

Independent Assessment of the Technical Feasibility of the Mars One Mission Plan [pdf] - andyjohnson0
http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20One%20Feasibility%20Analysis%20IAC14.pdf

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TrainedMonkey
"Finally, the space logistics analysis revealed that for the most optimist
scenario considered, establishing the first crew of a Mars settlement will
requireapproximately 15 Falcon Heavy launches costing $4.5 billion, and these
values will grow with additional crews. It is important to note that these
numbers are derived considering only the ECLS and ISRU systems with spare
parts."

Basically main points of review that it is feasible to establish settlement on
mars, but maintenance costs will quickly skyrocket as colony grows and
equipment ages. Report also advises that a lot more research into reliability
and modularity of critical equipment is required to lower amount of spare
parts required.

It goes without saying, that without getting to some level of self sufficiency
given current launch costs (even if they are slashed by order of magnitude) it
would be prohibitively expensive to maintain any sizable human presence on
Mars. Therefore some research definitely needs to go into rolling out
production facilities from scratch.

~~~
comrh
Is there a reason to want a sustained human presence on Mars? I heard about
using it as a rest stop on longer trips but couldn't any science be done on a
per trip basis?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure you can go half-way. But that's optimum if you value human life over all
other considerations. However, there are people who are willing to take risks,
and those people can drive the cost of science, development and colonization
down by an order of magnitude. You just have to accept the mortal risks
involved with launching an outpost using unproved equipment in an unknown
environment.

Then there's the benefit if they survive. Not only a 2nd human population in
the galaxy, which increases the odds of long-term human survival by some huge
margin. But the inspiration they give to others that it can be done. Who knows
what would come next? Moons of Jupiter? Venus?

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novalis78
Earlier thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436818)

