Monday, August 22, 2016

Mars Here We Come

Guardian UK: Scientists simulating Mars mission on Hawaii long for end to year in isolation - US, French and German volunteers have been living on freeze-dried food and trying to avoid personal conflicts on the red planet-like slopes of Mauna Loa

4 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

The actual journey and back is more then two yrs. The hard part is getting there alive and getting back alive. Right now the dose of lethal radiation you'd get would greatly reduce your chances of doing that and then once on Mars your essentially back on a Moon like envirnoment of deadly radiation , no easily available water, O2 or food. So, you need to haul everything with you. It's going to be a really tough mission. We'll do it just because it needs to be done ,but it's going to take more then one country to manage it. As for ELON MUSKS mission not likely one rich guy can pull it off.

Jim Sande said...

I posted this quote no Facebook, it's cool. It's from a Salon article on questions posed to top scientists.

1. Does humanity have a future beyond Earth?
“I think it’s a dangerous delusion to envisage mass emigration from Earth. There’s nowhere else in the solar system that’s as comfortable as even the top of Everest or the South Pole. We must address the world’s problems here. Nevertheless, I’d guess that by the next century, there will be groups of privately funded adventurers living on Mars and thereafter perhaps elsewhere in the solar system. We should surely wish these pioneer settlers good luck in using all the cyborg techniques and biotech to adapt to alien environments. Within a few centuries they will have become a new species: the post-human era will have begun. Travel beyond the solar system is an enterprise for post-humans — organic or inorganic.”
—Martin Rees, British cosmologist and astrophysicist

Jim Sande said...

I meant to write - 'on Facebook'

Glynn Kalara said...

The actual journey and back is more then two yrs. The hard part is getting there alive and getting back alive. Right now the dose of lethal radiation you'd get would greatly reduce your chances of doing that and then once on Mars your essentially back on a Moon like envirnoment of deadly radiation , no easily available water, O2 or food. So, you need to haul everything with you. It's going to be a really tough mission. We'll do it just because it needs to be done ,but it's going to take more then one country to manage it. As for ELON MUSKS mission not likely one rich guy can pull it off.