137 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

The MarsOne plan to only send people there is a bit strange to me. Making it a one-way trip seems like a gimmick.

Because bringing people home shouldn't be that expensive. MarsOne is already using the Zubrin plan to get people to Mars - sending the hab module first, and then the people later - but Zubrin's original plan also contained a return vehicle, and the real genius of Zubrin's plan was that he found a way to avoid having to carry the fuel for the return journey. He proposed manufacturing that fuel on Mars.

I can see why MarsOne wants to establish a permanent Mars base. I can see how not allowing anyone to return will help ensure that the base remains manned. But, in future, it wouldn't be difficult to bring some people (and samples) back to Earth. The return trip is actually easier than the trip out, since you can just fall toward the sun rather than having the climb up out of the solar gravity well.

I wish MarsOne all the luck in the world. I hope they succeed. I just don't understand some of their decisions.

And for those people who think we should spend this money on Earthly problems, this trip really isn't very expensive in the grand scheme of things. Moreover, I would argue that space programs do benefit Earth quite a bit, as they often drive innovation. A Mars colony that desires to be self-sufficient would have all manner of incentives to develop cheaper sources of energy. Earth would benefit tremendously from that.

[Volus Warlord]

Crazy nonsense.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

simfamSP wrote...

I'm sad I won't be able to make friends with an Alien in my lifetime. I'd call him Garrus and we'd shoot Irish booze and subsequently run away from an Irish mob. Then we'd write a totally ripped off novel called 'Of Booze and Bros.'

I


Say hello to aliens:

[Fast Jimmy]

Agreed, it's the most rational course to take. Humans breed like rabbits, it's only a matter of time before overpopulation is so drastic we begin to see poverty in Western Europe akin to that of Africa. Hell, I'm sure within our lifetime there will be a limit to how many kids we are allowed to conceive. 

But that would not be the case if we had a dozen planets/moons available to expand to, which would need individuals willing to brave new frontiers.

It will certainly be much more difficult than any other exploration prior - after all, humans settling anywhere else has had the benefit of survival being possible, or at least reasonable supply lines in the more extreme cases. Mars (and, indeed, any other non-garden planet) has more risks of death than nearly any location on earth, combining extreme temperatures, lack of liquid water, no breathable atmosphere and lack of any type of edible food.

Yet that is why it is vitally important we work to overcome these obstacles sooner rather than later. Because if we wait until migration off the planet isn't optional, but the only means of survival, it will be a brutal time to try and learn these hard lessons.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 22 décembre 2013 - 05:17 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The MarsOne plan to only send people there is a bit strange to me. Making it a one-way trip seems like a gimmick.

Because bringing people home shouldn't be that expensive. MarsOne is already using the Zubrin plan to get people to Mars - sending the hab module first, and then the people later - but Zubrin's original plan also contained a return vehicle, and the real genius of Zubrin's plan was that he found a way to avoid having to carry the fuel for the return journey. He proposed manufacturing that fuel on Mars.  I can see why MarsOne wants to establish a permanent Mars base. I can see how not allowing anyone to return will help ensure that the base remains manned. But, in future, it wouldn't be difficult to bring some people (and samples) back to Earth. The return trip is actually easier than the trip out, since you can just fall toward the sun rather than having the climb up out of the solar gravity well.

See, I feel the "one-way ticket" aspect of the recruitment process is more of an anti-gimmick myself. Only people completely serious about going to and living on Mars should apply, because it will be their home, permanently.

I agree that a long term means of peaving the colony should (and likely is) part of the project's scope, but an aspect that they have a lot of uncertainty around at this point. Will the raw materials to create jet fuel with the required thrust to leave Mars gravity be available? What extra equipment would be needed to synthesize it? Store it? As well as questions of the rocket itself - my memory is fuzzy, but I believe when I first read about the Mars One details, they bad talked about cannibalizing the rocket's materials and electronics to incorporate them into the base. That could mean that if the rocket is needed to be either preserved or even rebuilt, it may increase the cost of the program and possibly even a hinderance to the survivability of the group.

