Mars 2014 - One Way

"John Savard" wrote in message
...

We have to settle the question of life on Mars first before we can think
of colonizing it.

Why? What would you do differently if there was, or is, life on Mars
than if there wasn't, or isn't, any life on Mars?

And what is your deadline for making any determination? If I today
say there isn't any life and never was, is that good enough? Or
will you never accept any negative, always forever waiting for
confirmation which may or may not ever come?

My point being that "settling the question" could take forever.

RT

"George William Herbert" wrote in message
...
Tkalbfus1 wrote:
Wow. Could you talk about that a bit more? I've been Googling around,
but
haven't found anything about this particular assertion.

I've got the book. "Destination Mars" by Alain Dupas, it imagines a
mission to
Mars in 2033. [...]
The astronauts then mine Phobos for a
month and a half for regolith to process for
fuel and water for the Tsiolkovski
and the Mars landers (There are 3).

I don't mean to be rude, but a proposal which calls mining Phobos for
water credible and the Sabatier reaction ISRU on the Mars surface
impractical is more than a little whacky.


What the 2 crew members spending 30 days spiraling out through the Van Allan
belts doesn't bother you? :-)



-george william herbert

Rocky Top wrote:
"John Savard" wrote in message
...
Indigenous, independently-evolved Martian microbes would have an immense
scientific value.

As what? As possible bio-weapons? No thanks.

Enormously unlikely. Alien microbes are tremendously
unlikely to be compatible with Earth life, and thus
tremendusly unlikely to be infectious to us. It is
possible for them to be toxic, but that is a much
less serious problem (on par with ordinary chemical
toxicity problems). Even more so considering the
difficulty of adapting to Earth's different
environment.

Rather, an independent strain of life would be
enormously helpful in answering our questions on the
fundamental processes of life, which are general to
all life and which are specific to Earth (or Mars)
life.

In article , Tkalbfus1
wrote:

There are plenty of microbes living underground on Earth that we do not
disturb. What we disturb are those complex life forms that live on the Earth's
surface, Mars clearly does not have any of those.

Have we proven that yet? I'm not saying there's likely anything there,
but have the probes we've sent had the ability to detect something
moving under its own power on the surface? "The New Ocean" mentions
Sagan franticly trying to figure out how for example a snake would show
up on the first mars probe's camera and if he would recognise something
similar in an image.

--
Chris Mack "Refugee, total ****. That's how I've always seen us.
'Invid Fan' Not a help, you'll admit, to agreement between us."
-'Deal/No Deal', CHESS

Earth microbes that live deep underground, on the other hand, will be,
and they, eventually, will find a way to Mars if large-scale
colonization is undertaken.


What happens if you put a rabbit on the surface of Mars without life support?
It dies, does it not. Life on cushy Earth doesn't seem to make the lifeforms
any tougher. I don't think rabbits will be taking over the planet anytime soon.

Earth lifeforms are used to plentiful resource. Martian life forms if any are
used to scarce ones, they've evolved to deal with the environment they are now
living it. Earth lifeforms have not and they will be limited in the same
respect as the Martian ones. I don't see where you get the idea that Earth life
forms will be tougher. Clearly rabbits won't survive on the surface despite
many millions of years of evolution in a much more benign environment.

Because Mars has limited resources, its ecosystems will likely be even
more fragile than those of the high Arctic.


and why don't you complete that line of thought? ...Earth organisms that
evolved in the high Arctic will die if place on Mars! In a Martian setting, it
is clearly Earth organisms that are more fragile, because Earth organisms
didn't have millions of years to adapt to the Martian environment and the
Martian organisms did. Your argument turns evolution on its head.

Martian life would be literally so priceless that we could not afford
even one extinction.


If there is only one Martian life form, its as good as extinct anyway. I don't
see how only one Martian lifeform could survive a die off lasting billions of
years only to become extinct when humans arrive. Isn't that like Martian
Volcanoes remaining dormant for thousands of years only to erupt when humans
first set foot on its slopes? What are the chances of that? Or how about Mars
suddenly experiencing a warm Epoch in the next 10 years with a thickening
atmosphere and spreading oceans, what are the chances of that?

I do agree that an off-Earth base for human life is also a very high
priority, given the risk that things may go badly on Earth; but barring
disaster, the knowledge gained from studying alien life could be of
immense value.

