The Mars One Team Has Some Homework To Do
MIT Analysis Paints Bleak Outcome for Mars One Concept, SpacePolicyOnline
“An analysis by a team of MIT students of the Mars One concept to send people to Mars on one-way missions to establish a settlement there offers a bleak picture of the outcome. The paper was presented at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC2014) in Toronto last week. Sydney Do, Koki Ho, Samuel Schreiner, Andrew Owens and Olivier de Weck conducted “An Independent Assessment of the Technical Feasibility of the Mars One Mission Plan” supported by grants from NASA and the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust.”
The reason Mars One colonists could die will surprise you , CNet
“There’s a battle of the brains under way online about just how long the first human colonists to set up a new home on Mars will last on the Red Planet. A group of MIT students have challenged the viability of Mars One, a Dutch nonprofit’s plan to set up a permanent colony on Mars with hearty volunteer astronauts who get a one-way ticket to both the fourth planet from the sun and history.”
Keith’s 10 Oct note: The MIT student team that did the analysis of Mars On eProject held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit here.
Keith’s 11 Oct note: An Open Letter on the Mars One Analysis by MIT Researchers, MIT
It boggles me that Mars One was and is taken seriously by some people. They’ve got nothing resembling the funding they need for the program, deadlines they won’t meet, and all the other fun stuff. And that reality television thing . . . yeah, I’m not exactly thinking people will line up to watch a handful of people spending most of their day doing checks and work on the spacecraft for months.
If they had did the reality tv from the start, during the signing up process, they MIGHT have been able to make a buck … they are not raising any of the kind of revenue they will need.
i’m under the impression that the reality tv show will start after they have made the final selection of people and begin to train their astronauts.
That is what they stated, I mean they could have possibly been picking up advertising revenue this whole time the planet has been giving them free press.. for what now… over a year? Just thought it was bad planning, revenue could have at least paid for commissioning more studies etc.. give the impression of movement.
i’m not sure what reality TV you could get of interns processing paperwork.
interviewing the prospective people, the who what where et cetera… put faces to the movement the whys they want to go… hell that is really tv drama of the first order. A husband wants to go the wife doesn’t? What about the opposite? What do parents think? More drama… what about the kids? More drama …
The first rule of sales… sell the sizzle not the steak and with reality TV sell the drama.
Here is a great little article on it.
http://marketingcomet.typep…
It is why I feel Mars 1 dropped the ball from day one.
It sounds like they’ve got a production house lined up for filming. the article isn’t clear about whether or not they are currently filming yet or not.
http://www.theverge.com/201…
My point Doug, is that they could have filmed each episode of that sign up drama for what .. 2 bucks an episode? Mom and Pop sitting around the table debating the issue.. LOL … it was all advertising gravy for over a year while every news, tabloid and webite on the planet was giving them free press.
well, word of mouth is the best kind of advertising. i think the free press was better for them than spending a lot of their start-up money on advertising from the get-go. they got a lot of very local stories that way too, definitely a market they wouldn’t get to otherwise.
That is the whole point, they didn’t have to spend a dime on advertising. The rest of the planet was doing it for them. All they had to do was have the link for the new reality show on their webpage and use that as a medium for ad revenue. Your advertising rate card is determined by how many eyes watch your show. The first few would have had so many eyes they could have charged quite a bit.
there are some stories like that out there.
http://www.bbc.com/news/mag…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…
http://www.sltrib.com/sltri…
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-…
i don’t think there’s anything you could really sell as a TV show yet. maybe a documentary. i would be surprised if Mars One doesn’t sell a documentary or two about the selection process at some point.
but the real drama will start when people leave their significant others to start the training. that’s when we’ll see a lot more TV coverage and shows.
there have been some interesting stories about people finding medical problems thanks to the screenings that Mars One requires. i would like to know more about that.
Calling Dr. Haywood…remember the scene where he tells his wife he’s going to Jupiter…and there is a dolphin playing nearby?
