
All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go - zvanness
https://medium.com/matter/all-dressed-up-for-mars-and-nowhere-to-go-7e76df527ca0
======
nickff
This piece is quite an interesting read, as well as being well structured and
well phrased. This makes it all the more unfortunate that the writer is
obviously unfamiliar with the technologies which would be used, and the
realities of aerospace projects; leading to a slew of errors.

Some of the errors include:

1) Separating oxygen from nitrogen is quite commonly done, and there are at
least three distinct methods for doing it. The reference is to an amateurish
analysis done by others who had not done any research. Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_swing_adsorption](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_swing_adsorption)

2) It is quite well known that NASA distributes its contracts around the
country, so as to increase political buy-in from governors, congressmen, and
senators. In fact, the space shuttle was green-lit because Nixon had cancelled
the national aerospace plane, and his administration had a meeting about how
that would affect votes in key swing-states, and they decided that the shuttle
would benefit his re-election effort. Sources are numerous including
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo8v7juSgRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo8v7juSgRw)
.

3) Vitamin D would be a problem from lack of sunlight, not vitamin A, and even
then supplements and artificial lamps both provide viable long-term
alternatives to sun-exposure.

4) Building a vehicle to carry sufficient fuel and supplies for the trip to
Mars is not especially technically challenging, when compared to the design of
an earth-entry vehicle. Earth orbit rendezvous allows for the assembly of
massive (though expensive) space vehicles such as the ISS.

~~~
dded
To your point (3), perhaps it is reasonable to bring a lifetime's supply of
vitamin supplements for four people. But with an artificial lamp you would
have to worry about bulbs burning out (how many would you need?), and the
lamps would consume a significant part of what would have to be a limited
power supply in the colony.

To your point (4), that there may exist an even more difficult problem does
not mean that building a Mars vehicle is "not especially technically
challenging." The author explicitly cites the three recent malfunctions with
rocket launches, and the older Apollo, Soyuz, and Shuttle programs all had
their difficulties too. Building a Mars vehicle is surely challenging.

~~~
XorNot
You wouldn't build such a lamp like on Earth. An oxygen plasma with a spectrum
filtered glass case, microwave excited to avoid the need for electrodes, would
last pretty much forever and be repairable using only in with materials.

------
bakhy
Aside from all the serious problems, their puny budget being probably the
biggest, what always bugged me was the reality show aspect... What an ugly way
to even think about achieving such a great feat. Are they picking their
candidates like Big Brother does, with the egos and sex appeal? Will there be
fighting? Sex? I mean, if the viewers get bored, and this will be a pretty
long show with a pretty small cast, what happens then? And how will people
even react to watching someone die in a "show" like this? Wouldn't this
actually be the most perverse form of human exploitation ever conceived?..

I don't think this nasty idea even deserves this much work to write about it.
I'm sorry for Josh, but I hope they do not succeed. I do not want to see the
horror that this could turn into. Let's not mar space and Mars with this
bullshit.

~~~
rybosome
This is an excellent point; reality-show-manufactured drama would rob this
achievement of the gravitas it deserves. Humans are given to pettiness on
occasion, it would be a tragedy to elevate and preserve those petty moments
when memorializing a new human epoch.

~~~
andyjohnson0
_" reality-show-manufactured drama would rob this achievement of the gravitas
it deserves"_

Worse, it risks completely ruining the idea of human space exploration and
planetary colonisation.

------
MrZongle2
First: I thought this was a well-written article.

Second: although it is definitely not something I would seriously consider, I
can appreciate that there _are_ some people out there who are in fine mental
health and would eagerly go on a one-way trip to Mars.

But third, when I read this:

 _Before he’d applied for Mars One, Josh had met a girl at the Redhead Days
festival in the Netherlands. Eli did not have red hair, but was brunette; Josh
was drawn to her easygoing demeanor, her effortless good moods, and they fell
very much in love. But a shot at Mars would be a serious, life-changing turn
of events, and Josh knew that he would have to fully commit if he was ever
going to make it to the final selection. He didn’t even wait for the
application deadline to break it off._

...I concluded that Josh was an idiot. Not for wanting to go on a one-way trip
to Mars, not because of any career or lifestyle decisions he had made, but
simply because he sabotaged his potential happiness based upon a _promise_ of
something exciting happening, made by people a world away that he had never
met and who seemed to have a dubious command of the critical technical details
of such an undertaking.

