Musk: $9 million to Mars?

[yevaud]

Well, mining would be inseperable from any real attempt to colonize, wouldn't it? Although, from a real-world point of view, all mining activity would go immediately to the needs of all the Martian colonies.<br /><br />After all, trying to haul that sheer mass even out of Mars' gravity well would be prohibitive in cost. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[halman]

spacester,<br /><br />One of my biggest weaknesses is forgeting that what I was taught in school is often wrong. I have an odd fascination with science, and causality was a major part of my world view as I was growing up. The process of linear thinking, also known as rational thought, became something like a religion to me, and I denied all the intuitive, non-lienear aspects of my own existance. So, when I view a process such as space exploration, I tend to think that it should happen in linear fashion. Because, to me, space exploration right now is like building a bridge, a bridge between Earth and the rest of the Cosmos. We have not yet mastered traveling back and forth through the barrier that seperates us from the rest of everything, and to do so, making the journey cheap and safe, will be like building a bridge across a chasm.<br /><br />To my mind, building the bridge means giving those who are going to pay for it, one way or another, an idea of where the bridge goes, so that they will be willing to support our work. Private spaceflight ventures are using the same resource that the government uses, money, our money. Whether it comes from the personal wealth made from doing business with us or the taxes on the business we do, it is our money. If we don't spend enough of it on building the bridge, the bridge keeps falling down. We can show people the Moon, and say "that is where the bridge will go for now. Later, we will go other places, those little lights in the sky." Once the bridge is built, getting to the places on the other side of the barrier will be much easier, and much cheaper. But building the bridge will not be cheap, no matter how we go about it, because of the nature of the barrier. It has taken huge investments just to learn how to cross the barrier, and it still is very exprensive. I applaud those who are trying to learn how to cross that barrier on their own, but I want to make sure that their efforts do not interfere with the buildin <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

Continuing the bridge analogy, which of the following two bridges would you consider ESAS to most closely resemble: Tacoma Narrows or the Gravina Island Bridge To Nowhere?

 

[j05h]

> Pathfinder01 explained the food thing better than I would have but the one thing I would add. You could probably spend the money you'd spend on ensuring food supplies more effectively by simply spending it on establishing the return path that one way mars advocates has suddenly said is so costly.<br /><br />Send another 5 ton module of freeze-dried Mountain House food (guaranteed for 30 years on the shelf) or develop an entire Earth-return vehicle? Those are apples and clockwork oranges you are comparing. "simply spending it" on another vehicle is an oxymoron. <br /><br />Someone above said they would "settle" on Mars only if they could buy a return ticket. Most of the people that settled the Americas never returned to the Old World, you go to settle if you plan on staying. You go for research if you plan on leaving. It's the difference between a "base" and a "town".<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[crossovermaniac]

The $9 million firgure for people to settle Mars isn't far off from Robert Zubrin's estimate for $1 billion per launch for a 24-manned rocket going one way to Mars (it's essentially Mars-Direct only the return vehicle is replaced with a larger crew mission module).

 

[pathfinder_01]

“Someone above said they would "settle" on Mars only if they could buy a return ticket. Most of the people that settled the Americas never returned to the Old World, you go to settle if you plan on staying. You go for research if you plan on leaving. It's the difference between a "base" and a "town".”<br /><br /><br />Historically speaking the first attempt to settle the Americas by Europeans were the Vikings, who had a lot of trouble with the natives and decided to leave. <br /><br />England’s first colony likewise decided to pack up and leave.<br /><br /><br /><br />England’s second attempt to colonize ended with all colonist dead(or at least missing). Check out : <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_America<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Island<br /><br />It was only the colony of james town created many years afterwards that was successful. <br />

 

[j05h]