In reality, not Reality TV. More like a docu series on the behind-the-scenes machinations involved in getting the project up. Closer to the many “Unusual Jobs” docu-shows than “Big Brother/Bachelor/ec” contestant-shows.
Which, as you say, means they definitely dropped the ball on harvesting the PR opportunity.
Agreed
“Mary wants to sign up to goto mars, her husband Bill is against it. Will this mean their marriage is over? Tune in next week for Mars1.”
Actually that’s the opposite of what I mean. That’s a focus on the “contestants”. I’m talking about a doco series that focuses on Bas Lansdorp and the team running the Mars One campaign itself, not the applicants. Something that would have been filming before we’d heard of them, apparently in 2011.
(A show about the applicants would a whole different series. The show about the training program would be a third series. The show about the actual Mars mission would be a fourth and obviously biggest series.)
[That said, I’m also surprised that NASA has never made a documentary series about astronaut candidate training, or over a full ISS mission. But even the engineering for non-HSF projects, we get occasional segments or episodes within other shows or one-off pieces from NASA, but NASA has never really done a proper long-term weekly behind-the-scenes show that turns a ten year development into 23 half-hour shows. (Plus it would be a lobbying boon, “With news that Congress has delayed funding yet again, the [XX] team faces yet another crisis: Can they finish the work on the [YY] segment before…”) Frankly, every major project should have this stuff, just as part of the “public record”. And hey, I’m opposed to SLS/Orion development, but I’d watch a show about the various dev teams like I was an obsessed fanboi. I’d watch episodes about NASA staff meetings about SLS.]
my apologies for misunderstanding. I am taking about what builds veiwers and increased ad rates for tv commercials. A documentary as a general rule, is not a big income generator of ad revenues. If Mars1 is looking to generate income I believe they missed the boat because the entire planet was giving them free press that could have been used to promote a new show. Something rare for new television shows .
It is precisely that they have this reality TV contract that nails this down as a fake, IMNSHO. “Reality” (yeah, sure) TV is based upon conflict and chaos. Why else watch it? Are they going to choose people who get into fights? With personal issues? Substance abuse? I think they just want to score some bucks making a show about how it all falls apart.
They have no launch vehicle(s), no spacecraft, no credible life support systems, nothing like the needed amount of funding – in other words, little credibility. They are selling a dream, nothing more. A modicum of credibility could be gained if they had all the above assets and tried out their technology and hardware first somewhere closer and much more credible – such as the Moon.
why do you need a launch vehicle today when you’re not planning to launch for another 8-10 years?
the notional launcher is a Falcon Heavy. their life support systems are currently being designed, and the spacecraft will be designed around those.
yes, they aren’t anywhere close to where they need to be in funding. but that doesn’t mean they aren’t seriously working on the Mars One project.
you merely offer a catch-22. they can’t get the funding until they have all the hardware, but they can’t get the hardware without any funding.
Yes – one conundrum after another. Welcome to the modern era of Space ventures.
This http://www.spacepolicyonlin…
and underlying article http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo… certainly discredited MarsOne crap in basics of ECLS and ISRU.
The most diffucult is to move those 61%(by mass) of repair parts for every system that is needed for sustainabilty of whole concept. And Falcon Heavy is not answer(“The Falcon Heavy is slated to undergo test flights in 2014” – not happened) cause its not spacecraft, their design of Mars Transit Vehicle is insufficient. 20 metric tonnes(too optimistic, most articles on subject considered at least 150tonnes) for habitat with at least two deltaV=4.5km/s maneuvers – 100tonnes at least of propulsion mass. Oops, hydrogen-oxygen of course, there are few commercial providers(BE-3) not even lox-methane engines will be around timeline. Radiation protection – not even considered for 210 days of flight(3000 liter of water for solar flares???).
Where is experience in 10t class lander? nonexistant, zilda not even one provider.