Ten years from now, when Josh is still on Earth, Mars One is considered to be
another Biosphere 2 and Bas Landsorp and his pals have long since moved on to
other commercial ventures, I suspect Josh will wonder about that brunette.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I strongly suspect Josh knows exactly what he's doing, even if it's not
exactly what he's saying he's doing.

~~~
marvin
Yep. He sounds like a really fascinating character, but it seems to me like
Mars is not really the key motivation in his life. He sounds like he's running
away from something. I hope everything works out for him in the end.

------
austinz
When they explain to me how ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) can fabricate
a replacement for a blown microchip or a refrigerator's compressor - based
only on the equipment you can bring to Mars in a couple of space capsules -
I'll be ready to begin seeing Mars One as something other than an insane pipe
dream.

This article nails it: these people would be living an 18th-century lifestyle.
But it would be one utterly dependent on 21st-century technology for something
as basic as breathable air. If their 18th-century lifestyle can't keep their
21st-century technology working, and the organizing company can't drum up
enough money to send regular resupply flights for decades to come, they die.
Simple as that.

~~~
thisjepisje
It's like a time machine that kills everyone as soon as the time machine
breaks.

------
CapitalistCartr
To send actual humans to the surface of Mars requires several robotic missions
first to prepare.

If we expect to make fuel for the return journey there, that needs to be
happening before the people leave Earth orbit.

Ditto for digging the hole and putting in an underground habitat.

Building a greenhouse from glass made on Mars.

Growing actual food on the surface.

Each of these steps are critical and need testing before we send people.
Otherwise it's a pointless test to find out which failure gets them first.

~~~
Osmium
How about, before all that, we try and inhabit, say, deserts on Earth first?
Make that psychologically and economically feasible first. To my knowledge, we
are yet to successfully demonstrate that we can maintain a viable, materially-
closed ecosystem, without having to worry about extra things we'd encounter on
Mars like pressure and temperature differentials and excess radiation.

I am all for Mars, 100%. The sooner the better. But it's not like Earth
doesn't have its own inhospitable climates that are vastly easier to conquer
than Mars, and we haven't even managed that (but then, perhaps there's just
not enough motivation?).

~~~
ChuckMcM
We already comfortably inhabit a desert, we call it Los Angleles :-) Perhaps a
better example is the underground city of Australia, Coober Pedy. Non self-
sustaining examples exist in the Antarctic as well.

The point being, Earth has hard to live in places, but not a lot of motivation
for living in those places. Mars as a sort of sex appeal to it "Mars!" but its
a valid question what happens once people figure out that its just a place
that is really really far away from Walmart.

~~~
jordanpg
I think the point is not that it is technologically infeasible to live in
deserts, but that doing it _years_ with only what you can fit in a capsule the
size of a U-Haul or dig out of the ground (with a drill you brought with you
in the U-Haul) is _extremely_ difficult.

And, that no one has demonstrated how that can be turned into a positive,
long-term revenue stream, even in principle.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Camping in the Sierras as I have done over the years has lead to seeing a lot
of mining towns. And a mining town in the 19th century was a modest analog of
a Mars colony in that they made most of their own tools out of locally
available material, lived off food that could be sourced locally, and had few
support structures outside of their own ingenuity.

The argument that presumably robotic missions would pre-supply a landing site
with materials that could not be locally sourced, tools for processing locally
sourced materials into useful form (including but not limited to air/water).
Puts what is left being there for the hell of it.

Failed earth experiments like the Biosphere ones depended primarily on self
containment (good for when you are surrounded by vacuum), successful
experiments like the Russian 'mobile home from hell' [1], and some things in
the middle like 'earth ships'[2] actually point to feasibility.

What is lacking is the certainty that you _will die_ if this doesn't work. And
that, is pretty hard to simulate on Earth because there is always an "option"
of some sort for rescue.

[1] [http://www.space.com/13500-mock-mars-mission-
mars-500-ends.h...](http://www.space.com/13500-mock-mars-mission-
mars-500-ends.html)

[2] [http://earthship.com/](http://earthship.com/)

------
hvs
The point about the overabundance of oxygen (from the plants) that would
require venting, but limited nitrogen, which would ultimately result in
suffocation is one of those great little details that you don't normally think
about when you think about living on other planets. There is so much we take
for granted living day to day on a planet that we've evolved in concert with,
that it's easy to overlook the little (and big) details that are so important
for life to exist.