I think it may be a situation where if a return trip was offered (or even guaranteed) from the start, it could create serious morale problems if it wasn't able to be delivered. Imagine if you had signed up for a five year trip to Mars, but due to not finding the requored minerals anywhere near the land site, the ability to return was delayed anouer five years... or even not possible at all? I think signing everyone up for a lifetime, one-way trip is best, if only to set the correct expectations and to ensure that the ability tonreturn to Earth, if it becomes possible, would be an added bonus, not an expected outcome. 

[Fortlowe]

I'm all for exploration for its own sake. But it's too soon for Mars. We went to the moon too soon and we haven't been since. Power was the problem then. Power is the problem now. Until fusion becomes a reality colonization is, I think, not only a one way trip, but possibly a one time trip. A failed colony could set the Mars mission back decades.

[AtreiyaN7]

ME_Fan wrote...

Seriously, what is the point? Seems like a waste of money that would be better spent towards other problems in the real world.

*points at games as a pointless waste of money that could be spent on real-word problems*

If people like you were in charge of science spending and research, then we never would have gotten to the Moon and/or made many of the scientific and medical advancements that we benefit from today - kind of like the advancements that led to the very computers that we're using now, or other things like nuclear power or lasers.

I imagine that when you're NOT whinging about people who have the temerity to be forward-looking and want to reach the stars, you probably spend a lot of time playing completely frivolous games on one of the very computers (or a console system as the case may be) that you would never have had if someone somewhere hadn't decided to spend money on research that you probably would have pooh-poohed as being a waste.

If you hypothetically love games like Mass Effect or sci-fi in general, then I wonder how you think we'll ever reach the stars without spending money on research in the technologies needed for space travel. Gee, do you think we should stop all current research into fusion power because the money would be better spent on problems in the real world? And, by the way, if they ever succeed with fusion power, it would help out with a lot of issues that we have on Earth.

I bet you're probably clueless about the number of technologies we use now that were ultimately derived from NASA space missions like Apollo, etc. Well, I suppose ignorance is bliss and all that. *rolleyes*

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 23 décembre 2013 - 05:15 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

See, I feel the "one-way ticket" aspect of the recruitment process is more of an anti-gimmick myself. Only people completely serious about going to and living on Mars should apply, because it will be their home, permanently.

I agree that a long term means of peaving the colony should (and likely is) part of the project's scope, but an aspect that they have a lot of uncertainty around at this point. Will the raw materials to create jet fuel with the required thrust to leave Mars gravity be available? What extra equipment would be needed to synthesize it? Store it? As well as questions of the rocket itself - my memory is fuzzy, but I believe when I first read about the Mars One details, they bad talked about cannibalizing the rocket's materials and electronics to incorporate them into the base. That could mean that if the rocket is needed to be either preserved or even rebuilt, it may increase the cost of the program and possibly even a hinderance to the survivability of the group.

I think it may be a situation where if a return trip was offered (or even guaranteed) from the start, it could create serious morale problems if it wasn't able to be delivered. Imagine if you had signed up for a five year trip to Mars, but due to not finding the requored minerals anywhere near the land site, the ability to return was delayed anouer five years... or even not possible at all? I think signing everyone up for a lifetime, one-way trip is best, if only to set the correct expectations and to ensure that the ability tonreturn to Earth, if it becomes possible, would be an added bonus, not an expected outcome.

The original Zubrin plan involved sending the return vehicle in advance, along with the hab module.  So, when the crew was sent, they know both that a functioning hab module was there, and that the return vehicle was fuelled and waiting.

Zubrin even built a prototype of the fuel production device at a cost of only $47,000.  The only raw materials you'd need to take with you would be about 8 tonnes of hydrogen.  With that, you could (using the carbon dioxide readily available in the Martian atmosphere) manufacture the 96 tonnes of methane and oxygen needed to fuel the return vehicle.

The stoichiometry is really quite simple.  This is gaslight-era technology.

[spinachdiaper]

SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!

[Fast Jimmy]

The original Zubrin plan involved sending the return vehicle in advance, along with the hab module. So, when the crew was sent, they know both that a functioning hab module was there, and that the return vehicle was fuelled and waiting.