> Historically speaking the first attempt to settle the Americas by Europeans were the Vikings, who had a lot of trouble with the natives and decided to leave.<br /><br />There is some evidence that members of the Greenland colony permanently resettled in North America. Also, there are nearly continuous journeys from the 800ADs until the 1450s by Scandinavians, who also lead their Portugeuse allies along a northern route to Vinland. Greenlanders paid their papal tithes in American furs for hundreds of years. The Icelander Saga that I have includes a map identifying "Hop" as modern New York Harbor. If there were permanent settlements in the Americas, they would have quickly subsumed into the general "American Indian" genotypes. The Narragansetts that your English colonists met in southern New England were already mixed-blood from Portugeuse sailors in the 1500s. Roanoke is just another example of immigrants going native.<br /><br />Maybe we'll settle the Moon and only use Mars for resource extraction. I study enough history to be leary of all analogies. There is always a counter example. I stand by my statement about settling versus bases. We should insist on something other than flags-and-footprints. <br /><br />Count me in on a one-way settlement flight. Not sure how I'll pay for it, but it looks like I have a few decades to save.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

“Maybe we'll settle the Moon and only use Mars for resource extraction. I study enough history to be leary of all analogies. There is always a counter example. I stand by my statement about settling versus bases. We should insist on something other than flags-and-footprints.”<br /><br /> In my view a flag and foot prints is more like an Apollo mission. Where they left a few automated experiments behind, grab some rocks and had no intention of returning to the same site within the same program. <br /><br />I think the ISS and the Shuttle are perhaps the best things to happen to manned space flight. Did they put people on the moon? , NO where they cheap or on time? No, but they finally allowed more real work as opposed to land, take some pictures and grab rocks. For the first time we get to see what longer spaceflight require. For the first time we learn how to build and repair things on orbit. <br /><br />Bases are the way towards settlement. A moon base that returns science is much easier to sell than some lunar or Martian welfare colony. (i.e. We put the people up there, they are doing nothing for the people of earth at the moment, and will do nothing for the people of earth for the foreseeable future and require us to send stuff to them or they die.)<br /><br />A base can grow into a colony. I live in a city the started as a base to trade furs with the native Americans now it is the second largest city in the U.S. I think that a lunar base is the way towards colony. <br /><br />In fact sometimes people coming back home is a good thing. They can take a role in developing the next step. For instance with the information gather from the failed colony of Popham, the English were able to choose a better location for the next colony in the area. That colony was successful. <br />

 

[quasar2]

it was on here &/or the other thread about psychological effects of staying on Mars. by this i mean people would go crazy staying there. i wonder if anyone has ever thought of the reverse? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

"In my view a flag and foot prints is more like an Apollo mission. Where they left a few automated experiments behind, grab some rocks and had no intention of returning to the same site within the same program."<br /><br />In that case we need more flag and foot prints expeditions. The Apollo missions revolutionised our understanding of the nature and history of the Moon, Earth, and entire solar system, and provided a basis for a wide range of future missions.<br /><br />"No, but they finally allowed more real work as opposed to land, take some pictures and grab rocks. "<br /><br />No argument at all on the importance of the ISS and Shuttle programs. But to keep dismissing Apollo as just pictures & rocks shows that you don't understand how much was achieved by these missions. The missions did real science, real research, real exploration.<br /><br />There is no way whatsoever that Apollo could have been considered a flags and footprints mission. Only if it had stopped at Apollo 11 could it have been considered that.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

“No argument at all on the importance of the ISS and Shuttle programs. But to keep dismissing Apollo as just pictures & rocks shows that you don't understand how much was achieved by these missions. The missions did real science, real research, real exploration.”<br /><br /> Oh, I agree. Apollo was impressive and important and yeah they did learn as much as they could within it’s limitations. Just wish it were possible to have kept running Apollo and do stuff in LEO and make moon bases. But sadly Apollo was just too expensive and NASA has been stuck in LEO unable to even to build a Space station by itself. <br /><br />Back on the subject of one way trips, I remember reading one of those school library type books on spaceflight written shortly before the Gemini program. It was so interesting to read what they thought would be a problem the astronaut’s vision turn out to be not a problem at all but what they thought would be easy (spacewalking) turned out to be a lot more difficult than originally planned. I think those sorts of things will likely doom a one way mission. Time and material wasted on things that look important but turn out to be non-issuses (vision, ability to swallow food) and false expectations of ease (spacewalking). <br /><br />Anyway I found this intresting paper on biosphere2 <br /><br />http://janepoynter.com/documents/LessonsfromBio2.pdf<br /><br />And this one on the psychological effects of long term isolation<br /><br />http://web.mit.edu/16.459/www/Palinkas.pdf<br /><br /><br />