Rovers – too slow to construct anything within timeline, especially mass excavating of dirt for colony radiation protection. Energy production by solar cells (at Mars -> huge squares) within dust environment(dust storms) without chemical storage – another insanity. Casual architecture – nuclear(for isru rocket fuel). Rovers for exploration (I forgot they will not have time for that, cause of constant food production and tech repairs) – nothing, so they’ll go by foot, jumping like crazy.
Those Zubrin`s calculations, assumptions, mission architecture and that http://www.mars-one.com/tec… – compare it. Childish dreams vs engineer assumptions.
Realistic project: Mars transit cycler – mass 100-150tonn with electric propulsion orbit sustaining option + 2 orbital fuel depo(outpost) stations (one on LEO one on LMO) 50mt class each. Automatic transfer vehicle refuels every depo once in two year. Dragon2 spacecraft tranfers astrounauts to LEO space station, they go to special small ferry vehicle and meet cycler in it. Right near Mars they go to LMO station and transfer to Mars Lander. Fuel for Lander(lox+methaine) produced by special nuclear or high square automatic solar chemical power station. When they land – they go to different sites by internal combustion engine rover(lox+methaine) or even by small rocket plane. Once all real science had conducted they will return to space station. Constant bases will be deployed only where is sufficiently useful amounts of extractables or exploration existed.
Return to Earth is simple by reversing process after 2 years of stay. No colonisation crap is needed for first 20-100 mission. No hurdles, not constant resupply, no sudden illness or death without Earth support. Low cost, no constant occupation of hazardous environment. Can be used near Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and any other planet – just deploy enough cyclers. Architecture can include fast trasit nuclear spacecraft for rescue operation.
the paper you cite doesn’t talk about the issues you bring up. there is a fundamental disconnect between what you say and the sources you claim prove your points.
So; your occupation is – at best – paid lobbyist for Mars One or – at worst; a cheerleader or fan boy?!
HAHAHAHAHA!!
accusing someone of being a shill is a great way to brand yourself as a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
looking at the content of a comment and noting that the sources it cites have nothing to do with the issues brought up in the comment doesn’t require being paid by anyone.
Ha Ha Ha! Not… I didn’t actually use the word shill (I actually looked it up to make sure it meant what I thought). Sorry if I offended you – easy to do on anonymous Interwebs sometimes. No, I guess I was just using shorthand for my mild frustration over why someone so intelligent would KEEP enthusiastically (sometimes sarcastically) supporting such an obviously kooky idea. I mean, the world’s media keeps treating Mars One as something that actually is a viable, happening thing?! I mean, colour me confused, brother?!
Look; I battle conspiracy theorist loons all the time in real life – particularly Apollo hoaxers – who just about drive me batty sometimes. Regards, Matthew Pavletich.
Mars One isn’t a kooky idea. it’s a long shot, sure, but sometimes you’ve got to root for the long shots.
if they can get the funding they need to get all the hardware made, there’s no reason it couldn’t work.
and yes, Mars One is happening. they are getting their candidates together, the final selection for the training pool will be within the next few months. they are getting design work done on their life support systems, habitats, and their testbed lander. in short, they are doing the things they ought to be doing if they were serious about going to Mars.
i loathe the Apollo hoaxers, too :p though most of my ire is directed towards the chemtrail conspiracy theory these days.
Well… The idea isn’t as kooky as the almost rabid certainty that it will all work as advertised. I will begrudgingly grant them the kudos for at least getting the idea of space colonization more into the mainstream, if nothing else. But I’d feel happier if someone like Elon Musk were joining forces with several someones with deep pockets to get a more credible and modest pathfinder expedition or series of expeditions. I am a HUGE and lifelong space geek but even I struggle with Mars One – Mankind is struggling to get into Earth orbit these days let alone elsewhere. Over the next decade Disney Corp is going to spend literally billions making movies about super heroes and starships SIMULATING space travel. If only they could or would divert some of that to Mars venture. Also; I’ve just been to Dubai where they are spending billions on more hotels. The UAE is swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck – if only they would invest in space!!
