankers, their political fellow travellers and Friedmanite economists, all rendered down as fatty pulp, to be deposited on Mars' Sea of Tranquillity as an inducement to any life forms there.

My hope is that an accompanying remote camera will catch the shot of a stray Jack Russell cocking its leg beside said payload.

Mars appears to be seriously the next piece of territory which the US is after (once Africom does its job). Enwright estimates that the first manned (or womanned) flight to Mars will be in the 2040s.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

There is an ethical element to this as well. Unless there is a return-to-earth element to such a mission then the possibility of psychosis in those sent would have to be checked out. We've had humans in orbit for many months and the effect on their bodies is well-known in terms of muscle wastage.

Those who go into space were and are selected for a robust psychology as well but there have been documented cases of these strong people going off the rails as it were on their return.

What would interest me is how a small group would be prepared for colonisation. The psychological adjustment beyond the physical resource needs would be significant.

You definitely wouldn't want someone going a bit jedward on Mars when there are only four or five there. It would be a huge psychological issue to overcome.

[Count Bobulescu]

There’s no shortage of volunteers willing to take a one-way to Mars. Now 500 and counting. Fox News helpfully provides you with a Journal of Cosmology email to sign up. Go for it y’all!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...-mission-mars/

[Baron von Biffo]

The first images taken by Curiosity as it was landing show that there used to be life on Mars.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Strange people in the States. When the Hale-Bopp Comet passed in 1997 there was a bunch of loons who had decided that there was a spaceship arriving with it to take them away to their home planet.

They had bought a large telescope so they could excitedly spot the spaceship. When there was no sign of a ship in the tail dust they sent the telescope back to the manufacturers claiming it was 'faulty'.

And then all committed suicide as the comet passed.

[musashi]

I can understand the mind-set of a person who would sign up for this mission - that individual would never return to earth, but their name would be remembered.The first human colonists in the Sol system, they'd be instant global celebrities.

It's just a pity it's an American endeavour, which likely means the red planet will become a military facility.

[musashi]

Rover hit "base camp" on Mars in the last hour.

A fantastic engineering achievement.

Two years of investigation on weather conditions, and the possibility of life on Mars.

Great reporting on RTE from Leo Enwright.

One Martian year = two years earth time !

Ah yes, relativity.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Somewhere in Tel Aviv University there is a room full of rabbis furiously working on some Torah scrolls with the erasers on their pencils in an effort to bodge up some story about 'King David' declaring Mars as the homeland of the chosen race....

[fluffybiscuits]

Anyone know much about terraforming on Mars? In the film Red Planet there is evidence of algae growth that was present and then the movie descended into the realms of pure ***** but it brought the issue of terraforming into prominence for some people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars). We reduce the amount of CO 2, stop the atmosphere floating into space as the planet as a thin atmosphere and somehow establish a base.

There is presently enough carbon dioxide (CO2) as ice in the Martian south pole and absorbed by regolith (soil) around the planet that, if sublimated to gas by a climate warming of only a few degrees, would increase the atmospheric pressure to 300 millibars,[6] comparable to twice the altitude of the peak of Mount Everest. While this would not be comfortably breathable by humans, it would eliminate the present need for pressure suits, melt the water ice at Mars's north pole (flooding the northern basin), and bring the year-round climate above freezing over approximately half of Mars's surface. This would enable[citation needed] the introduction of plant life, particularly plankton in the new northern sea, to start converting the atmospheric CO2 into oxygen. Phytoplankton can also convert dissolved CO2 into oxygen,

Could the Americans not just carpet bomb the North or South pole on Mars, blowing up stuff, they love doing that.... Seriously though it would be a Utopians wet dream. A blue print for a new world