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SLS / Orion / Beyond-LEO HSF - Constellation => Missions To Mars (HSF) => Topic started by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/23/2013 02:53 pm

Title: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/23/2013 02:53 pm
While I'm rootin' for Mars One, I'm pretty skeptical they will actually succeed. Just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking...
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Eric Hedman on 03/23/2013 03:25 pm
I think a lot of people over simplify what is involved in many things in aerospace.  I think this is one of them.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/23/2013 03:59 pm
Space Adventures leveraged pre-existing federally or nationally-validated LEO capabilities.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: manboy on 03/23/2013 04:09 pm
While I'm rootin' for Mars One, I'm pretty skeptical they will actually succeed. Just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking...
They have no chance of success.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/23/2013 04:20 pm
ClaytonBirchenough, if you have time would you do me the favor of scouring the NSF website and linking threads that deal with other Mars one-way / 'suicide' missions?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/23/2013 04:37 pm
ClaytonBirchenough, if you have time would you do me the favor of scouring the NSF website and linking threads that deal with other Mars one-way / 'suicide' missions?

Yup, here's some threads of interest:

One-way Mars threads:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21196.0

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18647.0

NASA one-way Mars thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23152.0

Mars One thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.0


Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: R7 on 03/23/2013 05:22 pm
No. Even the most successful reality tvs (Idols etc) don't generate enough income for credible Mars mission. Large masses connect with singing/dancing etc., not space techno babble. Will be surprised if Mars One manages to air even one episode of anything.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Garrett on 03/23/2013 05:53 pm
Nope, not a chance they'll succeed.

Dennis Tito's plans for a free return, non landing, mission in 2018 might have a slight chance of succeeding, but even that "simple" mission profile looks tough to pull off, so I just can't even fathom Mars One's plans working out.

It looks like the big winner from both of the above attempts will be Paragon SDC.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/23/2013 10:10 pm
No chance, but it'll be nice to see them try. I wonder what will be the final roadblock.. financial or regulatory?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/24/2013 03:21 am

Thank you. The barriers of entry on this forum usually require new data, or new science on old questions, or occasionally more global surveys of knowledge that inevitably result in contention around fault lines laid down in the cosmos just after the Planck epoch. Which is to say: A possibly more appropriate question is "Will a one-way / suicide Mars architecture succeed, ever?" Don't flinch. The word describes what it is.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/24/2013 04:32 am
A possibly more appropriate question is "Will a one-way / suicide Mars architecture succeed, ever?" Don't flinch. The word describes what it is.

While I agree with you, there's plenty of people who don't. What's the point of getting into this argument again?

One can always pose questions like: If the chance of success were high, would a one-way mission still be a suicide mission? The conversation that results will be a discussion of words not deeds.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/24/2013 05:22 am

Straight words.

What are your suggestions on how to make the Mars Society's analog Mars stations more deed-like? Those are the only deeds I see, and they are faint deeds in comparison to the Lansdorp ambition. I think there is a huge range of opportunity between the two. I hereby propose the "Lansdorp metric": How similar is the minute-by-minute occupancy of someone at Utah Mars Desert Research Station to the minute-by-minute occupancy of a Lansdorp astronaut? What is the ratio. Is there any funding model between a Society's dues and Lansdorp's media idea?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Oli on 03/24/2013 08:50 pm

Maybe investors are willing to finance design studies and the astronaut selection show, but after that...

I wouldn't rule it out completely, there are global shows which generate big revenues (top gear comes to my mind) and with wannabe colonists from countries all over the world it certainly has a shot at reaching a worldwide audience. Still, if nobody wants to see mars colonists on tv the best show won't save them.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ARD on 03/24/2013 09:22 pm
A possibly more appropriate question is "Will a one-way / suicide Mars architecture succeed, ever?" Don't flinch. The word describes what it is.

With all due respect, how would a one-way Mars mission, provided confidence in resupply for an indefinite period of time, be a suicide any more than would be the decision to move to another country, or join a monastic community, or any of a number of other major lifestyle changes?  I've seen the terminology used before on this forum and elsewhere, but I haven't actually seen any of the justification for its use. 
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/24/2013 10:27 pm
With all due respect, how would a one-way Mars mission, provided confidence in resupply for an indefinite period of time, be a suicide any more than would be the decision to move to another country, or join a monastic community, or any of a number of other major lifestyle changes?  I've seen the terminology used before on this forum and elsewhere, but I haven't actually seen any of the justification for its use. 

How is it a "mission"? Also, what does "resupply" really mean? Does "Mars" mean the same thing to you as it does to me? What is a "lifestyle" anyway?

Please don't engage in semantic arguments. We all end up sounding like Martha Stewart.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/24/2013 11:46 pm
With all due respect, how would a one-way Mars mission, provided confidence in resupply for an indefinite period of time, be a suicide any more than would be the decision to move to another country, or join a monastic community, or any of a number of other major lifestyle changes?  I've seen the terminology used before on this forum and elsewhere, but I haven't actually seen any of the justification for its use. 

How is it a "mission"? Also, what does "resupply" really mean? Does "Mars" mean the same thing to you as it does to me? What is a "lifestyle" anyway?

Please don't engage in semantic arguments. We all end up sounding like Martha Stewart.


It seems to me "semantic arguments" always have negatives and positives. Whether the reasoning is positive or negative, in this case the astronauts and financiers should decide this for themselves.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 03/25/2013 12:00 am
A possibly more appropriate question is "Will a one-way / suicide Mars architecture succeed, ever?" Don't flinch. The word describes what it is.

With all due respect, how would a one-way Mars mission, provided confidence in resupply for an indefinite period of time, be a suicide any more than would be the decision to move to another country, or join a monastic community, or any of a number of other major lifestyle changes?  I've seen the terminology used before on this forum and elsewhere, but I haven't actually seen any of the justification for its use. 

The confidence in resupply cannot be provided, largely because confidence in getting there in the first place, on a shoestring budget can not be provided.  Mars One is a foundation, not a business.  The company exists to provide income for its founders for a number of years.  From the buzz, it seems that part of their strategy might be working.  IDK.

They haven't convinced the majority of us armchair critics that they've even covered the basics.  SLS will fly first.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2013 12:03 am
They haven't convinced the majority of us armchair critics that they've even covered the basics.  SLS will fly first.

Nice one. I'm so glad I wasn't drinking coke while reading that or you'd owe me a new keyboard ;)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/25/2013 02:01 am
provided confidence in resupply for an indefinite period of time
Thin margins versus thin funding. Reality tv is to generate revenue for a shareholder. I may be missing a successful show here or there, but I was under the impression that Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs were successful adult-oriented reality shows that generated the most profit.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/discovery-communications-second-quarter-profit-218820
"Discovery slightly raised its full-year revenue guidance range from $4.025 billion-$4.125 billion to $4.075 billion-$4.175 billion. It still targets 2011 earnings of $1 billion-$1.075 billion."
Using the cosmological principle, we must assume that the viewing demographic is no different in Lansdorp's envisioned future than in our own normal evening habit. He would have to produce a _lot_ of quality content, on time, every time, for years on end, with scarce story of profit for vicarious gambling, with scarce interpersonal drama of a Jersey Shore luminosity, with more technical jargon than an ordinary couch American would tolerate, with a probable gender gap in viewership, without recourse to a fresh new set of disposable faces and bio. Yeah, you can sign advertisement like Axe and Red Bull but those appeal to an ephemeral flags and footprint format which is de rigueur to the male - you need more family / kids / domestic homesteading capable advertising because this is long haul, or, it's (). You can stretch the content to have good pricey episodes and then economic holding down the fort episodes. Then even the finest quality content is at the mercy of networks, favoritism, time slots. Based on your finding of advertising during reality shows, and possible discretionary dollars after the shareholding groups have taken their slice, do you think Lansdorp has a basis?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: RocketmanUS on 03/25/2013 03:17 am
Did not vote.

Maybe.
If the tech can be made in time.
Launcher, lander, life support , Mars Habs, ect.
If they join with others it could be done.
Mars-One as the media part of a larger team.

There are a lot of big if's.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 03/25/2013 12:15 pm
Answering Hernalt's last question:  No.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: SpacexULA on 03/25/2013 12:56 pm
I can't help but think that once Falcon Heavy is online we are going to see a lot more Mars One type projects.  I don't think Mars One by itself will make it to Mars, but I could absolutely see them as one of the investors in a first commercial mission to Mars.

I still think the dream situation is 2-3 separate programs all going to Mars, but all agreeing to set up base in the same crater.  All sharing logistics, power, communications, and transport

I voted post 2023

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2013 09:38 pm
A few years ago I was fond of saying: only Bob Zubrin thinks you can go all the way to Mars in a capsule, we need spaceships. The pendulum has swung back to his brand of crazy for the moment with catchphrases like "iron men in wooden ships". Well, that's about to change. I think Elon will get around to announcing MCT this year or next and all these over-the-falls-in-a-barrel Mars plans will be quietly swept under the rug.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/25/2013 09:43 pm
A few years ago I was fond of saying: only Bob Zubrin thinks you can go all the way to Mars in a capsule, we need spaceships. The pendulum has swung back to his brand of crazy for the moment with catchphrases like "iron men in wooden ships". Well, that's about to change. I think Elon will get around to announcing MCT this year or next and all these over-the-falls-in-a-barrel Mars plans will be quietly swept under the rug.


What's your reasoning for thinking Elon will announce MCT in the near future? Was MCT ever confirmed to have something to do with Mars?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: go4mars on 03/25/2013 10:20 pm
Was MCT ever confirmed to have something to do with Mars?
Mars Colony Transport. 

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30103.0

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30456.0
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2013 10:34 pm
Apparently MCT = Mars Colonial Transport is attributable to Tom Mueller (SpaceX propulsion chief). No video of him saying it unfortunately.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 03/25/2013 11:04 pm
Nice one. I'm so glad I wasn't drinking coke while reading that or you'd owe me a new keyboard ;)

He'd not owe you a new keyboard in any case... Just as there is no inherent right not to be insulted, there is also no inherent right not to be amused at the inappropriate time. You're a good libertarian, you know that. [1]

Me, I just really do not understand the economic model of Mars One, unless it is in fact as John F surmises, merely a vehicle for grantseeking... So I voted Not Ever.

I do think that one way missions are how things probably will go, but not these guys.

1 - I know, I know, comedic effect requires claiming damages from cola snorting (or desnorting)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2013 11:28 pm
1 - I know, I know, comedic effect requires claiming damages from cola snorting (or desnorting)

Also, I drink Diet Coke which doesn't ruin keyboards. Neither does it attract ants, so I can't even use an Archer reference.

What were we talking about?


Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 03/26/2013 12:07 am
Apparently MCT = Mars Colonial Transport is attributable to Tom Mueller (SpaceX propulsion chief). No video of him saying it unfortunately.


That is very interesting. If Elon started a Mars program, he would truly have the credibility to follow through!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 03/26/2013 12:13 am
That is very interesting. If Elon started a Mars program, he would truly have the credibility to follow through!

Depending on your definition of "Mars program", he already has.. or he never will. As far as I'm aware, he still plans to get NASA (and perhaps others) to pay for it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/26/2013 03:33 am
...but the foorth Dragon stayed uup.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 03/26/2013 12:02 pm
I can't help but think that once Falcon Heavy is online we are going to see a lot more Mars One type projects.  I don't think Mars One by itself will make it to Mars, but I could absolutely see them as one of the investors in a first commercial mission to Mars.

I think it's doubtful.  They are a foundation.  The only investments that typical foundations make is for income purposes, not for capital appreciation.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 03/26/2013 12:06 pm
...comedic effect requires claiming damages from...

Coffee can be used, as well as tea.  Presumably any liquid could  cause damage.  Another area of injury is the imprintation of F5 thru F8 on the forehead.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 01:56 am
While I'm rootin' for Mars One, I'm pretty skeptical they will actually succeed. Just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking...

I think there is virtually no chance they'll get enough money to succeed.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 02:16 am
Does anyone at Mars One actually watch reality TV?

Reality TV is all about conflict.  The producers make sure the cast is full of people who have trouble getting along with each other.  People who can quietly get along with each other are far too boring for reality TV.

Successful reality TV also depends on having enough people in the cast to keep the drama fresh by having conflicts between different sets of people.  Even if they got four completely crazy people to send to Mars, it wouldn't be enough to hold anyone's interest for more than a few weeks.

Any group of people who could actually succeed on a pioneering Mars mission would be far too boring to get even enough viewers for two episodes.

An audience would tune in for a few key moments -- the actual landing, arrival in Mars orbit, and lift-off.  Those three moments aren't enough to pay for the mission.  The money TV would bring in is about two orders of magnitude less than even the most optimistic mission cost projections.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/04/2013 02:34 am
Not all reality tv is like that. Some of it is simply "we're doing stuff you wish you could do". Monster Garage and Comic Book Men come to mind, but there's dozens of others.

Not that, you know, I watch any reality tv if I can help it :)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 02:54 am
Not all reality tv is like that. Some of it is simply "we're doing stuff you wish you could do". Monster Garage and Comic Book Men come to mind, but there's dozens of others.

Not that, you know, I watch any reality tv if I can help it :)


And don't forget Junkyard Wars.