John Savard

I agree that it would be of immense value, I just don't think Martian life
forms would be as fragile as Earth life forms. The Species we threaten on Earth
depend on a complex ecological cycle that we humans tend to interfere with. Our
planet is covered with multicelular lifeforms than have evolved to fill a
specific nitch in a vast ecological web. Mars doesn't appear to be so well
endowed with life, otherwise we'd immediately see it like we do on Earth. A
martian life form would have evolved to survive the specific planetary
conditions there, but I doubt we are going to alter the planetary environment
any time soon and Earth life we inadvertantly import won't thrive and therefore
won't threaten indigeous Martian life. The reasoning is the same why fish do
not survive out of water.

Tom

Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
"George William Herbert" wrote:
I don't mean to be rude, but a proposal which calls mining Phobos for
water credible and the Sabatier reaction ISRU on the Mars surface
impractical is more than a little whacky.


What the 2 crew members spending 30 days spiraling out through the Van Allan
belts doesn't bother you? :-)

I decided to save time and space and only reply to the mission-necessary
obvious goof.

It would not affect the mission design at all if the flight up through
the Van Allen belts was on autopilot. Author goof but not a mission
design gross error.

Having to mine resources by hand, which you haven't been able to test
properly etc before you get there, for your *return fuel*....

I have less objection to such ISRU if it's for the mars landing and
return phase, but the main spacecraft can return to Earth without
any refueling. People's lives aren't at risk if it turns out that
you can't mine Phobos successfully, just the lander submission.

I am not entirely sure why you'd bother having to mine Phobos
for your orbital mission fuel anyways. GEO to Phobos and back
on one tankload of ion fuel is within reasonable design parameters,
and I have a whole set of mission architectures I worked up for
Mars missions starting with manned Phobos missions and building
a base there for teleoperation of surface rovers, ramping up
through eventually staging a lander out of the Phobos base.


-george william herbert

(Tkalbfus1) :

At about 2014 if George Bush's Lunar Program holds up we may have
astronauts walking on the surface of the Moon once again. With the
capability of sending something to the Moon and bringing it back
also comes the capability of sending and equal sized payload to
the Surface of Mars. In a book I've just read, Zubrin's idea of
manufacturing rocket fuel on Mars was considered infeasible.

Why? It is basic chemistry for the conversion so we know that will work.
Test prototypes have been built, all that is needed is engineering to make a
design that will work unattended on Mars. Expensive yes, infeasible I don't
see how.

("The Real Mars" by Michael Hanlon). In another book that is out in print,
("Destination Mars") a mission is outlined that takes place in 2033,
involving a second generation space shuttle,

After the last mess-ups by NASA?

the ISS,

The orbit is all wrong for Moon or Mars missions!

a Moonbase,

Where on the moon?

a refueling stop at Phobos,

We have no probes on Mar's moons, what does he plan to use there as fuel that
we know is there?

and a landing on Mars.

Atlast something I would like to see. Is this book SF or not. If it is not
SF and is to be a blueprint for sending men to Mars I think I can find some
SF books that do a better job of planning.

It seems to me that most of this infrastructure would be required
only if you plan on returning the Astronauts back to Earth at
the end of the Mission. The cost of this mission is bound to be
huge, so it is stretched out over many decades.

You are not the first to point this out.

Now imagine the alternative. We get a single rocket with a Hab on it and
launch it to Mars. The Hab lands on the surface, at it has been proven to
operate for a certain amount of time, lets say 4 years.

In that same time you could produce a lot of fuel.

The Hab is capable of supporting humans on Mars for 4 years, assuming they
do things like grow their own food and whatnot.

Usefull for fresh greens but not needed. It is possible to just send all the
food needed ahead of time to Mars.

Now if we can send 1 hab, we also can send 2, and another after
that and so on. Each Hab would come with a 4 year supply of spacesuits and
their replacement parts. So what we do is send two Habs to Mars, one which
has astronauts living in it and one that lay dormant right next to it.
There is an air lock that connects the two, but the astronauts only live
in one hab leaving the other available in case of emergencies.

Why live in only one? If both are in use then if an emergency occurs half of
your people don't need to move from one hab to the other. Also since they
are right there in the Hab with the problem that stand a better chance fixing
it right away.

The astronauts explore the surface of Mars, grow food, and every 2 years
NASA send another un occupied Hab to the Surface of Mars.

Good for as long as you can get NASA to keep sending them.

The Astronauts move out of their old Hab and into the spare
one, leaving the newly arrived Hab for emergencies.

Again why? As each Hab arrives there is more room for the crew to spread out
and after a few years with each other in thier face the extra room will be
welcome.

I understand that the cost of a round trip crewed mission to Mars could be
4 times that of a one way mission, that could be 4 additional habs instead
to extend the mission to Mars.