Zubrin even built a prototype of the fuel production device at a cost of only $47,000. The only raw materials you'd need to take with you would be about 8 tonnes of hydrogen. With that, you could (using the carbon dioxide readily available in the Martian atmosphere) manufacture the 96 tonnes of methane and oxygen needed to fuel the return vehicle.

The stoichiometry is really quite simple. This is gaslight-era technology.

All fair points, but $47K, while a bargain in terms of space travel costs, is also over 10% of the project's crowd source funding goal, so it may be somethinf beyond the current scope. Heck, maybe a guaranteed return trip can be a stretch goal.

Point being, I think hedging the bets and not planning a way home still only brings in the most interested and dedicated group of candidates. This isn't going to be a group with a Donald Trump, trying to pull a stunt for fame - if going in, people think they will never see their home planet again and are still willing to go, then it will bring in people who are willing to put everything into the project.

[Volus Warlord]

EntropicAngel wrote...

The earth is already overpopulated.

Indeed. We need a good war, famine, and/or plague to thin out the herd.

[ME123insanity]

Volus Warlord wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

The earth is already overpopulated.

Indeed. We need a good war, famine, and/or plague to thin out the herd.

No. A bunch of us just need to leave.

[Volus Warlord]

ME123insanity wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

The earth is already overpopulated.

Indeed. We need a good war, famine, and/or plague to thin out the herd.

No. A bunch of us just need to leave.

Mass death would be far more expedient.

[ObserverStatus]

ME_Fan wrote...
Seriously, what is the point? Seems like a waste of money that would be better spent towards other problems in the real world.

Not at all, why bother trying to fix problems on this world when we can just build a new one? Colonizing other planets is just less depressing, if we focus all the resources we put into space exploration into solving problems on Earth, people will just create new problems here.

[Volus Warlord]

bobobo878 wrote...

ME_Fan wrote...
Seriously, what is the point? Seems like a waste of money that would be better spent towards other problems in the real world.

Not at all, why bother trying to fix problems on this world when we can just build a new one? Colonizing other planets is just less depressing, if we focus all the resources we put into space exploration into solving problems on Earth, people will just create new problems here.

Indeed. We should send all our problems to Mars.

To start, we should send all convicted felons to Mars.

[Inquisitor Recon]

No mercy to the Mars Resistance Army.

[Gravisanimi]

Volus Warlord wrote...

Indeed. We should send all our problems to Mars.

To start, we should send all convicted felons to Mars.

Worked out pretty well when we did that to Australia

[ObserverStatus]

ME123insanity wrote...
No. A bunch of us just need to leave.

>Implying that space travel will ever be economical enough for a meaningful number of people to leave.

[Volus Warlord]

Gravisanimi wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

Indeed. We should send all our problems to Mars.

To start, we should send all convicted felons to Mars.

Worked out pretty well when we did that to Australia

I know! All of the bad genes went somewhere where the rest of the would could conveniently ignore their existance.

[Silfren]

ME123insanity wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

The earth is already overpopulated.

Indeed. We need a good war, famine, and/or plague to thin out the herd.

No. A bunch of us just need to leave.

Several billion of us would have to leave in order to have a positive long-term effect. Unless you propose that within the next five or ten years, about three or four billion people could be shipped off to other planets, Volus is right: a natural disaster that culled humanity on the same scale as the Black Plague would be a lot more efficient. 

[ME123insanity]

Volus Warlord wrote...

ME123insanity wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

The earth is already overpopulated.

Indeed. We need a good war, famine, and/or plague to thin out the herd.

No. A bunch of us just need to leave.

Mass death would be far more expedient.

Yeah you're right Volus.

[RedArmyShogun]

Wow. A thread on space exploration turns into a pentition for mass killings cause of some hippy earth bull****..while ignoring the spirit of this mission.And they say I'm a psychopath? GG BSN GG..

I would care to see the racial and regional backdrops of where such a event would be coming from, but I have a feeling I would look down on some of you more than I already do

Also the Red Planet belongs to the Reds!

Modifié par RedArmyShogun, 23 décembre 2013 - 04:26 .