But compare the ratings of The Bachelor or Survivor with those of Monster Garage.  The vast majority of the viewing audience for reality TV is watching shows filled with interpersonal conflict.

And even Monster Garage had a new set of people every week.  Monster Garage also had a fresh, visually stimulating project to build every week.  That's not exactly the same as watching the same four people in the same small chamber week after week doing exactly the same thing.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/04/2013 02:56 am
And even Monster Garage had a new set of people every week.  Monster Garage also had a fresh, visually stimulating project to build every week.  That's not exactly the same as watching the same four people in the same small chamber week after week doing exactly the same thing.

Building a whole planetary civilization isn't enough to do?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 04/04/2013 03:30 am
And even Monster Garage had a new set of people every week.  Monster Garage also had a fresh, visually stimulating project to build every week.  That's not exactly the same as watching the same four people in the same small chamber week after week doing exactly the same thing.

Building a whole planetary civilization isn't enough to do?


It takes a long time to get to mars. By then everyone will be bored.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 03:37 am
And even Monster Garage had a new set of people every week.  Monster Garage also had a fresh, visually stimulating project to build every week.  That's not exactly the same as watching the same four people in the same small chamber week after week doing exactly the same thing.

Building a whole planetary civilization isn't enough to do?


It takes a long time to get to mars. By then everyone will be bored.

My feelings exactly.  The pace is just too slow to keep enough viewers to come anywhere close to funding this program.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 03:43 am
Unless the director gets the cast to agree to vote on one of the crew members to be eaten on Mars in the finale, this show is going to tank.  It is ironic that theApollo program used to be real reality TV.

Or even better, the viewers vote for which crew member gets eaten.  But that still only holds the viewers for two episodes.  American Idol can repeat that formula week after week because they have a big enough cast.  Mars One will only be able to hold viewers as long as they have more crew to push out the airlock.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/04/2013 03:51 am
It takes a long time to get to mars. By then everyone will be bored.

Who said it was going to be live?

Seriously, you guys seem to think Big Brother was the end of this horrible genre. If only.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 04/04/2013 04:07 am
Or even better, the viewers vote for which crew member gets eaten.  But that still only holds the viewers for two episodes.  American Idol can repeat that formula week after week because they have a big enough cast.  Mars One will only be able to hold viewers as long as they have more crew to push out the airlock.
Start with 15 and push one out the airlock each month???

Sorry, I'm descending into silliness but I can't take this idea seriously for long.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 04:14 am
It takes a long time to get to mars. By then everyone will be bored.

Who said it was going to be live?

Seriously, you guys seem to think Big Brother was the end of this horrible genre. If only.


Live or not, I just don't think the number of minutes of compelling TV (for the general viewing public) per year of the program is going to be very high.

We already have six astronauts in space 24/7.  Why doesn't Discovery have even a half-hour program per week following those astronauts?  Because nobody, even among Discovery's share of the viewing audience (who are most likely to be into scientific content), is interested in watching.  NASA TV is a channel run by the space agency and carried on some cable systems, and they do run programs about what's going on on the ISS fairly often.  Virtually nobody watches.  I'm a huge fan of human spaceflight, but even I find NASA TV boring.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/04/2013 04:20 am
We already have six astronauts in space 24/7.  Why doesn't Discovery have even a half-hour program per week following those astronauts?  Because nobody, even among Discovery's share of the viewing audience (who are most likely to be into scientific content), is interested in watching.

Actually, it's because they have no access. You see, in order for a tv show to get made you have to have "creative types" go in and make it interesting. It's extremely difficult to even get an astronaut on a talk show these days.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: hop on 04/04/2013 04:29 am
An audience would tune in for a few key moments -- the actual landing, arrival in Mars orbit, and lift-off.  Those three moments aren't enough to pay for the mission.
I think Mars One has 0% chance of success, but I do think they have something of a point that audiences for those key events could be on a par with (or better than) the Olympics or world cup. In theory, that could bring in revenue compatible with their cost estimates*, even if the rest of the time doesn't do much better than traditional junk reality shows.

If they had a credible mission on the pad ready to go, it's at least conceivable they could get gigabbucks for the broadcast and advertising rights.

Small problem: No one is going to give them gigabucks until they have proven they have a credible mission. That requires actually designing and building the hardware. Unless a mufti-billionaire decides to fund the whole thing, it's not going to happen.

* Whether their cost or schedule estimates are realistic is a different matter. To me, idea you can start a Mars colony for less than 3x the cost of MSL doesn't pass the giggle test.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Oli on 04/04/2013 04:35 am
Youtube generates around $3.6bn in revenues for google every year with 1 billion unique users visiting the site every month.

So Mars One needs 166m people watching its show or otherwise hanging around at www.mars-one.com every month for 10 years  ;D.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 04:50 am
We already have six astronauts in space 24/7.  Why doesn't Discovery have even a half-hour program per week following those astronauts?  Because nobody, even among Discovery's share of the viewing audience (who are most likely to be into scientific content), is interested in watching.

Actually, it's because they have no access. You see, in order for a tv show to get made you have to have "creative types" go in and make it interesting. It's extremely difficult to even get an astronaut on a talk show these days.

OK, you have a point.  I can believe that NASA would make it hard for Discovery to do the equivalent of an Ice Road Truckers with the ISS astronauts.

But I still don't believe following four astronauts in a capsule on their way to Mars, or on the surface of Mars tending their greenhouse, makes for a compelling enough TV show that there would be much of an audience, no matter how much the producers try to spice it up.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/04/2013 04:50 am
Youtube generates around $3.6bn in revenues for google every year with 1 billion unique users visiting the site every month.

.. and still isn't profitable. But hey, at least they inexplicably change the theme and introduce features no-one wants every 6 months.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/04/2013 04:52 am
Youtube generates around $3.6bn in revenues for google every year with 1 billion unique users visiting the site every month.

So Mars One needs 166m people watching its show or otherwise hanging around at www.mars-one.com every month for 10 years  ;D.

That's a good comparison to make.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 04/09/2013 07:39 pm
They now accept BitCoins (r).  The world's fastest growing currency!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: R7 on 04/11/2013 08:50 am
They now accept BitCoins (r).  The world's fastest growing currency!

And for a while world's fastest shrinking currency too!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 04/11/2013 09:05 am
They now accept BitCoins (r).  The world's fastest growing currency!

And for a while world's fastest shrinking currency too!

Both claims are suspect and offtopic. :)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: R7 on 04/11/2013 10:16 am
Both claims are suspect and offtopic. :)

Discussion about how accepting donations in volatile currency could help or not. Seems on topic to me. IMO Mars One has much better (yet still very thin) chances to succeed doing bitcoin speculation than reality-tv  ;D
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/11/2013 10:49 am
It's difficult to know where to start with the issues Mars One faces ...

I agree with most of the comments here; no hope of getting anything like the funding they need.  Comparison with Olympics etc are completely spurious and misleading. Olympics is a fantastic couple of weeks once every four years and packs in a huge amount of drama and variety in a brief period.  Not quite the same as day 36 vs day 37 on the way to Mars (yawn), or day 73 vs day 74 on the surface.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 04/11/2013 12:49 pm
They now accept BitCoins (r).  The world's fastest growing currency!

And for a while world's fastest shrinking currency too!

Both claims are suspect and offtopic.

They claim it on their website.  Tell them of your suspicions.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Patchouli on 04/11/2013 06:14 pm
I'm rooting for them but I think the way they're going about it is all wrong.

First they need to land some rovers lots of them.
Maybe use a simplified solar powered MER rover design including the EDL system and mass produce it.
Rent out use of the rovers to companies and universities.
Even sell secondary payload space on the missions.

Next they need to land some ISRU hardware and a teleoperated green house to test key technologies.

Then start landing power plants, methane fuel plants ,mining equipment and the basics of industry.

After these are in place start sending people to stay.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/11/2013 06:29 pm
I'm rooting for them but I think the way they're going about it is all wrong.

First they need to land some rovers lots of them.
Maybe use a simplified solar powered MER rover design including the EDL system and mass produce it.
Rent out use of the rovers to companies and universities.
Even sell secondary payload space on the missions.

Next they need to land some ISRU hardware and a teleoperated green house to test key technologies.

Then start landing power plants, methane fuel plants ,mining equipment and the basics of industry.

After these are in place start sending people to stay.

Where would they get the money for any of those things?

Their whole plan is premised on the idea that sending people to Mars is interesting enough they can sell TV rights to it.  By the logic of their plan, they need to start sending people as soon as they can, because they only get revenue then.  Sending a bunch of rovers costs them a lot, and doesn't bring in any money.

If sending rovers to Mars and renting them out could bring in more money than it costs, then that would be an entirely separate business idea.  Personally, I think the idea that you could make money renting out rovers on Mars in the near future is just as delusional as the idea you can fund human colonization of Mars through TV rights in the near future.  But the two ideas don't have much in common.

If the rovers don't bring in more money than they cost, they have zero advantage for Mars One.  We already know pretty much what the surface and atmosphere of Mars are like.  Some more rovers might give us interesting science, but they aren't likely to make colonization any easier.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Patchouli on 04/11/2013 06:54 pm


Where would they get the money for any of those things?

Their whole plan is premised on the idea that sending people to Mars is interesting enough they can sell TV rights to it.  By the logic of their plan, they need to start sending people as soon as they can, because they only get revenue then.  Sending a bunch of rovers costs them a lot, and doesn't bring in any money.

If sending rovers to Mars and renting them out could bring in more money than it costs, then that would be an entirely separate business idea.  Personally, I think the idea that you could make money renting out rovers on Mars in the near future is just as delusional as the idea you can fund human colonization of Mars through TV rights in the near future.  But the two ideas don't have much in common.

If the rovers don't bring in more money than they cost, they have zero advantage for Mars One.  We already know pretty much what the surface and atmosphere of Mars are like.  Some more rovers might give us interesting science, but they aren't likely to make colonization any easier.


They can find ice and other resources a colony would need to survive.

As for the business model there they could sell time and room for experiments to universities and companies.
I mining company for example might want to lay claim to the next big discovery of precious metals on Mars.
University professors and students may like to have an experiment flown to Mars or just drive a rover around.
There's the temptation to send people right away but sending machines first greatly lowers the risk and will greatly improve the chances of the first colonists making it.

Think about it you can test the EDL technology,scout out resources,demonstrate ISRU,and land some basic infrastructure all before putting a single person at risk.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 04/11/2013 06:56 pm

There's the temptation to send people right away but sending machines first greatly lowers the risk and will greatly improve the chances of the first colonists making it.

Think about it you can test the EDL technology,scout out resources,demonstrate ISRU,and land some basic infrastructure all before putting a single person at risk.


Way too logical to be practical for Mars One.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Patchouli on 04/11/2013 06:59 pm

There's the temptation to send people right away but sending machines first greatly lowers the risk and will greatly improve the chances of the first colonists making it.

Think about it you can test the EDL technology,scout out resources,demonstrate ISRU,and land some basic infrastructure all before putting a single person at risk.


Way too logical to be practical for Mars One.

Also might be cheap enough a couple of bored millionaires or one or two billionaires could fund it.

In theory if operational time and payload space was sold off on the rover missions they might come close to being able to pay for themselves.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Valerij on 04/15/2013 03:05 pm
Where would they get the money for any of those things?

Their whole plan is premised on the idea that sending people to Mars is interesting enough they can sell TV rights to it.  By the logic of their plan, they need to start sending people as soon as they can, because they only get revenue then.  Sending a bunch of rovers costs them a lot, and doesn't bring in any money.
   
Their plan is much more modest. II think that in their plans some years to conduct transfers how the command is going to fly to Mars. How there is a selection of participants and their preparation. In my opinion Mars One can send to Mars ровер which participants of the program and, possibly will operate from the Earth, sponsors and investors of the project, but actually no piloted flight to Mars within the limits of this project will exist.
Nevertheless even such project will increase interest to astronautics and to plans of colonisation of Mars. And already for it it is necessary to be grateful to authors Mars One.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 04/16/2013 12:48 pm
http://www.space.com/20680-mars-one-colony-astronaut-selection.html
Mars Colony Project to Begin Astronaut Search in July, 16 April 2013

I am curious to see what the guesses are of their landing site.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: sheltonjr on 04/16/2013 08:07 pm
We will know they are serious by the type of simulated Mars Colony they develop. It should be a real simulation of the martian environment to the maximum extent possible. These are the things I would expect of a simulated Mars colony:

1) Real Capsules and suits pressurized to 3 psi above ambient pressure. If it leaks you (simulated) die when the pressure drops to 0-1 psi of ambient.

2) Solar power with filters to simulate Mars solar power conditions including the effects of dust storms.

3) Greenhouse with filters to simulate Mars solar conditions and simulated soil with fertilizer brought from earth or the crews feces.

4) Closed Loop Life support systems for Water, Oxygen, CO2

5) ISRU systems to make fuel from simulated Mars air and water

6) Rovers with the strength to weight ratio to replicate the martian gravity. How are they going to cover the all their living facilities with dirt that is frozen to the consistency of concrete. They will need a rover with a backhoe/bucket.

It does not need to start at this level, but it definitely needs to end at this level before anyone launches for Mars.

This is the type of research that needs to be done before Mars One can be attempted. Might as well put in on the show.