Easy to cost that much.

The Astronauts are basically colonists. They have a spare hab just in case
NASA misses a launch window, and each hab is designed to last for 4 years,
this means that NASA can miss two launch windows and still send a hab in
time to save the astronauts. And we can do this much sooner than the time
it would take to develop the technology for a round trip mission. Anyway
if we plan on colonizing Mars, why not start right away?

The average astronaut would far prefer that NASA send 2-4 Habs first with
repair kits and all the food needed for the rest of thier lives to Mars
first. That way they depend on NASA for very little if NASA washes thier
hands of them.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
...In a book I've just read, Zubrin's idea of
manufacturing rocket fuel on Mars was considered infeasible.

Why? It is basic chemistry for the conversion so we know that will work.
Test prototypes have been built, all that is needed is engineering to make a
design that will work unattended on Mars. Expensive yes, infeasible I don't
see how.

There is room for some doubt (unless you're Zubrin) about issues like the
problems of handling dusty Martian air and the energy requirements of the
complete system. Serious engineering uncertainties do remain, and only
Mars-surface tests can definitively settle whether current ideas about
solving them would actually work. But any flat declaration that the whole
concept is "infeasible" rests on hidden assumptions.

the ISS,

The orbit is all wrong for Moon or Mars missions!

No, that's a misconception, based on oversimplified notions of orbital
dynamics. The only thing *badly* wrong with the ISS orbit as an assembly
site is that it's relatively expensive to get to, which seriously
increases the number of launches needed to assemble a given mass there.
That is a relatively minor issue for a government-run program, since in
such a program, the development costs of the hardware will undoubtedly
completely dominate launch costs anyway.

If you want a *good* assembly site, using existing launchers, the thing to
do is to put in a couple of Zenit or Atlas V pads at Kourou, and assemble
in an equatorial orbit.

a refueling stop at Phobos,

We have no probes on Mar's moons, what does he plan to use there as fuel that
we know is there?

It is likely -- not certain -- that a substantial fraction of the mass of
Phobos is either water ice, or water-rich organic gunk like the Tagish Lake
meteorite. Confirmation of this definitely would be useful...
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

(Tkalbfus1) wrote...
The Astronauts are basically colonists. They have a spare hab just in case NASA
misses a launch window, and each hab is designed to last for 4 years, this
means that NASA can miss two launch windows and still send a hab in time to
save the astronauts. And we can do this much sooner than the time it would take
to develop the technology for a round trip mission. Anyway if we plan on
colonizing Mars, why not start right away?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1023276.htm
http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/fac.../rtr/ma26.html

One way to Mars is the right way to go. And it may be fatal for some
of the colonists - just consider early colonies in the Americas.
But that is not an argument against doing it. Success will come
to those hearty and lucky enough to survive.

There are two kinds of tech for the colonists of Mars - that which
is imported from the Earth and that which is built on Mars. In addition
to exploiting water (essential for any successful Martian colony),
the colonists will need to develop production capabilities for
iron, glass, fuel, and food. We assume a nuclear reactor to provide
the colony with a source of power.

Martian agriculture seems feasible if water can be found and the UV
radiation can be filtered. This may then depend on glass production.
Imagine a 1 ft square "table" that might allow lichen to grow underneath.
One would have to check the temperature range, but the partial pressure
of the CO2 should support it. Or one can go with the normal heated
and pressurized greenhouse ideas.

The faster the colony becomes semi self-sufficient the more likely
it will hold on and survive. Spare parts are a problem since your
resupply from the Earth has such a nasty delay. Thus machine tools
and raw feedstock are very important. One problem is that much of
this technology on Earth is associated with large industrial scale
production. Initial Mars production will likely be in small batches.
Think of a small glass making machine, a small iron smelter, etc.

If I'm a colonist on Mars, I don't just want duct tape - I want the
means to make my own duct tape.

- Cris Fitch
San Diego, CA
http://www.orbit6.com/

"George William Herbert" wrote in message
...
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
"George William Herbert" wrote:
I don't mean to be rude, but a proposal which calls mining Phobos for
water credible and the Sabatier reaction ISRU on the Mars surface
impractical is more than a little whacky.


What the 2 crew members spending 30 days spiraling out through the Van
Allan
belts doesn't bother you? :-)

I decided to save time and space and only reply to the mission-necessary
obvious goof.

Fair enough. But I think making even such a simple basic goof further
illustrates the problems with this book.

Zubrin may be optimistic, but at least he's trying to pay attention to
details. :-)



-george william herbert