 

[JonClarke]

Two great links, thank you. It 's really hard to find good peer reviewed material on Bisophere 2.<br /><br />Pity that Apollo did not continue and develop. But that si the politics for you.<br /><br />I agree it is really interesting going through old literature especially to see how they predict the future and what will and will not be a problem. It can be very salutory.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[spacester]

Ditto, great links, new stuff to me. As Jon said, Biosphere seems to be MIA on the web as far as high quality, peer reviewed stuff goes.<br /><br />The MIT link is the best material on the subject I've ever seen. I was surprised that it is from 2001, I should have found it before. Most everything else on this subject I can easily pick apart for displaying an 'Ivory Tower' perspective, but not so here. <br /><br />I would note that the Abstract does not seem to address the main point I like making, that the excitement of being in the Martian environment is likely to be a mitigating factor. But I did find it in the body of the paper (page 26, pdf sheet 2 of 9, final paragraph), so that was exciting for me.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Personality traits that predict ability and performance pre-flight may be of little little value in predicting behavior and performance in-flight because the actual characteristics of the environment in which the behavior occurs is so dramatically different.</font><br /><br />Noting of course, that the whole subject is said to be highly controversial.<br />*<br />Going thru old stuff is my secret weapon for keeping up with things and looking to the future. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yoda9999]

<font color="yellow">Personality traits that predict ability and performance pre-flight may be of little little value in predicting behavior and performance in-flight because the actual characteristics of the environment in which the behavior occurs is so dramatically different.</font><br /><br />In other words, someone who says he's really excited about being on Mars, might hate it once he's there.<br /><br />Any Mars mission will require people who are enthusiastic about living on Mars. But excitement can only go so far. Humans get use to places. Excitement might last a few weeks or months.<br /><br />I don't think you want people with strong personal feelings or agendas on a Mars mission. Someone who hates Mars or loves Mars will not be objective in how they handle the mission. They will be a danger to other crewmembers. You need people who are mentally balanced and not let Mars cloud their judgement. Someone who loves Mars might not report serious problems to mission control. Someone who hates Mars will be reporting too many problems to mission control.<br /><br />I am very interested in reading more about Biosphere 2 and other such experiments. I bet the 2 factions Poynter mentions were between those who had a more personal attachment to Biosphere, and those who were more objective in evaluating Biosphere.

 

[quasar2]

it`s quite interesting that Biospere2 & ArcoSanti became theme parks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[georgeniebling]

MSTF?

 

[spacester]

Those are all good points. I'm just happy that the um, 'environmental awesomeness factor' has been put on the table along with everything else. This is the first paper I know of to bring the issue up. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[j05h]

> I don't think you want people with strong personal feelings or agendas on a Mars mission.<br /><br />It depends on whether they are researchers or colonists. Researchers should be somewhat dispassionate about their subject. Colonists by their nature will have a calling to where they settle. What it boils down to is that any real space development will be multi-faceted and bring with it all our problems and greatness. <br /><br />One interesting aspect of a $9M ticket to Mars, is how much hardware can you bring along? Until there is tool-making on Mars, every bit of hardware you need goes with you - or you buy what's available on the other end. I'm guessing that you'd need several 10s of tons equipment to homestead Mars, less so if moving into a pre-built town.<br /><br /> /> I am very interested in reading more about Biosphere 2 and other such experiments. I bet the 2 factions Poynter mentions were between those who had a more personal attachment to Biosphere, and those who were more objective in evaluating Biosphere.<br /><br />The emotional issues were always a problem with Biosphere. They also didn't really understand what they were trying to create. For instance, they mixed desert sand and cow manure to make "soil" - it sucked up huge amounts of O2 digesting. Lots of mistakes were made. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[yoda9999]

I wonder if Biosphere 2 was too ambitious, like it had too many environments in such a relatively small confined place? Did they really need a desert, rainforest, ocean, all those different things in that place? Maybe if the ecosystem was simpler, they could solve the problems better. Have a baseline environment, and then introduce complexity in a gradual systematic manner. Instead they just threw everything into a pot and made a stew.