Things will break and go wrong, Plants will die and people may simulated die. Reset, Fix what went wrong and try again. Better here than on Mars. That is what makes this hard. It may be a little technical, but I think the TV world may be surprised by this type of reality show.

If the show includes the above, I will watch with interest. If it doesn't, It will be just another reality TV series like "Survivor" that I have  NEVER watched.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 04/16/2013 09:28 pm
If the show includes the above, I will watch with interest. If it doesn't, It will be just another reality TV series like "Survivor" that I have  NEVER watched.

Unfortunately, I don't think you are representative of the general TV audience.  The ratings say most of the TV audience wants to watch Survivor, The Bachelor, Big Brother, American Idol, etc. -- i.e. lots of interpersonal conflict and drama.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 04/17/2013 01:26 pm
We will know they are serious by the type of simulated Mars Colony they develop. ...

If the show includes the above, I will watch with interest. If it doesn't, It will be just another reality TV series like "Survivor" that I have  NEVER watched.

Not a bad list there, junior. 

Heck, the first series of the show could start with the construction of the bio-spherish simulator.  If they would accompany a good documentary with a website full of "how they did it" information behind a well thought out paywall, that would raise some serious funding too.

Everybody with a half a brain knows that "reality" tv shows are actually "unreality".  A vast majority of the population is actually afraid of "reality", learning, knowledge, etc., and will support the advertisors who bring them "unreality".

Even tho the half brainers and up are a minority, they still have a fair amount of disposable income, and interest in the technical.  This is where the money is.  Not to mention a "real" fan base.

When I say, "how they did it", I mean everything.  A complete set of working drawings and specifications of their test habitat could be priced at $50-100M. The software package to run it, sold separately.  As always, batteries not included.  You get the whole package of documents.  Build your own if you want.  Since that example is not space related, by virtue of being terrestrial commercial equipment, ITAR would not be invoked.  There might be ten global sales, say.  That would be money they could use.

Drop down in scale a mite.  They could sell their simulated "space suits" at a profit.  Their filtered solar power units.  Greenhouses.  Life support systems.  They could even sell maintenance and service contracts.

Let there be multiple global experiments working on the difficulties of a colonization effort.  Why not?  They may not be as serious as a lot of people hope for them to be.

What are they selling now? Coffee mugs and lousy t-shirts?  You could make enough money selling those things to put a few kids thru college, but those sales will simply not cover a "real" effort, such as they trumpet on their website.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: sheltonjr on 04/17/2013 04:45 pm
Quote
Unfortunately, I don't think you are representative of the general TV audience.  The ratings say most of the TV audience wants to watch Survivor, The Bachelor, Big Brother, American Idol, etc. -- i.e. lots of interpersonal conflict and drama.

Yeah, I know. But I hope they try to make it about really living on Mars and what its going to take. A real show on TV that goes into the reality of designing/building/testing a Mars habitat could be a big boon for promoting the science and engineer degrees needed in this and other countries. 

If they pick the right people, the interpersonal conflict and drama should be boring. Not the one that looks the best in a bikini.

Quote
Heck, the first series of the show could start with the construction of the bio-spherish simulator.  If they would accompany a good documentary with a website full of "how they did it" information behind a well thought out paywall, that would raise some serious funding too.

This would be great. It would be a challenge for a very good director to be able to keep this interesting for the general public. They should be able to test most of the habitats and equipment on earth with good engineering and instrumentation. The thermal environment will be tough to test on a large scale. It will require testing individual pieces in a test chamber.

Thanks for the replies to this "junior" member.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Mader Levap on 04/20/2013 11:20 am
I voted no. I consider them to be scam. More precisely, they lie about their real goals.

It will be reality show (entirely on Earth, obviously) about selecting crew for Mars mission (that will never happen, obviously). Organizators will ensure that only right, "interesting" people will be let in. So you will have your rotation of crew, as new contenders enter after previous set exits.

Result: everyone will fail and be deemed unfit for Mars exploration. Mars One says it is not their fault they cannot find anyone to actually fly and closes business, counting money from broadcast rights and what-not (after giving cut for wanna-be-marsonauts, of course)...
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: kicaj on 05/03/2013 10:51 am
I vote no.

Almost at the very beginning, I was skeptical about the idea.
I watched the last press conference. They are trying to push this project forward, but every answer ends in generalities, never enters deeply into the topic question. After a year, they still can not give us any detailed informaton.

I think that is a good advertisement of flight to Mars. Maybe this TV show will interest the people who so far have not thought about it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: happyflower on 05/07/2013 06:47 pm
Voted no.

The problem started almost from the beginning when (I think it was Lansdorp) that stated the revenue from the Olympics as justification of how much money this reality show can possibly make.

That is like say I will open a general store because Walmart is making 50 billion a year.

The problem is always funds. Until something like a re-usable rocket comes along Mars is a fantasy, unless China gets there. And that will be a boots and flags mission anyway and will then die out as it accomplishes the goal of nation building.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Dalhousie on 05/14/2013 12:32 am
I voted no. I consider them to be scam. More precisely, they lie about their real goals.

It will be reality show (entirely on Earth, obviously) about selecting crew for Mars mission (that will never happen, obviously). Organizators will ensure that only right, "interesting" people will be let in. So you will have your rotation of crew, as new contenders enter after previous set exits.

Result: everyone will fail and be deemed unfit for Mars exploration. Mars One says it is not their fault they cannot find anyone to actually fly and closes business, counting money from broadcast rights and what-not (after giving cut for wanna-be-marsonauts, of course)...

I have my doubts too, but by being a registered non-profit foundation (Stichting) in a well regulated country makes it hard to see how the scam actually works.  Ambitious certainly, naive possibly, but scam, unlikely.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/14/2013 12:38 am
Archive of Friday's episode of The Space Show is up:

https://thespaceshow.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/bas-lansdorp-of-mars-one-friday-5-10-13/

It's kind of sad that the "big news" Bas wanted to announce never made it into the show notes. The Mars One Foundation has signed a contract with Paragon Space Development Corporation to work on surface life support systems. This is the same company that is working on life support for the Inspiration Mars transit vehicle.


Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/14/2013 01:43 am
The very idea that you can train anyone to be a physicist or a doctor in seven years is absurd, most people don't have the necessary capabilities. I know I couldn't be a doctor for instance, though I am pretty good at maths which I studied to post graduate.

I've said elsewhere that they should do an orbital colony around Mars, and that a landing on Mars will break international law, the Outer Space Treaty, not a trivial thing. Can never see COSPAR getting modified to turn Mars from category IV which requires biological safety even in event of a hard landing to category II or adding some new category to permit human landings on Mars when we haven't even studied Mars in any depth at all.

But - to send such unqualified people all the way to Mars, is crazy stuff. They should start with the Moon and even there with rescue just a few days away, should have some people who are there because they are trained medical doctors expert in space medicine, and others expert engineers / astronauts able to repair the spacecraft. With thorough knowledge, natural aptitude, and keen interest in their subjects.

Have you ever tried to do tech support for a non techy user of your software? I am a program developer and it is often pretty hard to do that, and makes a huge difference if you can see their desktop and engage with it with your mouse and keyboard in real time.

Now imagine doing that - but with up to 44 minutes to wait for their reply. And to people not trained in techy and mathematical disciplines (7 years for people without a natural aptitude and keen long term interest just doesn't count). It would be a nightmare.

If they do these simulations they must simulate the 44 minute delay. Also should have a Mars vacuum outside the habitat, except - with untrained volunteers that would probably be a lethal thing to do.

I would be surprised if they survive the voyage out to Mars even. Just one small mistake and inability to fix it without hand holding instructions from Earth could kill them all.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/14/2013 01:48 am
The very idea that you can train anyone to be a physicist or a doctor in seven years is absurd, most people don't have the necessary capabilities.

Who said they were? What are you talking about?

Quote
I've said elsewhere that they should do an orbital colony around Mars, and that a landing on Mars will break international law, the Outer Space Treaty, not a trivial thing.

So, you're a crazy person...

Quote
But - to send such unqualified people all the way to Mars, is crazy stuff. They should start with the Moon

Oh, what a surprise, another Moon Firster.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Warren Platts on 05/14/2013 02:16 am
The Mars One Foundation has signed a contract with Paragon Space Development Corporation to work on surface life support systems.

You mean they agreed to apply for a NASA grant and then split the money if it comes through is more like it..........................
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/14/2013 02:19 am
The Mars One Foundation has signed a contract with Paragon Space Development Corporation to work on surface life support systems.

You mean they agreed to apply for a NASA grant and then split the money if it comes through is more like it..........................

If you have some evidence to support that claim, please contribute. Otherwise...
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/14/2013 02:33 am
Who said they were? What are you talking about?
That was in the page someone just linked to above. Couldn't find the actual video. May have misunderstood.
Quote
> I've said elsewhere that they should do an orbital colony around Mars, and that a landing on Mars will break international law, the Outer Space Treaty, not a trivial thing.

So, you're a crazy person...
Leave that to you to decide :)

As for the legal process though this is a good paper which will give an idea of how much is involved in changing the law.

It's for Mars Sample Return, but this, because it is changing COSPAR and the Outer Space Treaty I think would be a more involved process if anything.

http://salegos-scar.montana.edu/docs/Planetary%20Protection/AdvSpaceResVol18(1-2).pdf

Am definitely a Moon firster for colonization, yes, for exploration then Mars orbit which could eventually develop into colonies and indeed further afield, no reason can't have colonies in orbit around Venus too, for instance, or Jupiter with enough shielding and of course independently orbiting colonies e.g. same orbits as the NEOs or asteroids or in the planetary Lagrange positions etc.

But the obvious starting point for colonization is surely either in orbit around Moon or Earth, or on the Moon surface, supplied from Earth for complex things can't construct yet, and from the Moon and NEOs for unmanufactured raw resources.

Just stating my point of view, to me it seems a no brainer but of course different people have their points of view on it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/14/2013 02:39 am
But the obvious starting point for colonization is surely either in orbit around Moon or Earth, or on the Moon surface, supplied from Earth for complex things can't construct yet, and from the Moon and NEOs for unmanufactured raw resources.

Just stating my point of view, to me it seems a no brainer but of course different people have their points of view on it.

Great, it's an offtopic point of view.. but as far as I can tell, no-one cares about staying on-topic anymore on this forum and the Moon Firsters are becoming notoriously rude about it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/14/2013 02:48 am
Sorry didn't mean to be off topic. Just answering you when you asked if I am a Moon firster. Also am used to forums where no-one cares at all about staying on topic, I think this is the first time in years that I have been criticized for going off topic on a forum. So takes a while to get used to it.

But to return it to topic, then if they do want to go to Mars, then I'm just saying, should do something closer to Earth first. That is the same whether they go to Mars orbit or to the surface (which is not possible under current international law).

It is rather like the way the Apollo lander missions were preceded by the Gemini docking manoeuvres in Earth orbit, an Apollo flight in Earth orbit, and then Moon flybys. Needn't even be to the Moon and stay. Could be a one year visit to the Moon for instance, just drop a hab on the Moon, stay in it for a year, and let others use it longer term after they are finished with it. Any would be colonists who don't find that an interesting and exciting mission I would suggest are not suitable material for colonists at this stage. They surely have unrealistic ideas of what Mars is like and how hospitable.

The poles of the Moon (if they have water ice, which can be used for water and oxygen as in the ISS oxygen supply system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS)) are closer to the sun so warmer, with perpetual sunlight if you choose the right spot, and no dust storms. Combine that with easy access from Earth and you have a much easier environment, far far safer for the crew. If things go badly wrong e.g. with the oxygen generation system (that has gone wrong several times in the ISS) then they can simply get back to Earth. Damaged components can be resupplied from Earth within days. If tech support is needed, or it is an emergency where minutes are vital, experts on Earth can talk them through it almost in real time.

That is surely on topic. And expresses my POV on the matter.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lampyridae on 05/14/2013 05:21 pm
I've a confession to make. My wife and I signed up.

It's a cute concept but there is no way I expect to be able to land on Mars. I might get a fun little bit of "space camp" out of it.

Am I Mars First? No. Heeeelll no. Mars requires a hab and a lander and lotsa supplies stuffed through the mass-reducing straw of other landers. I'm basically anything-but-Mars-first.

Anyway: Mars One.
-You have to PAY $12 to sign up. Already my nostrils started twitching.
-Then, their basic requirements... copied straight off of NASA's own astronaut candidate program. Except for the actually knowing anything about science bit.
-The majority of applicants are pimply faced 18 year olds who do web design or are DJs. Apparently popularity has something to do with their selection.
-The section where you upload quals/jobs is broken. If you studied or worked in a country other than the one you are currently in, it won't let you select it.
-The way the quals/jobs are entered makes me think that their applicants database is simply not structured for a proper search related to skills. If I entered "geophysics," they would only pick it up with a keyword search. They would probably look for engineer, geologist, doctor.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Barrie on 05/14/2013 05:54 pm

But to return it to topic, then if they do want to go to Mars, then I'm just saying, should do something closer to Earth first.


That is what I have been thinking, and I have the perfect answer.

Launch a very small scale version of a space colony such as a Bernal sphere, spinning to produce false gravity, and populate it with...meerkats!

Meerkats have already had popular reality shows about them. Get Roger Mellie to present it. 

