Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:30:33 +0200, jacob navia wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:
Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/


(1) Mars is beyond current technology. Only machines can live in there.
Any human expedition to Mars is just science fiction.

Actually, NASA was planning on going to Mars right after Apollo, back in
the early 1970s. This technology is almost 40 years old.


No. They were planning, but the technology wasn't there. They did not
know so many things that the feat seemed feasible.

And this fact is a GOOD thing since

(2) Mars has probably life in it. Many hints in the last years have made
this hypothesis much more real: The methane found in Mars, the
amounts of water, there are, probably underground, mars living
beings.

Life on Mars is a reason for going there, not a reason for not going
there.


Obvious. Going there with sterilized machines that do not contain any
earth bacteria that could be dangerous for marsian bacteria.

That is my point.

(3) Since any human expedition to Mars would destroy the possibility
of finding those bacteria, it is a good thing that humans can't go
to mars now

Doesn't follow that humans would destroy life on Mars just by BEING
there.


Humans can't be sterilized and contain fungi in skin and clothes,
bacteria in their digestive tract, and any number of parasites that ride
with them.

(4) The technology for living in an independent vessel for more than
3-4 months is just not there

The Soviets had cosmonauts in LEO for over 6 months. Not to put too fine
a point on it, but you seem to be making stuff up.


The people up there were resuppplied every two months or so. This
just doesn't count as an independent vessel!

(5) The landing technology for a heave vessel in Mars is not there

It's not impossible to do.


I never said it is impossible. I just say that it is not there and
must be developed first.

(6) The technology for living in Mars is not the
o -50 C in the day, -100 in the night
Heating energy would need a nuclear reactor to keep humans from
freezing
o No oxygen. All oxygen has to be brought from earth. o No food. All
food must be brought from earth. o No air pressure. You must live in
pressure suits all
the time you are outside
o Etc

We have had people on the moon, where the temperature variations are even
greater.

No. They stayed for short periods (a few days) where temperature did not
change a lot. None of them stayed during the moon night.


No, you don't have to bring all the oxygen from earth. Mars has CO2 and
H2O, and you can easily make oxygen from both.


That would cost the hell of a lot of energy and would increase the
already high demands for heating.

(7) Since Mars bacteria probably exist, we can't take the risk of
introducing them into the earth biosphere. We can't send humans
since they would bring marsian bacteria with them if we bring them
back. Machines can have a one way trip.

A Mars mission would likely last 18 months on the surface. If no bacteria
kill them, and they don't get sick on the six months back to earth, it is
highly unlikely to be a problem.



Sure sure. Just go there, if they die nobody cares. And if (eventually)
they survive 18 months then we are safe. Nobody cares about long term
problems, we just bring those bacteria to the earth.

Since we do not know what they will do in the much more favorable
conditions in the earth we just risk the lives of everybody in the
planet to see what happens.

Very good reasoning isn't it?


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32