I feel your pain. Considering the enormous sums of money that are spent on things that are fairly trivial by comparison (example, $50 – 60 billion is spent each year on pets – this is in the USA alone – and only $20 billion of that is pet food (when NASA’s budget is 18 billion)), you’d think that someone would be interested in investing some small amount of money into space travel or related technology. Perhaps it’s best to think of Mars One as at least a step in that direction.
*edit*
just as an aside, the UAE did recently form a space agency. they just approved its first budget and are planning an innagural mission to Mars by 2021.
http://gulfnews.com/news/gu…
http://www.arabianbusiness….
I was aware of this – but the general public and even some space fans probably weren’t, so thanks for the links. Though I notice it’s mostly satellites and a (very) notional Mars Probe at this point. I’d like to see some investment from the likes of UAE (and others) into ventures like Golden Spike. If UAE investors eventually were spending more than $5 billion per year – people would sure start to notice!!
See: Biosphere 2.
This will end in tears.
Biosphere was very poorly planned out, had many technical problems that would not exist for Mars One, and was badly managed. there were ideological conflicts between the major funder of the project and the scientists. again, that wouldn’t be a problem for Mars One.
Pioneering (or settling) Mars requires practical two-way transportation. Right now, SLS/Orion notwithstanding, the technology for such transportation isn’t available. Going “one way” is simply not realistic.
why?
Even the European pioneers of the New World had reusable vehicles that could provide continuing logistical support, and they were “pioneering” a land that already supported a substantial native population. For Mars the situation is much more precarious. Look at the logistical support the ISS has required. The reliance on high tech means that almost any failure requires replacement components that cannot be made locally. With current technology each mission will cost billions and deliver only a modest payload to the Martian surface. Someone has to pay for all this.
All this is not to say it is impossible, only that what is required is (much as for LEO) new technology that reduces cost and makes human spaceflight, both to LEO and beyond, not just possible but practical as well. In the case of Mars, relatively high-thrust electric propulsion (solar or nuclear) for the interplanetary cruise phase, to radically cut travel time, would be a good start.
IMO, European settlement is the wrong analogy for space colonisation. It’s way too late stage. You’d be better looking at the much more primitive spread of stone-age sea-peoples from island to island.
That’s part of the reason I prefer a colonisation path that goes through asteroid-“mining” and subsequent development. We need to create “sea people” that are at home in space, have the tools necessary to survive in space. Then those people will, occasionally, go one step further out, then another step… Sometimes choosing to go beyond the reasonable limits of their technology, with no way back. (A group of NEO asteroid miners upping-roots and taking their families into the main belt. Well beyond what is commercially viable.)
Sorry to disappoint you, high-trust electric propulsion needs huge massive ultrahigh power energy sources. Trust in milligram range needs 10kW power source, its squarily proportional to speed of exhaust, so power-limited system with tonnes of thrust will need terawatt class powerhouse. Second problem is 30% of energy in rocket engine goes to heat, so limitation of practical 100MW and a few kilograms of thrust is real. Or spacecraft just melts. Huge heat waste installation increase useless mass.
Dont forget that faster trajectories is much more costly – needs much more high cost fuel (Xenon) and huge tanks for it, reactors mass of 100MW (nonexistant even in projects) will be in hundreds of tonnes and solar power installation of incredible mass (1000x of ISS). Those trajectories is higly dangerous, if you miss an opportunity to decelerate, or miss your target by few degrees(Mars) soon you will be 100 or more millions of miles away jn the dangerous zones of high gravity gas giants and fuel consumption will escalate.
No you dont need new tech – just old and simple hydrogen-oxygen space engines and cheap tanks, and methalox lander.
okay, but that only means that Earth-to-Mars infrastructure needs to be improved. no reasons why Mars-to-Earth needs to be developed.
Hi everyone – we are the authors of the Mars One paper described in this article, and we are excited to see so much enthusiasm surrounding the discussion of the colonization of Mars.