I think this is more credible that their current proposal.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lampyridae on 05/14/2013 06:20 pm

But to return it to topic, then if they do want to go to Mars, then I'm just saying, should do something closer to Earth first.


That is what I have been thinking, and I have the perfect answer.

Launch a very small scale version of a space colony such as a Bernal sphere, spinning to produce false gravity, and populate it with...meerkats!

Meerkats have already had popular reality shows about them. Get Roger Mellie to present it. 

I think this is more credible that their current proposal.

This could work...
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: just this man you know on 05/14/2013 06:42 pm
Out of curiosity but the first mannend landing of mars will probably be interuppted by quit some commercials and be viewed from all over the world many more will watch it then for example the super bowl where they ask 4 million dollar for 30 seconds of commercials making the super bowl 75 million in adds alone perhaps if they could get 10 times as much and make  2 mayor events during launch and landing they might still make a significant amound of money.
... now what would coca cola and mc donald pay to have their logo on a desend parachute
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Warren Platts on 05/14/2013 07:39 pm
The Mars One Foundation has signed a contract with Paragon Space Development Corporation to work on surface life support systems.

You mean they agreed to apply for a NASA grant and then split the money if it comes through is more like it..........................

If you have some evidence to support that claim, please contribute. Otherwise...

How could it be otherwise? They have no money that's worth speaking of. Also, Mars One is a Dutch organization. In order to obtain NASA grants, they have to partner with an American company. Then they could get 49%; Paragon would get the 51%.

Here is the link to the presser:

http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/380-mars-one-contracts-paragon-for-mars-life-support-systems

Turns out they're not "working on" life support systems, they're working on a "conceptual design study"--a powerpoint in other words...

Quote
We are extremely proud to have been selected by the Mars One team to provide such a vital role on the project,” states Grant Anderson, Paragon Sr VP of Operations, Chief Engineer and Co-Founder. “The objective of this conceptual design study will be to provide a well-defined pathway to mature the technologies and architectures required for long-term human habitation in the Martian environment.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: jnc on 05/14/2013 08:21 pm
Launch a very small scale version of a space colony such as a Bernal sphere, spinning to produce false gravity, and populate it with...meerkats!
Meerkats have already had popular reality shows about them. Get Roger Mellie to present it. 

Title: 'Meerkat Heaven'! :-)

But seriously, this isn't a bad idea. (Although some people will be bummed if they eventually run out of consumables and die....)

Noel
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/14/2013 10:22 pm
They would probably look for engineer, geologist, doctor.

Actually, Bas specifically said on The Space Show that they don't see the need for these kinds of professions. They're looking for people with a suitable temperament (won't go crazy, doesn't get bored) and the ability to learn how to pull apart, fix and put back together every piece of equipment that will be going to Mars.
 
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/15/2013 05:18 am
They would probably look for engineer, geologist, doctor.

Actually, Bas specifically said on The Space Show that they don't see the need for these kinds of professions. They're looking for people with a suitable temperament (won't go crazy, doesn't get bored) and the ability to learn how to pull apart, fix and put back together every piece of equipment that will be going to Mars.
 

Yes I don't think they realize quite how technical the first interplanetary spacecraft will be.

Look for  instance at the complexity of the equipment on the ISS to make oxygen, which has gone wrong several times, and to recover water vapour from the air and urine, scrub the air of ammonia and nitrogen dioxide, remove carbon dioxide, maintain temperature and humidity of the air, remove hair and skin flakes from the air, prevent build up of air-borne micro-organisms etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS

At the moment you have a team of exoerts on Earth constantly monitoring all the systems on the ISS ready to respond if anything goes wrong.
http://spacestationlive.nasa.gov/handbooks/index.html

And the ISS is nowhere near self contained. The faeces currently is just dried out, stored as waste and dumped. Hydrogen (from oxygen generation system) vented into space. Have often had to resort to oxygen from Earth when the oxygen regeneration failed.

It doesn't even have laundry facilities, the crew wear their clothes for a week and then dump them and get new ones which of course come from Earth.

Any of those systems might fail, or you get a leak from a micro-meteorite.

A long duration flight for e.g. a year with no possible support from Earth in an emergency is already a major challenge. Indefinite is far beyond our current situation.

That's one of the reasons why I say prove with a one year stay in orbit e.g. in L1 position exploring Moon telerobotically and buiding a base there, or on the Moon itself, where at least you have a chance if some of those systems fail and you have just a few days to survive on bottled oxygen or whatever until you get a replacement sent up to you.

If they can't do that, and have to return to Earth, then they have no chance.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/15/2013 05:37 am
Yes I don't think they realize quite how technical the first interplanetary spacecraft will be.

Almost certainly.. because none exist. That's what Paragon is working on. Whether or not they'll be able to do it is something time will tell, but in the meantime, they're saying it will be like a Chevy engine: something you can pull apart and put back together.

Quote
And the ISS is nowhere near self contained.

Yep, which is one of the false lessons you learn doing stuff in orbit when your goal is Mars, or anywhere else with resources.

Quote
A long duration flight for e.g. a year with no possible support from Earth in an emergency is already a major challenge. Indefinite is far beyond our current situation.

I think you really need to separate the flight from the surface stay, but you're right, the systems needed to keep humans alive indefinitely on Mars don't exist, yet.

Quote
That's one of the reasons why I say prove with a one year stay in orbit

Why? Why not just learn to live inside a sealed tube on Earth?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/15/2013 05:57 am
Why? Why not just learn to live inside a sealed tube on Earth?

Could do. Using the actual spacecraft components. With vacuum outside the sealed tube (even if just a thin layer of vacuum - why make it dangerous if you don't have to)

Myself I wouldn't want to leap immediately from that to a long duration flight, there would be differences e.g. weightlessness, or centrifuge for artificial gravity, can't be precisely duplicated on Earth and you are talking about sensitive apparatus here. Also, micrometeorites, cosmic rays. Useful to do though.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/15/2013 06:03 am
BTW I do think these things will be solved eventually, and long duration interplanetary flights become as mechanically routine as e.g. long duration aeroplane flights.

But not for decades yet, and for now it is a little like setting off in a new never flight tested aeroplane on a flight that lasts for six months out (and six months back again if you abandon the mission), with no opportunity for engineers to overhaul or refit it, and an aeroplane that has special design challenges no-one has ever attempted before. Also no way to bail out if anything goes wrong.  Just an analogy to give an idea.Obviously not an exact one :).

There will be things that no-one foresaw, failure modes that are unexpected. Except they may be long drawn out - the crew running out of oxygen for instance, and no way to fix it from Earth. Or gradual build up of ammonia or nitrogen dioxide or whatever. May also be sudden, a few minutes or hours, e.g. due to micrometeorite impact. Apollo 13 type moments but much further away from Earth.

Myself, I'm not sure there is  much point in discussing the surface mission since I think, and also very much hope also for science value reasons, that no surface missions will be permitted legally for quite some time yet.

But speaking hypothetically, I'm sure that atmosphere regulation on the surface would be as tricky as in the ISS. You still have the need to maintain oxygen levels etc, only difference is that the water can be supplied from the surface if you go to a place on Mars with ice available.

Same is true for an orbital habitat using ice from Deimos for the water, will help with the issue of running out of water to create oxygen, e.g. if the water reclamation fails so help with some issues, but have the same issues of what happens if the oxygen generation machinery stops working properly, and many other things that could go wrong in that complex suite of monitors and equipment.

BTW one idea for flight out to reduce issues like this, is to have a fleet of several spacecraft flying in tandem, all identical design, and with the capability to transfer from one to another and designed so the entire crew can in an emergency survive (uncomfortably but survive) on one of them. Because a lot of the cost is the actual design, making several copies of the spacecraft then reduces the cost per ship, and sending them all at once seems safer than one at a time to me. Plus have another one already at the destination that is known to be in good condition at time of launch.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/15/2013 06:05 am
Could do. Using the actual spacecraft components. With vacuum outside the sealed tube (even if just a thin layer of vacuum - why make it dangerous if you don't have to)

I was talking about living on Mars, not in a vacuum (slight, but important, difference). I understand their ground testing will be much like the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, but with higher fidelity (and hopefully a higher budget too!)

Quote
Myself I wouldn't want to leap immediately from that to a long duration flight, there would be differences e.g. weightlessness, or centrifuge for artificial gravity, can't be precisely duplicated on Earth and you are talking about sensitive apparatus here. Also, micrometeorites, cosmic rays. Useful to do though.

Paragon are making the life support systems for both Inspiration Mars (2018) and Mars One (2022). Cargo missions for Mars One are supposed to start flying in 2016. So I don't think there's any "leaps" being suggested.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/15/2013 06:06 am
BTW I do think these things will be solved eventually, and long duration interplanetary flights become as mechanically routine as e.g. long duration aeroplane flights.

But not for decades yet

I'm more interested in people who are trying to make the future than predict it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: K210 on 05/15/2013 08:01 am
Mars one will succeed but not by 2023, sending manned missions to mars is not feasible using todays technology. The first hurdle they will face is that they will need a Heavy lift vechile to launch the mission, they could either use the SLS, Long march 9 or possibility a uprated version of falcon 9 heavy.The problem here is that each of these rockets will need a few successful test flights before they are ready for use and i do not think that this is likely to happen by 2023 because all of the HLV's listed above are in development and will probably not even had their first flight by that time. The second hurdle is the long term effects of staying in space away from the earths atmosphere. During the apollo missions astronauts were exposed to space conditions for days, in the case of mars they will be exposed for months or even years. The third and largest hurdle is that whoever volunteers to go to mars will not be coming back, i dunno about other people but for me this is a deal breaker. So mars one probably wont happen before 2030.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Crispy on 05/15/2013 09:33 am
Not a chance in hell. The challenge is immense and the funding is not available.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 01:45 pm
1) The very idea that you can train anyone to be a physicist or a doctor in seven years is absurd, most people don't have the necessary capabilities. I know I couldn't be a doctor for instance, though I am pretty good at maths which I studied to post graduate.

(2) ... a landing on Mars will break international law, the Outer Space Treaty, not a trivial thing. Can never see COSPAR getting modified ...

(3) But - to send such unqualified people all the way to Mars, is crazy stuff. They should start with the Moon and ... should have some people who are there because they are trained medical doctors expert in space medicine, and others expert engineers / astronauts able to repair the spacecraft. With thorough knowledge, natural aptitude, and keen interest in their subjects.

(4) Have you ever tried to do tech support for a non techy user of your software? I am a program developer and it is often pretty hard to do that, and makes a huge difference if you can see their desktop and engage with it with your mouse and keyboard in real time.

...

(5) If they do these simulations they must simulate the 44 minute delay. Also should have a Mars vacuum outside the habitat, except - with untrained volunteers that would probably be a lethal thing to do.

(6) I would be surprised if they survive the voyage out to Mars even. Just one small mistake and inability to fix it without hand holding instructions from Earth could kill them all.

Not a bad attempt there, but you have made one important error:  You have underestimated the value of "keen interest", particularly when combined with a keen intellect and maturiity, and aided by seven years of focused training and specialized education.

1) In the case of medicine, you must realize that math is important, but less so than it would be in celestial mechanics, for example.  Temporarily granting the Mars-One team a much better medical education program than currently available in our universities, one can readily assume that there would be a time based component to the training.  As an obvious example, the team doctors would learn little about Alzheimer's and other end of life ailments at first. In forty or fifty years, that education might be needed; until then, they needn't know about that.  Other pragmatic issues would have to do with liver and heart transplants.  It would be foolish to try and solve these problems in earthly training sessions.  In short, their doctors need not know everything about medicine today, they only need to know a subset of medical skills which would be appropriate, and which can certainly be assumed to grow over time, particularly if other colonists arrive on site.

2) True, they gloss over this aspect.  But who ya gonna call?

3) You've made a fundamental error in suggesting that they would send untrained people.

4) During the transition from DOS to Windows,  I had to support a great number of people, who simply wouldn't listen to your telephonic instructions.  So I know how frustrating that can be.  I feel certain that first, it is easy, in an extended interview, to distinguish between those people who can listen well, and those who can't listen beyond their confirmation bias.  In addition, in my personal example, I'm sure that if my clients had a life and death consequence due to immediately following the instructions I gave, that their listening skills would have instantly, and without training, improved dramatically.

5) Totally agree with your suggestion, but of course object to your assumption that the people in that hab would be untrained.

6) Well duhhh....
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 01:49 pm
Sorry didn't mean to be off topic. Just answering you when you asked if I am a Moon firster.

They do bait you around here.  So there's that.  And some of them have "special" permissions. And some of them object to humor.  But hey.

You should admit that while digressions can be helpful, taken too far they, well, digress from the topic at hand.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 01:56 pm
But to return it to topic, then if they do want to go to Mars, then I'm just saying, should do something closer to Earth first. That is the same whether they go to Mars orbit or to the surface (which is not possible under current international law).

This, in my view, is the failure point of Mars-One.  They do not have a credible claim at the moment, to boldly go where no woman has gone before, and do it right the first time, in the advertised time frame, and with the proclaimed income stream.

Remember, the group is a foundation.  It need provide nothing material and it is answerable to its corporate structure alone as they set their internal income goals.  They are only beholden to follow ordinary corporate law regarding taxation and accounting principles.

