Musk: $9 million to Mars?

[JonClarke]

I agree. I think this issue is brought up by the generation Y people to whom internet access is of higher priority than oxygen. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <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>

 

[Boris_Badenov]

The HLV thread got me wondering what the One Way Ship would look like? Elon has dropped a few hints about the BFR, my guess is that it will lift 100 tons to LEO. Using that as a starting point, & able to carry 100 people, what would the ship look like? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

“The HLV thread got me wondering what the One Way Ship would look like? Elon has dropped a few hints about the BFR, my guess is that it will lift 100 tons to LEO. Using that as a starting point, & able to carry 100 people, what would the ship look like? “<br /><br /><br />That’s a good question but it would probably be unanswerable. I can’t imagine any ship able to carry one hundred people being able to safely land on mars without a seriously large landing pad or runway. And the amount of fuel needed to shuttle folks back and forward from mars orbit(as well as reliability of such craft) might be prohibitive. And I am not sure that automation has reached a stage on earth where we could construct a large landing pad without anyone present much less another planet. <br /><br />HLV might be the ticket to exploration of the solar system, but colonization is another ball of wax. Anyway if the one way colony is to be genetically viable (i.e. have a low rate of genetic defects.) You would need to carry about 200 people. You might be able to get away with 170ish if you do some careful screening. <br /><br />

 

[bpfeifer]

" I can’t imagine any ship able to carry one hundred people being able to safely land on mars without a seriously large landing pad or runway. And the amount of fuel needed to shuttle folks back and forward from mars orbit(as well as reliability of such craft) might be prohibitive. And I am not sure that automation has reached a stage on earth where we could construct a large landing pad without anyone present much less another planet. "<br /><br />If I were planning such a migration, I'd drop a much smaller team on site a couple of years in advance to start constructing infrastructure, like the landing pad/strip you require. It'd have to be mostly automated construction equipment, but with human oversite and repair. They could also lay out your landing becons, survey habitate foundations, and start up the resource extraction systems. There's no reason not to lay out some basic infrastructure before the guys set out in the conestoga wagons. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Brian J. Pfeifer http://sabletower.wordpress.com<br /> The Dogsoldier Codex http://www.lulu.com/sabletower<br /> </div>

 

[rocketman5000]

I know this may sound inhuman, but as long as there was a high enough birthrate to keep the population growing, wouldn't the birth defects discontinue after a generation or so? <br /><br />A more human way would be to prescreen people I guess to identify any pontential regressive genetic diseases.

 

[pathfinder_01]

Ah no, they wouldn’t disappear after one generation because they are recessive. Some of the healthy children would be carrying a copy of the bad gene and the probability of two bad copies of the gene getting together is increased by the low population. <br /><br /><br />The other half of the equation is genetic diversity. Having all individuals genetically alike is a bad thing. It would make the whole population equally susceptible to the same threats. For instance should a bacteria or virus infect the colony then all of the members would be equally susceptible. Everyone would be equally susceptible to radiation. Having more people makes the population less susceptible to things like that so that the colony might loose a few members and not everyone. <br /><br />The lowest estimate I have seen is you would need 150-180 people if you screen out because everyone carries about 10-100 defective genes. One interesting solution to the problem is to carry embryos and send a few good women! Fertilize the embryos on earth, freeze then implant them in the women saving tons of space and supplies. <br />

 

[rocketman5000]

I can't seem to find the article now (I thought it was on Livescience), but artificial uterus's (using stem cells grown on a collagen frame) have been developed and successfully implanted with an embryo for 6 days when by law the expirement was ended.<br /><br />Your idea is nice, but you forget living on Mars will be in a mostly closed system. With energy and mass (water and breathable air) be lost not inserted into the system. So while you save mass and space on the embryo, you still have to take the mass the babies will eventually become along. <br /><br />Well either that or you have to send in supplies from off world

 

[rocketman5000]

But your embryo idea did give me one thought. Whenever genetic diversity was starting to wane you could have an automated (and well sheilded from radiation) spacecraft shipped from Earth (or elsewhere if we have gotten that far) that would have frozen embryos to reseed the gene pool.

 

[pathfinder_01]

I think the idea is to carry as little as possible and make as much as possible on site. Me personally I think a one way trip is a no go and I think that landing hundreds of people on the planet when we still haven’t landed the first is likewise a no go. <br /><br />The idea is to carry the embryos (which need little room, but power) and implant them on mars. You would grow the food; make the oxygen and all the rest out of mars stuff so that would be the savings. <br /><br />Of coarse that doesn’t get into hassle of implanting them on mars when implanting them on earth isn’t exactly a 100% shoot at pregnancy. The radiation the embryos would be exposed to possibly leading to birth defects. The problem of can children grows up healthy on mars and how exactly to raise the children in an enclosed environment with limited staffing. <br />

 

[halman]

rocketman5000,<br /><br />Sometimes, I have to wonder if Musk's real intent is to keep manned off planet exploration in the public eye, so that it gets as much funding as possible. And Mars is certainly the most popular off planet destination, in spite of a number of serious drawbacks, which are blithely dismissed by many of the most ardent fans of colonization.<br /><br />But the whole idea of getting off of this planet just to go to another one seems to me akin to wearing blinders while walking through Best Buy. The potential for incredible advances in materials science, physics, medicine, and numerous other fields by learning to use microgravity and solar energy is mind boggling to me. And the most important aspect of learning to utilize these off planet resources is the ability to shield our ancestral home from the side effects of industrialization, I believe. I am anxious to see humans become established on another world, to insure that the race will survive in spite of catastrophe here on Earth, but I am reluctant to believe that such a colony can be self sufficient within the next 100 years. Yet, 100 more years of our current treatment of the ecosphere may put human existence on Earth in jeopardy.<br /><br />As long as humans have access to space, developing a colony on Mars is possible. Insuring that such access will continue is most likely if large corporations become involved in exploiting off planet resources. To entice them into spending their countless billions, we need to focus on the trillions that will be made when off planet industries are firmly established. Certainly, invoking Mars stirs the imagination of many adventurous persons, but it does little to create the wealth that will make terraforming Mars possible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

The first settlement should be research, but this thread gave me an idea, that could very well help with cost. If we can build the ship, other space agencies/countries/businesses may be willing to pay millions for their scientists to be able to make the trip. Some of the cost could be defrayed based on contributions to the program, but also allow for others to take part. It's going to take a pretty decent sized group to be able to build and sustain any base or settlement. There's going to be a lot of work to do, over and above any research. A small group might deliver the initial cargo, but it's going to take more than just a handful of people to make it work.<br /><br />Rae