 

[pathfinder_01]

“For instance, they mixed desert sand and cow manure to make "soil" - it sucked up huge amounts of O2 digesting. Lots of mistakes were made.”<br /><br />From what I have read the problem was a compound one created mostly by a lack of full up testing and a lack of appropriate testing. . From what I can tell they understood what they were trying to create, but what they created just didn’t behave in the expected way. Sorta like the Shuttle’s foam issues or Saturn V’s J2 engine that worked perfectly on the ground but mysteriously failed in flight. They expected CO2 and O2 levels to be in balance. As CO2 declined O2 should rise and as O2 declined CO2 should have rose. Instead both CO2 and O2 declined. <br /><br />The soil mixture which actually was pretty conventional it was sand, peat moss and compost (which was changed slightly the 2nd time around). True it was rather enriched, but they thought that the enriched soil would help the crops not eat the oxygen. <br />Also the amount of soil was a problem (They had way too much for all of the plants barring fruit trees and so it did nothing but eat the oxygen).<br /><br />The concrete unexpectedly removed the CO2 which in turn made it more difficult for the plants to make oxygen and grow. Plants generate oxygen from water, but low CO2 levels interfere with the photosynthesis process. There was too little light which in turn affected both food crops and oxygen generation. <br /><br />One interesting lesson learned concrete can remove CO2 which is not always a good thing. You might need to send up some coatings for your moon or mars base to keep the CO2 from binding to the concrete.<br /><br />Another point is the idea of being able to sterilize the growth media just in case you got some pests. <br /><br />Also the psychologically the quality of the environment might be more important than the quantity of it. I was looking at all the stuff they had, animals, swamps, rain forests, beaches, extra apparent space…yikes the place out

 

[pathfinder_01]

“I wonder if Biosphere 2 was too ambitious, like it had too many environments in such a relatively small confined place? Did they really need a desert, rainforest, ocean, all those different things in that place? Maybe if the ecosystem was simpler, they could solve the problems better. Have a baseline environment, and then introduce complexity in a gradual systematic manner. Instead they just threw everything into a pot and made a stew.”<br /><br />From what I read that was how the tested it. Part by part which really was not enough. As the saying goes a system is more than the sum of it’s parts.<br /><br />Also the idea was to run biological experiments there in addition to testing an enclosed environment. So they kinda needed that stuff. <br />

 

[JonClarke]

I suspect Biosphere 2 was too complex and more complex than it need be. But they did want to replicate the major terrestrial biomes.<br /><br />Despite the problems they achieved very very high levels of closure, which is quite and achievement.<br /><br />An example of a less ambitious experiment in closed life support (but perhaps more successful as a result) was the Russian BIOS program more successful, especially as they were not aiming at complete closure, just high levels of it.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS-3<br /><br />Really high levels of closure are more important for space colonies and the Moon than on the surface of mars where you can always top up inefficiencies by local supplies of water and CO2<br /><br />BTW there is a conference coming up on the subject, if anyone is interested! http://www-sbras.nsc.ru/ws/life_support/index.en.html<br /><br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

I think too much emphasis is put on having a fully closed environment. I do think it needs to have resources to support themselves for at least 12 mo (at least, for Mars. The moon is closer, and 3-6 mo is probably acceptable) We will be able to send supplies. Even if we send a supply ship every 6 months, there should be plenty of overlap, in case of delays or problems. Supply shipments would be able to help replenish materials, and even bring back colony produced supplies to earth. This also helps stimulate trade/economy/settlement opportunities. As time goes on, the colony will become more self sufficient, but it doesn't have to happen all at once. They need to have provisions, etc, for a year when they first go, as well as basic equipment for harvesting resources, and a machine shop, etc, for processing those raw materials into what is needed. Plan at first for a resupply ship every 6 months, and increase as trade/settlement etc is needed and the costs begin to come down.<br /><br />Rae

 

[quasar2]

There`s no way of telling when or if a Mars Colony, (even if it wouldn`t be one-way) would be resupplied, revisited, etc. Hence the reason for a closed system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[georgeniebling]

again, what does MSTF mean?