~~~
nickff
This problem has been solved, and machines capable of separating gasses exist
all over the world; they are commonly used in hospitals to provide oxygen to
patients, and for various other purposes.[1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation)

~~~
dded
How often do these machines need spare parts? And how much power do they
consume to operate?

------
nazgulnarsil
This article is like a laundry list of what's wrong with my generation. Whiny,
cynical, woefully uninformed but happy to share technical reasons why
something won't work.

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drivers99
> How the colonists might cope with a deficiency in vitamin A from a lack of
> sunlight, however, is.

Don't they mean vitamin D?

~~~
recycleme
I believe so.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D)

------
travisl12
We are no where near ready to go to Mars.

What would the impact on the public's psyche be if this mission failed by
means of a torturously slow death of the crew? I think it'd be a huge setback
for any sort of space exploration to witness fellow humans triumphantly land
on Mars and then watch it all fall apart and the crew perishes tragically
(being optimistic enough to say they actually land safely).

I bet the Apollo program would have ended much sooner if Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin never made it off of the Moon.

I have always thought as Cmd. Hadfield stated, that we have to go to the Moon
and get it right there first. Go to the Moon, get this space colonization
thing figured out and then the conversation on heading to Mars can begin.

------
Schweigi
Well written article!

As much as I would like to but I think it will probably never happen in the
near future. Not because of technical reasons as some people state in the
article. In my opinion the technical difficulties are not the most difficult
things to solve in order to travel to Mars. Humanity went basically from 0 to
space and on the Moon but this was only possible because of the political
pressure where everything was dedicated to reach this goal. This included a
lot of money and ten thousands of people. But most important it was the
society who supported this goal no matter what. Today nobody really cares if
people go to space and this makes it impossible for a hand full of people who
do.

~~~
jordanpg
I agree. Barring some economic windfall that hasn't yet been discovered, it
will require a national (world?) crisis and a Manhattan/Apollo project for a
project on this scale.

And the $6B pricetag is ludicrous. To put this in context, the state of
California estimates the cost of high-speed rail from SF to LA at ~$50B.

~~~
msandford
Yeah fine, and everyone at SpaceX DEVELOPED the rockets that take people to
SPACE for the same as what Facebook paid for Snapchat. Valuations are WEIRD.

Further the $50B price tag has a lot to do with paying a LOT of union folks,
legalized "corruption" in many forms and the like. Finding huge cost savings
in the construction industry is possible if you're motivated but nobody is
because big infrastructure projects like that get handed out more based on
politics than merit.

~~~
jordanpg
SpaceX benefited from a great many years of experience, technology, knowledge,
and lessons learned in blood from NASA, which is priceless. Comparing SpaceX
outlays to a corporate acquisition pricetag is a weak analogy, at best. NASA
(federal taxes) provided roughly half of SpaceX's initial funding. Large
fractions of their current contracts come from NASA. And of course plenty of
SpaceX's engineers are ex-NASA employees.

As far as unions go, I will grant that wages are higher as a result of their
existence. That's a feature, not a bug. I'm curious: just how much of that
$50B pricetag do you imagine is due to unions and "corruption"? A ballpark
figure from the website of your choice will be fine.

~~~
msandford
Yes, that's all fine. But here's the thing: even if the billion dollars
dropped magically out of the air, it still only took a billion dollars to
develop a new rocket. Doesn't matter where the money came from if that's how
much money it was.

I don't care if it's public or private money that made SpaceX possible, and it
doesn't much matter to me if the tech to go to Mars is all designed from
scratch or bought from people who already know how to do it. It's that it is
possible to do big things for a lot less than $50B.