They may find that Europa First would provide a better TV income stream.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 01:59 pm
I've a confession to make. My wife and I signed up.

It's a cute concept but there is no way I expect to be able to land on Mars. I might get a fun little bit of "space camp" out of it.

Am I Mars First? No. Heeeelll no. Mars requires a hab and a lander and lotsa supplies stuffed through the mass-reducing straw of other landers. I'm basically anything-but-Mars-first.

Anyway: Mars One.
-You have to PAY $12 to sign up. Already my nostrils started twitching.
-Then, their basic requirements... copied straight off of NASA's own astronaut candidate program. Except for the actually knowing anything about science bit.
-The majority of applicants are pimply faced 18 year olds who do web design or are DJs. Apparently popularity has something to do with their selection.
-The section where you upload quals/jobs is broken. If you studied or worked in a country other than the one you are currently in, it won't let you select it.
-The way the quals/jobs are entered makes me think that their applicants database is simply not structured for a proper search related to skills. If I entered "geophysics," they would only pick it up with a keyword search. They would probably look for engineer, geologist, doctor.

Hush now.  Buy a coffee mug.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 02:02 pm
I don't think they realize quite how technical the first interplanetary spacecraft will be.

...

Hush now.  Go buy a t-shirt and support their effort.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 02:15 pm
Paragon are making the life support systems for both Inspiration Mars (2018) and Mars One (2022). Cargo missions for Mars One are supposed to start flying in 2016. So I don't think there's any "leaps" being suggested.

It does illustrate how commercial space can do Mars faster cheaper and better than the USG.  No leaps of imagination or of any other sort needed.  The USG, with all of the king's horses, and all of the king's men, will only get around to hammering on a rock for eight hours by 2023 at the earliest! 

Taking a peek at their "suppliers" page is rather interesting.  There are some pretty good names on the page.  Certainly helps with credibility.  What is not known is how much money is really behind them.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Patchouli on 05/15/2013 02:28 pm
The very idea that you can train anyone to be a physicist or a doctor in seven years is absurd, most people don't have the necessary capabilities. I know I couldn't be a doctor for instance, though I am pretty good at maths which I studied to post graduate.


Actually I'd avoid most PHD's .

Instead I would send people with practical skills and hands on experience.

Such as people with a technical school to masters level of education.
Though here since it is do or die experience should trump official level of education.
IE someone who's mostly self taught but has 15 years experience programming will be more valuable then someone who just got done with a degree in computer science.
They gotta know how to think on their feet and improvise.
A machinist for example would be far more valuable to a colony then someone who's a math major.
Heck I'd even consider a good chef more useful then someone who's skills are mostly in theoretical stuff.

A crazy inventor type who's good at improvising would be nice to have.

Now s real doctor probably would look for one who has experience as a battlefield medic.


-The majority of applicants are pimply faced 18 year olds who do web design or are DJs. Apparently popularity has something to do with their selection.


I know how that will end.
http://youtu.be/DVC1rapsAIw?t=2m8s

Paragon are making the life support systems for both Inspiration Mars (2018) and Mars One (2022). Cargo missions for Mars One are supposed to start flying in 2016. So I don't think there's any "leaps" being suggested.

It does illustrate how commercial space can do Mars faster cheaper and better than the USG.  No leaps of imagination or of any other sort needed.  The USG, with all of the king's horses, and all of the king's men, will only get around to hammering on a rock for eight hours by 2023 at the earliest! 

Taking a peek at their "suppliers" page is rather interesting.  There are some pretty good names on the page.  Certainly helps with credibility.  What is not known is how much money is really behind them.

The biggest problem with the USG and spaceflight is congress being selfish and having a short attention span.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/15/2013 06:38 pm
Not a bad attempt there, but you have made one important error:  You have underestimated the value of "keen interest", particularly when combined with a keen intellect and maturiity, and aided by seven years of focused training and specialized education.

1) In the case of medicine, you must realize that math is important, but less so than it would be in celestial mechanics, for example.  Temporarily granting the Mars-One team a much better medical education program than currently available in our universities, one can readily assume that there would be a time based component to the training.  As an obvious example, the team doctors would learn little about Alzheimer's and other end of life ailments at first. In forty or fifty years, that education might be needed; until then, they needn't know about that.  Other pragmatic issues would have to do with liver and heart transplants.  It would be foolish to try and solve these problems in earthly training sessions.  In short, their doctors need not know everything about medicine today, they only need to know a subset of medical skills which would be appropriate, and which can certainly be assumed to grow over time, particularly if other colonists arrive on site.

I don't know much about medical training. But one thing for sure is a thorough understanding of the human anatomy. Also hands on, you don't want someone to do an emergency operation on you when they have never done any operation on a live patient before, only on a cadavre or simulated cadavre.

Yes very good emergency first aid. But to replace an actual doctor with a an enthusiastic and keen amateur, even trained for seven years, no, not for me anyway :).

If they have the capabilities to become an actual doctor and qualify, that's a different matter. They could then specialize in space medicine. Heart surgeons are also specialists, and most doctors couldn't do their work. But you need the general background of a  doctor whatever you do though could be specialized in one area of course would be focussed on that.

Maybe if they put large numbers of their applicants through the process, then a few will be discovered who have the capability to be a doctor.

And you need special human attributes to be a doctor. And a steady hand and things like that.

Quote
2) True, they gloss over this aspect.  But who ya gonna call?

They won't be able to launch without permission from a signatory to the treaty - all the space faring nations are signatories. Any country that develops space launch capabilities would surely join the treaty too, including if a private company sets up a space launch capabilities on their soil.

Here is the list of current signatories.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ost/text/space5.htm

Quote
3) You've made a fundamental error in suggesting that they would send untrained people.
Yes trained indeed, but trained people also with the right capabilities.
Quote
4) During the transition from DOS to Windows,  I had to support a great number of people, who simply wouldn't listen to your telephonic instructions.  So I know how frustrating that can be.  I feel certain that first, it is easy, in an extended interview, to distinguish between those people who can listen well, and those who can't listen beyond their confirmation bias.  In addition, in my personal example, I'm sure that if my clients had a life and death consequence due to immediately following the instructions I gave, that their listening skills would have instantly, and without training, improved dramatically.

Actually many of my clients are highly motivated to be able to install and use my programs. It has got better as I learnt to make easier to use programs. But in the early days had many frustrating attempts, with the clients saying over and over how vital it was for them to be able to use the software and getting cross with me sometimes for not making it easier to use. But totally unable to follow my instructions. Also would ask them to report diagnostics, and again, they couldn't do that.

Also many times, even now, I suggest something early on, and it turns out to be the actual issue, but something in their reply puts me off the track because the way they report what they see is non technical, so I may think it can't possibly be that because it doesn't match their report.

But further down the line, maybe a dozen exchanges of emails back and forth, turns out it was that original thing I thought it might be in about the first or second email. That happens a fair bit even today, especially with bug reports, and even with fairly techy people - composers, and musicians often thoroughly "into" computer music and know many technical things about their computer systems - especially if not programmers themselves.

Motivation isn't enough to get over these communication glitches. That's why I feel having someone really expert onboard the ship itself is essential. A bit like in case of Apollo 13 where counter to the film, one of the astronauts was an acknowledged expert on the system, had written the manual for it I think it was.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/15/2013 06:45 pm
On the use of the Moon as a proving ground before going far from Earth here is a good paper I just turned up, a NASA white paper on just this topic.

Also goes into the similarities and differences of Moon and Mars surface mission requirements. Only briefly mentions contamination issues, but rest is pretty thorough.

http://mepag.nasa.gov/reports/MFLO_WhitePaper_v12.pdf

This one is all about lunar contamination issues, series of slides for a presentation
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LEA/presentations/tues_pm/Dworkin.pdf

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/15/2013 08:37 pm
But to replace an actual doctor with a an enthusiastic and keen amateur, even trained for seven years, no, not for me anyway ...

Well definitely save yer 12 bux and don't apply. 

Were I one of that group, I would also have some medical training, and would have spent seven years in close contact with "Bones".  I feel certain that I would have confidence in the likely medical needs of the trip and of the visitation.

You've overlooked that Bones would be a general practitioner, not a specialist.

Quote from: Bob
They won't be able to launch without permission from a signatory to the treaty...

You are not "free" to launch at any time.  You are "free enough" to launch, after having followed your nation's permitting.  As to the treaty, who knows?

Quote from: Bob
Motivation isn't enough to get over these communication glitches.

Thimk, Bob.

Mars-One has a basket of capabilities they're looking for, and will be offering a basket of training skills.  I wouldn't worry about it.  They're not depending on motivation alone for successful communication.

They've already announced that there's no shortage of unqualified volunteers; 83,333 times $12 is about a million dollars.  One good employee in their personnel department might cost them $100k/yr and be able to winnow this down to say, eighty in three to six months.  Most of these submittals will get an original form letter in return -- another hunerd grand.  Along with a sticker.  There's probably $800 grand clear, for their discretionary use.

It seems like a fairly reasonable crowd sourced profit margin to me.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/15/2013 11:11 pm
What is not known is how much money is really behind them.

They've only raised a few million dollars so far.. however, this has the distinction of being the most money anyone has ever privately raised for a Mars mission. (Plus there's Dennis Tito's money.)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 12:27 am
You are not "free" to launch at any time.  You are "free enough" to launch, after having followed your nation's permitting.  As to the treaty, who knows?
Are you suggesting that one of the signatories to the treaty would permit the launch in violation of the treaty?

Doesn't seem too likely to me...
Quote
They've already announced that there's no shortage of unqualified volunteers; 83,333 times $12 is about a million dollars.  One good employee in their personnel department might cost them $100k/yr and be able to winnow this down to say, eighty in three to six months.  Most of these submittals will get an original form letter in return -- another hunerd grand.  Along with a sticker.  There's probably $800 grand clear, for their discretionary use.

It seems like a fairly reasonable crowd sourced profit margin to me.
Okay but - I understood in an earlier post here by someone who actually did the process that they didn't ask questions about things such as whether you have a skill useful for the mission already. Seems they are going to whittle it down based on personality more than anything else.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 01:40 am
Are you suggesting that one of the signatories to the treaty would permit the launch in violation of the treaty?

Robert, several times in this thread you've stated that the Mars One objective violates the Outer Space Treaty. Please explain why you think this is the case.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/16/2013 02:01 am
Are you suggesting that one of the signatories to the treaty would permit the launch in violation of the treaty?

Robert, several times in this thread you've stated that the Mars One objective violates the Outer Space Treaty. Please explain why you think this is the case.

It's a pretty reasonable argument.

Article IX says:

Quote
States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.

At some point Mars One will have to "undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding" and explain their appropriate measures.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/16/2013 01:13 pm
What is not known is how much money is really behind them.

They've only raised a few million dollars so far.. however, this has the distinction of being the most money anyone has ever privately raised for a Mars mission. (Plus there's Dennis Tito's money.)


Like I said, what is not known is how much money is really behind them.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 01:16 pm
Article IX says:

Quote
States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.

At some point Mars One will have to "undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding" and explain their appropriate measures.

Sure, but compared to the other obstacles to be overcome these requirements are fairly innocuous. And they don't make landing on Mars illegal as Robert claims.  It's sort of like claiming that driving a car is illegal because you have to get a driver's license first.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 01:25 pm
Sure, but compared to the other obstacles to be overcome these requirements are fairly innocuous. And they don't make landing on Mars illegal as Robert claims.  It's sort of like claiming that driving a car is illegal because you have to get a driver's license first.

Oh it is vastly more complex than that. Most people have no idea how much is involved, unless you look into it.

The thing is, there is no provision in the treaty for permissions for humans to land on Mars. So the treaty has to be renegotiated.

Changing the guidelines for the contamination issues to clarify this clause in the treaty, the COSPAR guidelines, is a matter of an assembly of over a thousand scientists from countries all around who meet every two years to work on the issues (next one in 2014). They will have to be convinced. In the recent discussions then the trend has been towards making the COSPAR guidelines stricter, not more lenient. So they will be hard for Mars One (or anyone else planning a human landing on Mars) to convince.

https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/events/scientific-assemblies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSPAR

But this is more than a case of clarifying the interpretation of the treaty as COSPAR does. It requires the original clause to be rewritten. That is not within the remit of COSPAR, they can't change the Outer Space Treaty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

International treaties are far harder things to renegotiate. It would involve discussions by politicians at the United Nations for sure, and would be a lengthy process.

So Mars One, or anyone else who wants to land humans on Mars will have to start that whole process of renegotiating the treaty. And at present would have many scientists saying the time is not right to change the treaty. Can you see the participating governments in the UN changing the treaty in that situation?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/16/2013 01:30 pm
You are not "free" to launch at any time.  You are "free enough" to launch, after having followed your nation's permitting.  As to the treaty, who knows?
Are you suggesting that one of the signatories to the treaty would permit the launch in violation of the treaty?

Doesn't seem too likely to me...

Shocked.  Shocked I would be should that happen.  Truly. Shocked.

Quote from: JF
They've already announced that there's no shortage of unqualified volunteers...  There's probably $800 grand clear, for their discretionary use.  It seems like a fairly reasonable crowd sourced profit margin to me.

Quote from: Bob
Okay but - I understood in an earlier post here by someone who actually did the process that they didn't ask questions about things such as whether you have a skill useful for the mission already. Seems they are going to whittle it down based on personality more than anything else.