We will be holding a Reddit AMA this afternoon from 3pm to 6pm to answer questions about our analysis, and we would love to hear from you all there.
We will post a link here as soon as the AMA thread is created. Thanks!
Hi everyone – the AMA is now live here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAm…
We look forward to a good discussion!
…. well, maybe. lol.
exactly. the concrete acting as an oxygen sink was one of the major technical problems. and yes, the Biosphere 2 experiments produced quite a lot of useful information, even if it’s a fairly dysfunctional starting point.
and it is still a unique facility for ecological experiments
When I visited Biosphere, the most interesting part was visiting one of the Biosphere lungs: circular rubber roofed buildings that provided volume for expansion of the atmosphere in Biosphere due to solar heating throughout the day.
I liked the Biosphere II gift shop. I still have the coffee mug.
Stillborn idea. A stupid idea of taking humans to Mars, no return, to die there. Obviously suicide. Only an insane and sick mind to imagine a “plan” as these. It is the height of stupidity. Looks like a demonic villain, Lex Luthor type. Actually the “Genius” that intends to kill humans on Mars just want fame. Appear. Possessed of a murderous mind.
if you stay at home and sit on your couch, you’ll die too.
going to Mars isn’t suicide. they aren’t sending people to Mars to die, but to live there!
Exactly so, Doug. It will take some mighty brave people, and if they pull it off admirable folks as well. At the very least, it would break the super-safe governmental stranglehold.
We are all going to die… who wouldn’t want to die fullfilling a life long dream, hell if I am going out .. I sure wouldn’t mind going out under those circumstances rather then a car accident going to the store for a fruit cup.
And I dont see any scientific not moral result out of stubborn stupid plan as this. Too many unaswered questions.
1st – why colonize Mars in this place and not another, when it isnt sufficiently explored yet? Answer – explore it first by quick deployable expediton from nearby space station(experience already gained, even Moon sorties were carried out like this).
2nd – why no return? No reasonable answer. Small lander with methalox engine and isru production of it is a way to shuttle expeditions to any area on Mars quckly.
3rd – why are they moving all equpment from Earth surface to Mars surface? No answer – there are countless articles on Mars architectures with cyclers and orbital staions (Verner for Braun included). Reusability in every infrastructure item – cycler, landers, orbit depos, shuttles(like Dragon2) is preferable than one way huge wasteful rocketry.
4th – why do they wanna use solar cells without storage? No answer – solar cell mostly uneffective solution (10-20% coeff) especially when you need to storage energy for constant food production and in need of trasport solution(for exploration and disaster mitigation) and return option. Solar concentration chemical production of hydrogen and storable methane is much more effective, and easily incorporates future neclear reactor/radioactive generators. And with this method you don’t need plants for oxygen production, colonies just consume exceess oxidiser for rockets. Maybe even food maybe partially produced chemically, always remember that photosynthesis is extemely unefficient (2% at most) and Sun light is very scarcy resource on Mars.
5th – why do not produce all isru resources chemically be it rocket fuel, oxygen, food and plastics(composites)? Use 3d printing for parts, houses, tubes, equip etc from local dust materials and extracted chemically components. You dont even need constant supervision of such factories, especially with teleops from nearby space station. Robotic industry on surface of Mars will be deployed first than humans (cause such colonies need huge industry to be sustainable).
6th – why dont use Leo commercial space station for TV show? No big difference.
Seems they dont even try to ask such questions. Their seemed simplicity is a hoax, and thats not sustainable plan but flagship one.
what does ANY of that have to do with an individuals desire to do something? Early explorers heading out to the “new world” knew that as a general rule half would not be returning .. but there was never a problem for people who wanted to jump on that boat for the adventure. Stupid? yes. Insane? Probably. The point is .. they still got on the boat. It WILL BE the same for opening the space frontier. People will want to fullfill that dream and it REALLY will not matter what you or I or anyone else thinks. They WILL go.