If you have to design everything from scratch because it's $10k/lb and every
pound counts, well, then yes it's going to cost a huge pile of money.

But what if it's $1k/lb to get to space? Suddenly COTS stuff doesn't look as
stupid.

~~~
jordanpg
No, it took much more than a billion dollars to develop a rocket. You are just
ignoring huge swathes of the cost to support your claim. If you estimate the
aggregate cost of SpaceX launches, including 50 years of work by NASA, it will
be orders of magnitude greater than $1B. I mean, tell yourself whatever you
want, but R&D isn't free, and they didn't have to do most of it.

In the context of the present thread, since many of the problems associated
with a manned Mars mission are unsolved, forgive me if I'm skeptical that Adam
Smith's invisible hand will somehow bring the cost down to manageable levels.
With or without COTS.

~~~
msandford
There's a big difference from developing the FIRST rocket and developing A
rocket. The first one is now built. We now have the people with the
experience. It can (and is!) being done.

I'm not arguing the price of the first rockets that NASA built at all. I'm
arguing that SpaceX didn't have an extra hundred billion of secret NSA black
money that they used in addition to the publicly known about billion that we
can be sure was spent.

You can't argue that because NASA spent $20B or whatever in 1960's dollars to
get us to the moon that somehow SpaceX's $1B rocket is ACTUALLY a $21B rocket.
You could argue that if SpaceX had to develop everything from scratch it would
cost a lot more than $1B, but they didn't.

Similarly not everything that it would take to go to Mars is going to have to
be engineered from scratch. Especially as launch prices keep coming down. If
you could get to orbit for $100/lb it's only 10x as expensive as overnight air
freight and at that point weight wouldn't even be a real issue anymore.

Is it kind-of crazy to talk about $100/lb launches right now? Yeah sure. But
Musk has said that it's $200k worth of fuel to launch a Falcon 9, which has a
30klb payload to LEO. That's $6/lb in marginal cost plus whatever overhead on
the rocket. Suddenly $100/lb doesn't look quite so batshit insane.

------
twelfthnight
"Gravity on Mars is only 38% that of Earth’s. What this would mean for the
long-term health of colonists on Mars is not known"

I think this fact is often overlooked. The problem of gravity (and radiation)
are probably harder to overcome than food and oxygen.

~~~
nickff
This kind of argument was made early and often in the late 1950s, with respect
to zero gravity, and it proved to be fear-mongering. Without evidence for this
sort of proposition, it is simply pessimistic speculation.

This piece was not well researched, please do not invest too much credence in
it.

~~~
pbh101
To this day astronauts need to spend good amounts of time exercising during
long stints in zero-g aboard ISS to avoid significant bone loss. Of course,
maybe if you never leave Mars, you would be just fine with the bone
density/strength you have.

~~~
nickff
Citing specific problems can be instructive, and I would agree that bone and
muscle mass loss could prove very bad. My issue is with nebulous claims that
'anything could happen'.

I would add that the bone and muscle problems are very well known to just
about everyone who has done as much as read a science fiction book. Heinlein
went into the subject in detail in his 1966 novel "The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress", and more recent writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson have written
about it too.

~~~
andyjohnson0
It is worth remembering that Heinlein and KSR are writers of _fiction_ , which
tends to gloss-over difficult problems in favour of pleasing stories. Neither
were/are scientists, although Heinlein had an engineering degree, and it would
be inadvisable to rely on their work.

In 1966 the space endurance record was just under 14 days (Gemini 7) and very
little was known about the long-term effects of low gravity environments at
that time.

------
ridgeguy
For anyone interested in a good, intense read about surviving alone on Mars, I
highly recommend Andy Weir's "The Martian". Fiction (for awhile, anyway) based
on science & engineering & human behavior. Don't start it on an evening when
you can't stay up all night!

~~~
hexwab
Seconded.

------
anonimancio
If that is the intellectual level of the applicants, they have far worse
problems than radiation and food.

------
kalms
This is one exceptionally well-written article.

~~~
benastan
The illustrations and structure added a lot as well!

------
cromag
A well written article, interspersed with great art. Makes me wonder why he
published it on Medium of all places.

This article deserved better. The author deserves recognition.