I've got what is derisively known as an "open mind".  This means that I can see both sides of a truly presented argument in a free speech environment.  Mars-One is doing some things correctly, and some things incorrectly.  This morning, I'd say that their chances of success are between slim and fat, since they're doing most of the latter.

But their "personality test" is spot on.

You know how many disagreeable people are here on this forum?   They're the ones who know all about math and science, and that's pretty much about it.  Imagine being stuck on Mars with one of these guys.  Now imagine that you made a simple math error.

Basically game over.

Personality is the first thing you look at, so I grant Gryffindor an important point.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/16/2013 01:32 pm
... compared to the other obstacles to be overcome these requirements are fairly innocuous. And they don't make landing on Mars illegal as Robert claims.  It's sort of like claiming that driving a car is illegal because you have to get a driver's license first.

Bingo.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/16/2013 01:34 pm
Oh it is vastly more complex than that. The thing is, there is no provision in the treaty for permissions for humans to land on Mars. So the treaty has to be renegotiated.

You worry too much, young Paudan.  First things first.

Also, you forget that it is better to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 01:39 pm
In this context, rather it is the Precautionary Principle that needs to be applied:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/16/2013 01:45 pm
No question but that they should practice "safe sex" on the planet.  But anybody can go to a convenience store.  The intractable problem is getting to "yes".
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 02:47 pm
Oh it is vastly more complex than that. Most people have no idea how much is involved, unless you look into it.

Okay, fine. Educate us. What did NASA have to go through to land Curiosity on Mars to comply with the Outer Space Treaty?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 03:02 pm
Okay, fine. Educate us. What did NASA have to go through to land Curiosity on Mars to comply with the Outer Space Treaty?

"The Mars Science Laboratory Rover will comply with requirements to carry a total of no more than 300,000 bacterial spores on any surface from which the spores could get into the martian environment"

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/technology/insituexploration/planetaryprotection/

"We measure heat-resistant organisms that grow on a particular kind of petri plate as a proxy for cleanliness, because this allows spores of Bacillus bacteria to grow and these organisms are known to be among the most resistant to the space environment. The requirement, using this proxy, is that there be less than 300 ‘spores’ per meter of spacecraft surface — in practice, quite a lot of the time the MSL planetary protection team measured zero spores. This means that the assembly personnel did a really good job of keeping the spacecraft clean, by wearing proper gowning, wiping things down with isopropanol as they were working, and covering the hardware when they were done."

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/MSLPlanProtFact.pdf

"Planetary protection requirements called for the entire Mars Science Laboratory flight system to launch with no more than 500,000 bacterial spores — about one tenth as many as in a typical teaspoon of seawater.
In addition, the exposed interior and exterior surfaces of the landed system, including the rover, parachute and back shell, were limited to carrying no more than 300,000 spores, with the average spore density not
exceeding 300 spores per square meter (about 11 square feet).

This ensures that any biological load is not concentrated in one place.

The heat shield and descent stage will hit the ground hard enough that hardware could break open. The number of spores inside this hardware that could be exposed was included in the final spore count."

http://curiositywatch.com/could-curiosity-contaminate-mars-with-earth-boung-bacteria-life-on-mars/

BTW the bacterial spores are not the only form of life on the spacecraft surfaces. The thing is that 99% of the dormant life on the surface is really hard to measure, you can just get DNA for sequencing when you try to detect it, which doesn't give you a number to put in for the number of organisms.

But reducing the number of bacterial spores gives you a good idea of how clean you keep it from other micro-organisms and is the usual way they test for cleanliness of the spacecraft. That's what she means when she says "using this proxy".
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 03:44 pm
"The Mars Science Laboratory Rover will comply with requirements to carry a total of no more than 300,000 bacterial spores on any surface from which the spores could get into the martian environment"

And why couldn't Mars One comply with these requirements?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 04:07 pm
> "The Mars Science Laboratory Rover will comply with requirements to carry a total of no more than 300,000 bacterial spores on any surface from which the spores could get into the martian environment"
And why couldn't Mars One comply with these requirements?

Typically a human has about 1 trillion micro-organisms on the skin alone. And you can't remove them. The process would kill a human being.

You can't fix it just by enclosing a human in a spacesuit either. Not normal methods of doing that anyway.

About the only way it might be possible in some future society is - build some ultra strong spacesuit that can't be breached even in case of a hard landing, maybe from nanotubes or something.

Human gets into the spacesuit in orbit. Outside is sterilized in some way that is safe for the human (e.g. hydrogen peroxide??). Or perhaps the surface of the spacesuit is self cleaning in some way??

The suit is totally self contained, has its own internal supplies of food and water for the human. Or else all food water etc. is filtered at incredibly fine levels on the way in or out

Oxygen could be supplied to the human via a suitably decontaminated spacecraft..

All waste is kept within the suit for duration of the visit. Do just short visits to the surface.

That could work. Maybe it can be refined. But not possible to do that with current technology yet.

As soon as you have the humans putting spacesuits on and off, and airlocks, it is just not practical given the trillions of organisms involved.

I've thought about it, as I would really like it for a human to be able to step on the surface of Mars in person :). Meanwhile though telepresence is "almost as good as being there", actually experience it more clearly than you do if there in person.

Oh and it's also possible of course if the humans land in a self contained spacecraft that has no airlock to communicate with the outside and is amazingly tough so if it crashes just deforms and doesn't breach (future technology carbon nanofibre??). And sterilize the outside while still in orbit. But in that case, what is the point in going to the surface if you can't leave your spaceship?

Perhaps that latter could be useful in future if the spaceship is also highly mobile rover with transparent windows, so can travel anywhere you like on the surface, and with manipulator arms etc, sort of like the telepresence but with the human inside the rover. Would have to be utterly totally failsafe technology. Again this is science fiction stuff at present.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 05:08 pm
Typically a human has about 1 trillion micro-organisms on the skin alone. And you can't remove them.

There's nothing in the Outer Space Treaty that requires removing the micro-organisms from the skin of people on Mars. That seems to be your particular requirement. The treaty says to "avoid their harmful contamination".

I think your enthusiasm for in-space colonies as opposed to planetary surface ones is leading you to interpret innocuous clauses in the treaty to be far more draconian than virtually anyone else does.

The Mars One people have certainly set themselves a formidable task, one that I doubt very seriously they're up to. However, complying with the OST is way down on the list of obstacles to overcome.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 05:19 pm
There's nothing in the Outer Space Treaty that requires removing the micro-organisms from the skin of people on Mars. That seems to be your particular requirement. The treaty says to "avoid their harmful contamination".

There is nothing in it about humans at all. But to maintain a similar level of protection of the Mars environment to that achieved for spacecraft that is what you would have to do. Which is impossible. So they can't deal with humans just by adjusting the guidelines and treating humans as if they were a special type of robotic rover.

If a robot spacecraft is required to have no more than 500,000 dormant spores on it, there is no way that a human spaceship with hundreds of trillions of micro-organisms can comply with anything like similar requirements. (100,000,000,000,000s instead or 500,000)

Does that make sense?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 06:40 pm
Does that make sense?

No one is disputing that humans are much harder to sterilize than machines (obviously).

What is in dispute is whether that means that the landing of humans on Mars is illegal per the Outer Space Treaty.

That seems to be your unique interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty. Certainly no signatory to the treaty interprets it that way.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/16/2013 07:16 pm
Does that make sense?

No one is disputing that humans are much harder to sterilize than machines (obviously).

What is in dispute is whether that means that the landing of humans on Mars is illegal per the Outer Space Treaty.

That seems to be your unique interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty. Certainly no signatory to the treaty interprets it that way.

Hmm... seems to me that the heroic measures to reduce biological load on probes are being done to reduce false positives if we are searching for life, as well as to reduce contamination of Mars, in general.

Further seems to me that if we send humans, it's not realistic to encase them forevermore. There WILL be contamination of Mars from the humans and their various machines and wastes and so forth.

So is sending humans sort of a defacto "we give up" on finding life and being really sure it isn't our life we brought along?

(I think it is, and I'm OK with that but I suspect Robert is taking the other side of this, saying it's NOT ok to make a defacto decision that way... after all he started another thread on how important is it to preserve Mars unspoilt....  to wit: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31914.0 ... and that he's saying the OST prevents this. These are two different questions, one moral, one legal  Jim seems to be arguing the legal side, that the OST doesn't prevent it. And I think he's right, it doesn't, but I am no expert)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 07:27 pm
No one is disputing that humans are much harder to sterilize than machines (obviously).

What is in dispute is whether that means that the landing of humans on Mars is illegal per the Outer Space Treaty.

That seems to be your unique interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty. Certainly no signatory to the treaty interprets it that way.

Okay let's say it in more detail.

The COSPAR committees advise on how to apply the clause in the treaty. The clause says that

"Article IX: ... States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose..."

So it is the "so as to avoid their harmful contamination" and "where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose"

So - COSPAR only advises how to interpret the treaty and the group of 1000 scientists who meet every two years can't change the treaty. That's their remit in this case.

They advise on precautions that are required to keep Mars free of harmful contamination.

So:

1. If you send humans to the surface of Mars, then on current up to date scientific research, you know that there is a high probability that this will contaminate the surface of Mars with life, and especially so in the case of a hard landing.

2. there is general agreement that contaminating the surface with life counts as "harmful contamination" in the sense of the treaty.

3. Therefore you are going against the outer space treaty which explicitly prohibits such contamination.

4. This takes it outside the remit of COSPAR.

5. Therefore the treaty needs to be renegotiated.

It is kind of obvious so I never thought to see if someone has published a paper that spells all this out in detail and goes into the legal details of it. But I expect someone has, I found an excellent paper on the legal ramifications of Mars sample return. I'll see if I can find something, since you want the opinion of a legal expert which I am not.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Warren Platts on 05/16/2013 07:42 pm
No one is disputing that humans are much harder to sterilize than machines (obviously).

What is in dispute is whether that means that the landing of humans on Mars is illegal per the Outer Space Treaty.

That seems to be your unique interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty. Certainly no signatory to the treaty interprets it that way.

So it is the "so as to avoid their harmful contamination" and "where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose"...

2. there is general agreement that contaminating the surface with life counts as "harmful contamination" in the sense of the treaty.

No, merely dropping a few spores onto the surface doesn't count as "harmful" contamination. In any case, it's already happened. No harm has resulted.

Harmful contamination would be if someone pumped raw sewage into a thousand foot deep aquifer. As far as I know, no one is proposing to do that.

Under current conditions, there is no way for Earthly contamination to get to Martian aquifers. One single active spring has yet to be identified. Any subterranean life forms are quite safe from landers from Earth.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 07:45 pm
Well that is your own unique interpretation of the requirements of the treaty :).
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Warren Platts on 05/16/2013 08:07 pm
Well that is your own unique interpretation of the requirements of the treaty :).

No, that's why the OST applies the qualifier "harmful" to "contamination". The treaty does not ban contamination in general.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 08:17 pm
I'll see if I can find something, since you want the opinion of a legal expert which I am not.

What I actually want is some evidence that a treaty signatory actually agrees with your interpretation. Given that that both the USSR/Russia and the USA have, since the treaty was adopted, proposed and studied manned landings on extraterrestrial bodies (and, in the case of the US, has actually done so) many times it seems that your contention that the Outer Space Treaty makes manned landings illegal untenable.

In brief, I'm not so much interested in your opinion but in how widely your opinion is shared. As I said before, this seems to be an opinion held only by you. While there is nothing wrong about holding unique opinions, it will inevitably lead to questions and speculations about motives, ulterior and otherwise.



Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 08:55 pm
What I actually want is some evidence that a treaty signatory actually agrees with your interpretation. Given that that both the USSR/Russia and the USA have, since the treaty was adopted, proposed and studied manned landings on extraterrestrial bodies (and, in the case of the US, has actually done so) many times it seems that your contention that the Outer Space Treaty makes manned landings illegal untenable.

In brief, I'm not so much interested in your opinion but in how widely your opinion is shared. As I said before, this seems to be an opinion held only by you. While there is nothing wrong about holding unique opinions, it will inevitably lead to questions and speculations about motives, ulterior and otherwise.
Oh, I see what you mean, excellent point. I've never understood how it is possible for them to propose manned missions to Mars actually. I mean, not since I realised what the issues were (which was only a few years ago).

I've not seen any clarification of this either. In the NASA studies you get general statements about things such as the need for more robotic studies of Mars to prepare for more understanding leading to a new planetary protection policies.

But not seen any suggestions of what the details of those policies might be or how they would work legally or how they would connect with the Outer Space Treaty. Or about what exactly could be discovered that would lead to changes in the policies.

It reads almost like - keep exploring the planet and finding out more, and somehow or other it is all going to work out eventually.

Seems clear to me that the treaty would need to be negotiated but as you say that is a personal opinion and I'm not a lawyer, just that the text seems plain enough and don't see how it can be interpreted any other way.

Maybe someone somewhere has a road map or idea of how one might get legally from here to a human landing on Mars. Doing a google search now to find one but I haven't yet.

It is possible that there is just a kind of time lag. At the moment the space program is just kind of vaguely stated. No concrete plan to land on Mars, just to send humans to vicinity of Mars with a view to landing there eventually, and preceded by missions to an asteroid etc.