No their will not go regardless of that comparison with early explorers. They just haven;t means, be it capital, tech or architecture. Spaceship is not boat, and never will be. Highly capital intensive, no gold, spice, territory or any high cost material to return with. So it must be effective scalable solution to colonize Mars with smthg of value(or most investors will not give a dime). They don’t provide it, nor do you.
And your using of Capital words can;t help them either, if you dont like my suggestion just view MIT Mars One Analysis. For me there is no value nor any real progress in what these MarsOne crowd suggests.
I prefer as a project old school von Braun or Korolev one, or this Aldrin Mars cycler http://buzzaldrin.com/space…. For me Aldrin and J.Longuski, Phd is much more reliable and authoritative source to think about than some unknown enterpreneur, bunch of PRs and a scientist without any proficiency in the field.
Sorry if I somehow disrupt your illusion, or make you angry, cause I dont know your background in the field and didnt provide mine.
1. the site for the Mars One colony will be constrained primarily by elevation (low enough for the landers to be slowed by passing through more of the atmosphere) and close to the equator for year-round solar power production. they do intend to send at least one rover to scout out the colony location for the best site. an orbital station is an unneeded extra cost.
2. no return because a return trip from Mars easily triples the cost.
3. moving from Earth’s surface to Mars’ surface is more efficient with a direct trip. the additional cost for a cycler is not necessary, nor is the fuel for speeding up and slowing down to enter orbit and dock with an orbital station needed.
4. solar power is the least complex and most lightweight energy solution. they will need to use batteries. this is obvious. they certainly could experiment with other means to generate electricity as time goes on.
5. they obviously will use ISRU and 3D printing.
6. Mars One’s plans are to go to Mars, not to a LEO space station.
While I see the Mars One plan as a fantasy with its billions in money, and with its having SpaceX building custom “super-dragons”, diverting SpaceX from their own methodical, detailed, fundable plans, I disagree in your characterization of it as evil or insane or suicide.
Emigrating to a New World with little hope of return to the Old, is a wondrous, time-honored enterprise. It is what makes the future. I will be too old, but when the real thing happens, I would step right in line. But it would be on a MCT or something similar.
This discussion is somehow twisted into being about suicidal people volunteering to die on another planet. No. It is about settlers creating a permanent colony in a new world, having children, building cities, forging a New Earth. It is not about it being a glorious or pathetic way to end one’s life. It is about living, not about dying. I think this particular plan, Mars One, is unlikely to succeed, but the idea will and should succeed.
Fighting about how to get to Mars and America can’t even get to the space station. Currently we can’t even duplicate John Glenn’s 1962 3-orbit flight without Russian help.
I disagree. It would take less than six months to develop two or three independent versions of one-man capsules capable of handling three orbits and water-landing. If that was a national priority. The US has a number of reliable launchers, a number of groups building capsules or similar systems. And thousands of engineers who do this level of development every day.
If the US Congress put a $1b bounty on the first American return-to-space (based on Glenn’s flight-profile, one man, more than one full orbit), I’d be stunned if it went unclaimed for more than a year.
Modern US ambitions are greater than Mercury (even if they aren’t greater than Apollo), it just doesn’t feel like it because the urgency isn’t there. For example, the requirements for CCtCap are a capsule with four-crew-or-more, safely and reliable docking with the ISS. That’s well beyond Gemini’s capability, let alone Mercury; Gemini couldn’t even dock until late in the program, and took several attempts. Even Skylab missions were three-crew.
Putting one man in orbit for the sake of saying “We did it!” to the Russians, is not a viable goal.
(That said, I think it’s worth a $1b prize just to show how “easy” it is. And people might get excited enough to want a “before this decade is out” Apollo 50th anniversary lunar prize.)
Six months? What fantasy world did that come from?
