Mars One
Aristillius
Member Posts: 873
So, I have finally stumbled upon the Mars One project. and it looks pretty awesome. After a quick perusal of the their site it seems that there is some sort of theoretical chance of success!
http://applicants.mars-one.com/
I wouldnt want to go myself, but wow, finally something is happening in spacecraft!
What do you guys think about the project?
http://applicants.mars-one.com/
I wouldnt want to go myself, but wow, finally something is happening in spacecraft!
What do you guys think about the project?
0
Comments
Say goodbye.
It might be possible one day but not this way as presented on the above internet page.
You just have to use your common sense. Living in such a hostile environment without even a steady stream of things/tools/food from earth for when things go wrong...
But at least they have a vision, better than nothing
Just taking the rocketry for starters, right now humanity doesn't have a rocket capable of taking people to the moon, let alone Mars. And it takes about 3 years to get to Mars, compared to 3 days to get to the moon.
And that was just for getting to the moon and surviving a few days there. Trying to survive indefinitely on Mars? Hard to imagine how much gear you would need for that, but it's a lot.
Just to build this ship entirely new industries would have to be raised out of nowhere and there wouldn't be a market for their products after the ship(s) departed. That's the real reason we don't have ships capable to take us to the moon now. It was extremely expensive and had 0 financial return to the investments. After cancelling the Apollo program the industries that provided materials that would only be fit for use in Apollo rockets and modules just closed or started manufacturing other things.
So do we have technology to go to Mars. I would say yes. Is there anyone in place to provide what would be needed for a ship to go there. Nope. Not at all and it's not economically sound to even try right now. Do I think we'll ever go to Mars? Certainly, but not right now.
And even if we got there, all attempts at building self-sustaining colonies have failed miserably here on Earth. If I'm not wrong the confined domed colony experiments never lasted more than six months and failed either from an environmental failure or mental problems created by prolonged closed quarters living with other people.
I certainly wouldn't risk living in a domed colony that can suffer a complete environment break down when I'm on a planet were I can't even breath without mechanical help...
Even then I don't think they will risk the costs of keeping humans alive in Mars' hostile environment, it's cheaper to send robots and let them do the job by remote control.
Of course we can't really predict what technological advancements will occur in 3 and a half centuries, so it may be quite simple for them to actually establish an autonomous colony there. With our current technology no colony in Mars would survive without a constant flow of resources from Earth. Add to that all the points I made in my previous post and it becomes obvious that founding a colony in Mars today is nothing but wishful thinking.
The only way to be sure you won't suceed is to stop trying.
Quit being so realistic
I don't trust them to get everything right on the first try.
I for one believe the way to go is by first smoothing out our industry. Let's be honest, all those fumes and exhausts in the sky certainly won't help new planets develop. We need a safe way to develop materials, as clean and ecological as possible. I'm not saying this as a hippie, but being a chem student has taught me how dirty things can be just for the purpose of "discovery". Besides, what happens if it turns out that the actual metal that is supposed to replace Technetium is found on the surface of one such planet? Oh dear...
But novels apart if Europa has life we know nothing about their phisiology. We could cause a mass extinction there just by landing a probe that has some component that is toxict to local life forms.