And about five years or so ago it was possible to think in terms of a human landing on Mars that had only local temporary contamination of the surface, and biologically reversible. I've seen talks by Christopher McKay for instance saying that it is possible. I don't think that could be said now though, not with the very latest research.

I just don't know the answer, will see if I can find anything and if anyone else has a lead do say!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 09:11 pm
This is the sort of thing they say in the NASA policy documents. Sorry I can't read the actual paper because I am no longer attached to an academic institution, but am an independent software developer.

"Through existing treaty obligations of the United States, NASA is committed to exploring space while avoiding biological contamination of the planets, and to the protection of the Earth against harm from materials returned from space. Because of the similarities between Mars and Earth, plans for the exploration of Mars evoke discussions of these Planetary Protection issues. US Planetary Protection Policy will be focused on the preservation of these goals in an arena that will change with the growth of scientific knowledge about the martian environment. Early opportunities to gain the appropriate data will be used to guide later policy implementation. Because human presence on Mars will result in the end of Earth's separation from the martian environment, it is expected that precursor robotic missions will address critical planetary protection concerns before humans arrive."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117798000362

They don't go into details of what that means legally or about how it is possible that robotic missions could lead to a change in the planetary protection policies, not in the things I've read. Maybe they do somewhere?

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/16/2013 09:19 pm
I've never understood how it is possible for them to propose manned missions to Mars actually.

Did you understand how it was possible for them to propose, and actually carry out, manned missions to the moon?

Really, Robert, going from "I've never understood" to "it's illegal" is quite a stretch. And when you make stretches of that sort questions and speculations about your motives and integrity (like the unfortunate eco-extremist characterization) are inevitable.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 09:27 pm
Here is a good paper about legal clarification of the Outer Space Treaty. It's from 2006, fairly recent, though before the most recent research which makes the issues of a human landing even more acute.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11381&page=13

First it makes it clear that the article is understood as concerning protection of the planet's value for scientific research - see the first page goes into this in detail.

"Human missions will inevitably introduce considerations that go beyond those covered by the forward contamination controls and policies discussed in this report. Furthermore, they are likely to involve examination of COSPAR policies and questions about minimizing potential contamination that could be introduced through human operations, exploration, construction, sampling, and sequencing of activities. Today, there are no official COSPAR or NASA policies encompassing forward contamination of solar system bodies during human missions. Although significant study will be necessary before planning and implementing contamination controls for human missions, the committee recognizes that planetary protection considerations will be important in all phases of future missions, whether robotic or human. The committee notes that previous NRC reports—Biological Contamination of Mars: Issues and Recommendations (NRC, 1992) and Safe on Mars: Precursor Measurements Necessary to Support Human Operations on the Martian Surface (NRC, 2002)—have addressed human missions to Mars and have concluded that information from precursor robotic missions is critical for planning safe, productive human missions that will have a minimal impact on Mars.

In anticipating the long-term potential for expansion of human activities on Mars, it may be prudent to consider forward contamination policies in the context of analogous policies for sensitive environments on Earth, such as the international treaty governing Antarctica.11 Like the Outer Space Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty calls for peaceful use for humanity, freedom of scientific investigations, and international cooperation. The Antarctic Treaty also specifically calls for the preservation and conservation of living resources in Antarctica. Examination of the administrative oversight and controls imposed on research and activities in polar areas, such as the designation of special regions, requirements for waste disposal and cleanup, and reversibility of human actions, may be useful in developing a framework for addressing concerns related to forward contamination by human missions.

The committee does not, however, take a position on whether human missions to Mars will or will not necessarily broadly contaminate the martian surface with terrestrial microorganisms—a topic that will require extensive study and possibly research and development (R&D)."

Basically in short, no-one has an answer. Just say need more research.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/16/2013 09:41 pm
Did you understand how it was possible for them to propose, and actually carry out, manned missions to the moon?

Jim. actually, the manned missions to the moon protocols were highly questionable from contamination point of view.

This is what Carl Sagan said about this - bear in mind that he wrote it not that long after the landing so even then we knew better, the scientists did at least.

This is what he said:
"The one clear lesson that emerged from our experience in attempting to isolate Apollo-returned lunar samples is that mission controllers are unwilling to risk the certain discomfort of an astronaut – never mind his death – against the remote possibility of a global pandemic. When Apollo 11, the first successful manned lunar lander, returned to Earth – it was a spaceworthy, but not a very seaworthy, vessel – the agreed-upon quarantine protocol was immediately breached. It was adjudged better to open the Apollo 11 hatch to the air of the Pacific Ocean and, for all we then knew, expose the Earth to lunar pathogens, than to risk three seasick astronauts. So little concern was paid to quarantine that the aircraft-carrier crane scheduled to lift the command module unopened out of the Pacific was discovered at the last moment to be unsafe. Exit from Apollo 11 was required in the open sea."
http://www.e-reading-lib.org/bookreader.php/148581/Sagan_-_The_Cosmic_Connection___An_Extraterrestrial_Perspective.pdf

They actually walked from the module to the quarantine facilities, over open sea as he said, and past sailors waiting on the deck, and the facilities themselves were not airtight.

If there had been anything harmful on the Moon, it had an excellent chance to contaminate our planet.

The other way around they took no precautions at all to avoid contaminating the Moon.

This is a good article about changes in our attitudes about forward and backward contamination due to changes in knowledge about extremophiles etc.

http://astrobiology.com/2013/04/planetary-protection-a-work-in-progress.html

We are lucky that our first excursion into space was to such a lifeless world as the Moon, in my opinion. Of course there was very little public awareness of such issues. When I watched the astronauts return to Earth on TV it didn't cross my mind to think twice about it when they opened the hatch in the open sea and got into an open boat to go to the quarantine facilities. You needed a forward thinking scientist like Carl Sagan to see how questionable it was. How times have changed.

Here is a video of a bit of the recovery of Apollo 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fkl2tDO58s

In those days being "green" and caring about the environment was considered highly eccentric. Recycling and, many things we take for granted now were things no-one even thought of doing except a few people who were thought of by most as a bit crazy or silly.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/16/2013 10:06 pm
If all Mars One achieves is a clarification or renegotiation of the Outer Space Treaty then it'll be a great success!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/16/2013 10:18 pm
If all Mars One achieves is a clarification or renegotiation of the Outer Space Treaty then it'll be a great success!


Be careful what you wish for, it could be changed in the "wrong" direction (whatever that might be...)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/17/2013 02:13 am
Basically in short, no-one has an answer. Just say need more research.

We do not need any more research to determine whether it is legal for humans to land on Mars or anywhere else.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/17/2013 02:20 am
Jim. actually, the manned missions to the moon protocols were highly questionable from contamination point of view.

But the legality of the manned missions to the moon are not questionable; no treaty signatory at the time questioned their legality. No treaty signatory since has questioned the legality of prospective manned landings on Mars.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/17/2013 03:56 am
Jim. actually, the manned missions to the moon protocols were highly questionable from contamination point of view.

But the legality of the manned missions to the moon are not questionable; no treaty signatory at the time questioned their legality. No treaty signatory since has questioned the legality of prospective manned landings on Mars.

I think a common-law precedent has been established already, for manned landings, and for sample return... So it would take some change of state for it to be not legal, precedent usually carries.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 05/17/2013 04:43 am
Also, contamination will not make us unable to tell if future life found on Mars is native-Mars or Earth-contamination. A simple DNA test would show where it fits in Earth's tree of life.

If it fits anywhere recognizable, it's (geologically) recent Earth contamination (either from humans or meteorites).

If it doesn't fit anywhere, but still uses basic Earth biochemistry like the same genetic code, amino acids etc. it's "native" Mars life derived from ancient transfer from Earth.

If it doesn't use the same genetic code, amino acids etc, or doesn't use DNA/RNA at all, it's entirely native.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 05:54 am

If it doesn't fit anywhere, but still uses basic Earth biochemistry like the same genetic code, amino acids etc. it's "native" Mars life derived from ancient transfer from Earth.

If it doesn't use the same genetic code, amino acids etc, or doesn't use DNA/RNA at all, it's entirely native.


More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/17/2013 06:02 am
To get back on topic - a novel concept, I know - I wonder how much of the mission architecture will be revealed when they finally get professional studies done. Presumably this would include something from SpaceX on the cargo lander to be launched in 2016, at least, and will make the next funding goal clearer.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 06:34 am
To get back on topic - a novel concept, I know - I wonder how much of the mission architecture will be revealed when they finally get professional studies done. Presumably this would include something from SpaceX on the cargo lander to be launched in 2016, at least, and will make the next funding goal clearer.

Not much, I assume. 2016 is very near and the only thing that could possibly land by that time would be Red Dragon with some kind of rover. So no 5m Dragon or anything else novel.

The one thing I wonder about are these tunnels connecting the row of Capsules. Would that be difficult to do? If you can connect all the cargo and crew 5m Dragons you get a lot of habitat volume for free. Some privacy as well because the modules are separate.

All hypothetical anyway because I don't believe for a second they will land anything on Mars at all. But some of the ideas are intriguing.

About OT, I don't know why that other interesting issue infected this thread. It has its own.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/17/2013 06:40 am
Not much, I assume. 2016 is very near and the only thing that could possibly land by that time would be Red Dragon with some kind of rover. So no 5m Dragon or anything else novel.

They don't plan to send a rover until the second flight.

Quote
The one thing I wonder about are these tunnels connecting the row of Capsules. Would that be difficult to do? If you can connect all the cargo and crew 5m Dragons you get a lot of habitat volume for free. Some privacy as well because the modules are separate.

That's the plan, yeah.

Quote
All hypothetical anyway because I don't believe for a second they will land anything on Mars at all. But some of the ideas are intriguing.

What is the point of being derisive? At least they're trying, that's more than another else is doing.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 07:37 am
Not much, I assume. 2016 is very near and the only thing that could possibly land by that time would be Red Dragon with some kind of rover. So no 5m Dragon or anything else novel.

They don't plan to send a rover until the second flight.

They say they land a pathfinder. Would that not be a rover? Even if it is stationary it would need a lander, so likely Red Dragon.

Quote
Quote
The one thing I wonder about are these tunnels connecting the row of Capsules. Would that be difficult to do? If you can connect all the cargo and crew 5m Dragons you get a lot of habitat volume for free. Some privacy as well because the modules are separate.


That's the plan, yeah.

Yes it is the plan but how? I would assume it needs to be done manually by the colonists.


Quote
Quote
All hypothetical anyway because I don't believe for a second they will land anything on Mars at all. But some of the ideas are intriguing.

What is the point of being derisive? At least they're trying, that's more than another else is doing.

I just don't think it is realistic at all. While I am not risk averse I really don't like the idea to have thelife of the colonists depending on the success of the show. I also sure that greenhouse cannot deliver the caloric needs of the colonists.

[/quote]
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/17/2013 08:24 am
We do not need any more research to determine whether it is legal for humans to land on Mars or anywhere else.

Okay, but it was them saying we need more research, not me!

Then there is this bit which guides the interpretation of the article:

"An earlier legal review, however, argued that “if the assumption is made that the parties to the treaty were not merely being verbose” and “harmful contamination” is not simply redundant, “harmful” should be interpreted as “harmful to the interests of other states,” and since “states have an interest in protecting their ongoing space programs,” Article IX must mean that “any contamination which would result in harm to a state’s experiments or programs is to be avoided” (Cypser, 1993, pp. 324-325). Both reviews, and their interpretations, are unofficial.
"

So, Mars One to land on Mars would have to establish that what they do is not harmful to other state's experiments on Mars. Scientists from any of the states can argue the other way that contaminating Mars with Earth life is harmful to their experiments to find out about current life on Mars and the origin of life on Mars.

That can include scientists from any of the participating nations.  They need to establish that their plan does not harm any of the scientific experiments or programs of any of the participating states.

Though the interpretation is unofficial, there is a long precedent now that harmful contamination is understood to include contamination by life.

I think this is reasonably on topic because if Mars One are not legally permitted to land on Mars then they won't succeed for that reason.

There is nothing particularly unique about Mars One of course, same would apply to Mars Direct etc. And since NASA also seem to have no ground plan as to how they expect the law to change to permit human landings, then it's no surprise if no-one else does either :).




Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/17/2013 09:08 am
But the legality of the manned missions to the moon are not questionable; no treaty signatory at the time questioned their legality. No treaty signatory since has questioned the legality of prospective manned landings on Mars.
...
I think a common-law precedent has been established already, for manned landings, and for sample return... So it would take some change of state for it to be not legal, precedent usually carries.
It's a good point. The treaty was already in place at the time of the Moon landing. But we knew a lot less about the possibilities of contamination in those days. The quarantine facilities for the astronauts on return was probably thought by those involved to be enough to satisfy the treaty.

Nowadays - for the Moon we know it is okay and no harm was done because it turned out to be lifeless. But the methods used for the manned mission to the Moon are now known not to be adequate for a mission to Mars, due to progress in scientific understanding.