With pretty much unlimited funding and a crash program Mercury took 3 years (1958-61) from contract to manned flight, Gemini took 3 years (1962-65) . Apollo CM took 7 years (1961-68) , Apollo LM took 7 years (1962-69) .
Shuttle took 8 years (1973-81) . Commercial Crew is going to take at least 7 years (2010-2017). Orion is going to take at least 10 years (2011-2021).
It would take longer than 6 months to decide on a contractor.
two thirds of the time associated with Mercury was taken up in pad-abort and launch-abort tests, because nobody knew how to do those yet. Even with 3 years worth of work it was a bit dicey at times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
the point of Paul’s post is that if you just want to “quick and dirty” put a human in space for 3 orbits, it’s fairly simple and straightforward. a secured seat and an oxygen tank and / or a CO2 scrubber in a Dragon could do this immediately, albeit at a pretty high risk to the occupant in case of any emergency. the time and cost associated with spaceflight is primarily due to risk assessment and reduction.
As I said, Commercial Crew will require a minimum four man capsule capable of independently docking with the ISS. The two chosen contractors are capable of carrying 7 crew, life support will likely be at least a week. The two capsules must dock with the ISS and remaining on-station for 3-6 months before returning a full load of crew to Earth. Commercial Crew is more demanding than missions to Skylab.
Glenn flew for 5 hours in a one-man capsule massing 1.5 tonnes. But everything was new. The US had no reliable launchers and was converting missiles for the job (have a look at the launch failure rate leading up to Mercury). There were no contractors with any relevant experience, no heat shield material, no space suits, no life-support experience, no understanding of human physiology in space. And there was no infrastructure on the ground, everything had to be specially built for the job.
Today there are a half dozen reliable US launchers capable of orbiting multiple times the mass of the Mercury capsules. NASA has space suits capable of supporting an astronaut for much more than 5 hours entirely from the on-suit life-support. There are multiple heat-shield materials available. All of the ground support is in place. Etc etc.
If there was a “Space Race” today for the equivalent of Glenn’s flight… yeah, it shouldn’t take the US more than six months to throw together a Mercury-level capsule. If that was a national priority.
I don’t think people realise how primitive the Mercury project was. That’s why I think a ~$1b “Mercury Prize” (for the first private duplication of Glenn’s flight) would be such a useful exercise. It would show just how far things have actually come.
I’ve just read the Mars I analysis paper and although it is a good start I was frankly not impressed.Their two important results are a) O2 concentration arising from plant growth, and b) mass of spares requirement to support a biome dominates. But let’s look at the gas models: where is the soil, and soil bacteria? You’re growing protein, but where is the nitrogen absorption? You’re accumulating organic carbon, but where is the carbon input? There seem to be a lot of important elements missing from their model. Then the spares model: there are tabulations of inputs into the model, let’s take a random example: “UPA Firmware Controller Assembly, 23kg, MTBF 3.1 years”. Huh? I have no idea what this piece of kit is and what it does, or why it weighs 23kg or why it should fail at all, or whether failure would require replacement of the entire 23kg module or perhaps a 55mg electrolytic capacitor. I’m willing to bet the authors have no idea either. They just took a bunch of numbers and produced a result that is possibly as divorced from reality as the Mars I crowd.
BUT, it is a good start, and I think the real question is for Mars I: where is YOUR model? You’re planning to put people in a place where there is no Plan B, so your Plan A is pretty good, right? You’ve worked this all out very carefully and modelled all the gas cycles and spares requirements already, at least in preliminary form as part of your feasibility study, right? Well, where is it?
“they should have a trial run in the desert using the same hardware they will be using on Mars”
They do indeed plan to do this. http://www.mars-one.com/faq…
why? is there any particular reason that you think the Mars One colonists should die?
yes, they do need to have a well designed life support system. that’s why one of the first things Mars One did was to contract with paragon to do the work on it. http://www.mars-one.com/new…
the life support system does not need to be closed. they plan to extract resources from the Martian environment to provide air and water. http://www.mars-one.com/faq…