Does that make sense to you? Also I've not seen this line of argument suggested in any published paper, that the Moon landings could be taken as a common law precedent for a manned mission to Mars or Mars sample return. So I don't think that is the intention of NASA or any of the other countries or organizations planning manned missions to Mars to do that, I could be wrong of course, do try a search to see if you can find something if you still think it is likely that this is what they have in mind.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/17/2013 09:20 am
To avoid hijacking this thread, and because it doesn't really belong in the other one either, I'm going to start a new topic on the issue of the legality of human landings on Mars and whether or not NASA or anyone else has a ground plan as to how the law would change or be reinterpreted.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/17/2013 12:30 pm
They say they land a pathfinder. Would that not be a rover? Even if it is stationary it would need a lander, so likely Red Dragon.


Ya know, all these questions and more are answered in the FAQ.

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/22-faq-mission-features/252-why-is-the-rover-on-the-second-instead-of-on-the-first-mission-to-mars

Quote
Yes it is the plan but how? I would assume it needs to be done manually by the colonists.

I think it was on The Space Show that this question was answered.. they intend to use the rovers to move the habs around (tractor style) and put them in position, but the actual connecting tunnels will be put in by the first crew. Of course, all this could change as soon as they get some real (paid) studies done.

Quote
I just don't think it is realistic at all. While I am not risk averse I really don't like the idea to have the life of the colonists depending on the success of the show.

That question was answered on The Space Show too, but I don't recall the reasoning.

Quote
I also sure that greenhouse cannot deliver the caloric needs of the colonists.

Why? It's not like it's highly experimental aeroponics or something. It's just high yield hydroponics.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 01:38 pm
I also sure that greenhouse cannot deliver the caloric needs of the colonists.

Why? It's not like it's highly experimental aeroponics or something. It's just high yield hydroponics.

They can say that a thousand times and each time they lose a little more credibility with me.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/17/2013 02:31 pm

If it doesn't fit anywhere, but still uses basic Earth biochemistry like the same genetic code, amino acids etc. it's "native" Mars life derived from ancient transfer from Earth.

If it doesn't use the same genetic code, amino acids etc, or doesn't use DNA/RNA at all, it's entirely native.


More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.

Cite please?

It has only been existentially proven that life has originated on Earth.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 02:51 pm
More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.

Cite please?

It has only been existentially proven that life has originated on Earth.

Mars is less heavy than earth. Impacts that throw much mass into space and allows for survival of life is therefore more likely than on earth.

Also that matter is more likely to migrate in the direction of the sun and Earth than matter from Earth to Mars. I may be wrong about that though.

So the likelihood that life from Mars reaches Earth is a lot higher than the other way around.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/17/2013 04:04 pm
More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.

Cite please?

It has only been existentially proven that life has originated on Earth.

Mars is less heavy than earth. Impacts that throw much mass into space and allows for survival of life is therefore more likely than on earth.

Also that matter is more likely to migrate in the direction of the sun and Earth than matter from Earth to Mars. I may be wrong about that though.

So the likelihood that life from Mars reaches Earth is a lot higher than the other way around.

Which is neither a cite, nor proof.  I win.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 04:21 pm

Which is neither a cite, nor proof.  I win.

Funny!

I never talked about it as certain, just probability. And to prove probability I don't need to cite, logic of argument does it.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/17/2013 07:01 pm

Which is neither a cite, nor proof.  I win.

Funny!

I never talked about it as certain, just probability. And to prove probability I don't need to cite, logic of argument does it.

Another point for me!  You still didn't prove any probability.  You simply stated that Mars has less gravity than Earth, and then asserted that panspermia happened.

Woo! Woo!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: robertinventor on 05/17/2013 07:16 pm
Perhaps I can step in here. I gather the jury is  out.

But at present, it is very hard for life to go from Earth to Mars. The reason is because of the atmosphere mainly. It needs to be a very large asteroid over 10 km across for any of the material that escapes the atmosphere to reach escape velocity at normal impact velocities with the Earth.

It is easier the other way from Mars to Earth because of the low gravity and lower escape velocity, but Mars has less life on it, if any, so right now it isn't that easy that way either.

Both ways, the life typically will spend millions of years in transit (though a few rocks may manage a faster transit) so only the most resiliant spores will survive the journey, however some may well be able to do it. No-one knows for sure. Will really know only if we discover life on other planets and moons and can show they were seeded from Earth or Mars.

Early Mars had a lot more air and water of course. It also cooled down slightly  before the Earth which is one point in its favour. Also it didn't have to survive the big impact with Earth that created the Moon.

On the other hand, it is possible that life on Earth seeded itself, so for instance life on Earth before the Moon formed could have reseeded the planet after the impact with debris from the impact that spent enough time in space for the planet to cool down before it returned.

For that matter, not seen this mentioned anywhere but just occurs to me now - if there was life on the Mars sized impactor that created the Moon, that also presumably could seed Earth via debris sent into space and returning to the system after it cooled down.

Basically nobody knows.

I don't know if the Earth being closer to the sun makes it easier or harder for material to get from Earth to Mars or the other way around. But maybe can help with those other things. I have read all this in the literature but can't remember where I found each thing, it would take a while to look up all the refs.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 07:24 pm

Another point for me!  You still didn't prove any probability.  You simply stated that Mars has less gravity than Earth, and then asserted that panspermia happened.

Woo! Woo!

I have no idea what you are talking about. I never asserted that panspermia happened.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/17/2013 07:47 pm

Another point for me!  You still didn't prove any probability.  You simply stated that Mars has less gravity than Earth, and then asserted that panspermia happened.

Woo! Woo!

You should really try not only to read but to comprehend. I never asserted that panspermia happened.

Fair point about your non-assertion.  I'll give mine back.

But what you said was that, along the lines of what robert the inventor details, is that because of the relative ease of Mars' gravity, and its current tenuous atmosphere, that in theory, panspermia is more probable from Mars to Earth than from Earth to Mars.

Left out of your probability calculation is the earlier atmosphere of Mars, thought to be much thicker in olden times.  This would seem to lessen the chances of that probability.  Left out of the calculation is the nature of an impact which hits Mars in its historical atmo, picks up life, leaves Mars, travels to Earth, impacts here, and does all of this in such a way as to carry that life.

Sounds pretty probable, I guess.  Plus, it has the benefit of depending entirely on biogenesis occuring on Mars, independent of biogenesis on Earth.

Unknown probabilities times unknown probabilities.

Gotta go.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 07:55 pm

If it doesn't fit anywhere, but still uses basic Earth biochemistry like the same genetic code, amino acids etc. it's "native" Mars life derived from ancient transfer from Earth.

If it doesn't use the same genetic code, amino acids etc, or doesn't use DNA/RNA at all, it's entirely native.


More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.

@JohnFornaro

I quote my own post that started this discussion. Again I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.

I made no statement about probability of panspermia. I made the claim that relative probabilities between Earth to Mars and Mars to Earth is much in favor of Mars to Earth because matter can be expelled much easier from smaller Mars than from Earth. So much is obvious and needs no citation as proof IMO.

With this I end this disussion as it seems not very useful any more.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/17/2013 08:21 pm

If it doesn't fit anywhere, but still uses basic Earth biochemistry like the same genetic code, amino acids etc. it's "native" Mars life derived from ancient transfer from Earth.

If it doesn't use the same genetic code, amino acids etc, or doesn't use DNA/RNA at all, it's entirely native.


More likely the other way around, we would be immigrants from Mars.

@JohnFornaro

I quote my own post that started this discussion. Again I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.

I made no statement about probability of panspermia. I made the claim that relative probabilities between Earth to Mars and Mars to Earth is much in favor of Mars to Earth because matter can be expelled much easier from smaller Mars than from Earth. So much is obvious and needs no citation as proof IMO.

With this I end this disussion as it seems not very useful any more.

That's fine and agreeable, but I can't not assume you weren't talking probability of panspermia.  What else could "we would be immigrants from Mars" mean?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/17/2013 08:29 pm
That's fine and agreeable, but I can't not assume you weren't talking probability of panspermia. 

Danger, Danger, Jimmy Asteroid, parser overload!  ""Can't not assume you weren't" ... LOLwut?  ... are you from Boston?

What else could "we would be immigrants from Mars" mean?

Typo for "we would be immigrants TO Mars" ???
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/17/2013 08:36 pm
Typo for "we would be immigrants TO Mars" ???


No. ;D

I can state that much without opening again the discussion I had declared ended as far as I am concerned.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/17/2013 09:36 pm
Typo for "we would be immigrants TO Mars" ???


No. ;D

I can state that much without opening again the discussion I had declared ended as far as I am concerned.

Well, OK then!  Just tryin; to help a fellow traveler out... John,  you are clear to resume the Spanish Inquisition on your victim. In absentia.

I also sure that greenhouse cannot deliver the caloric needs of the colonists.

Why? It's not like it's highly experimental aeroponics or something. It's just high yield hydroponics.

Um, isn't high yield hydroponics on Mars "highly experimental" ?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/17/2013 11:24 pm
Um, isn't high yield hydroponics on Mars "highly experimental" ?

heh, yes. guckyfan was implying it was unworkable on Earth, when actually people have been doing high yield hydroponics for decades. You can start your own for a few hundred dollars.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Chris Bergin on 05/17/2013 11:56 pm
Ok guys, we need to drag this thread back on topic.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/18/2013 12:15 am
Um, isn't high yield hydroponics on Mars "highly experimental" ?

heh, yes. guckyfan was implying it was unworkable on Earth, when actually people have been doing high yield hydroponics for decades. You can start your own for a few hundred dollars.

Well it's the "on mars" part I am dubious about. Remember, Michigan is a medical MJ state. So I know high yield hydroponics works here. In fact I think I had some tomatoes grown that way last nite.

But... Mars One have a very tough row to hoe here. So to speak.

Even if they get the 6 launches they want before the 4 folk go, that is not a lot of mass to work with so as other threads have highlighted, the more calories you want, and the less efficient you are, the more volume (and thus mass to build it) you need for calorie production. So they really need high yield to work. But do we understand plant growth well enough? That's been hashed out in other threads and my view is we don't know if we do or not.

Further... Suppose they can only raise the funds for 4 launches...  (would they not go? The stuff there ought to be the longest duration possible so someone else could use it)... But if they DO go, then it is even worse demands on the food production system.

(although I could see them going, a few launches short, and then M1 using that as a lead in to begging for more supplies, ala Hunger Games )
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/18/2013 12:19 am
As interesting as it is to speculate, I think the answer simply is: you gotta try it to find out. As I understand it, they intend to demonstrate crop growth before flying anyone there. Should they fail to demonstrate crop growth, they'll have to reevaluate their plan.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/18/2013 12:20 am
As interesting as it is to speculate, I think the answer simply is: you gotta try it to find out. As I understand it, they intend to demonstrate crop growth before flying anyone there. Should they fail to demonstrate crop growth, they'll have to reevaluate their plan.

My point is that even if they succeed, here on earth, it might still fail there, for some reason we have not sussed out (gravity being #1 hardest to simulate). Then they starve. That's how it goes though.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/18/2013 04:43 am
Ok guys, we need to drag this thread back on topic.

IMO this is on topic. To make this high risk but not a suicide mission they need to demonstrate how the people can be fed.

I have no problem with high risk but with sending people into certain death.

I do know (a little) about high yield hydroponics. I have grown decorative plants in hydroponics for 40 years in my home. It is a neat thing to do and the plants thrive better than in soil. But it will not increase yields tenfold or more. Especially this is about producing calories which can be done only so much. I have no doubt they can produce vegetables enough but high calorie staples for carbohydrates and fat and some protein too take their time and volume to feed four people.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/18/2013 05:00 am
As interesting as it is to speculate, I think the answer simply is: you gotta try it to find out. As I understand it, they intend to demonstrate crop growth before flying anyone there. Should they fail to demonstrate crop growth, they'll have to reevaluate their plan.

My point is that even if they succeed, here on earth, it might still fail there, for some reason we have not sussed out (gravity being #1 hardest to simulate). Then they starve. That's how it goes though.

What part of this are you missing? They intend to test crop growth ON MARS before sending humans to Mars. (Or, at least, that's the last I heard).
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/18/2013 05:12 am
My point is that even if they succeed, here on earth, it might still fail there, for some reason we have not sussed out (gravity being #1 hardest to simulate). Then they starve. That's how it goes though.

What part of this are you missing? They intend to test crop growth ON MARS before sending humans to Mars. (Or, at least, that's the last I heard).

That part... withdraw the objection. :)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/18/2013 05:57 am
My point is that even if they succeed, here on earth, it might still fail there, for some reason we have not sussed out (gravity being #1 hardest to simulate). Then they starve. That's how it goes though.

What part of this are you missing? They intend to test crop growth ON MARS before sending humans to Mars. (Or, at least, that's the last I heard).

That part... withdraw the objection. :)

On the condition that they publish real data on yield.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 05/18/2013 06:37 am
What part of this are you missing? They intend to test crop growth ON MARS before sending humans to Mars. (Or, at least, that's the last I heard).

The robotics for this is difficult. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it will take several years to design, build and test, and lots of money.

They would also need to test a variety of crops, which makes the robotics problem much harder.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/18/2013 06:47 am
The robotics for this is difficult. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it will take several years to design, build and test, and lots of money.

They would also need to test a variety of crops, which makes the robotics problem much harder.

I don't see why you need that for proof that crops can and will grow on Mars. Obviously, automated crop growth would be a nice-have.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Lar on 05/18/2013 07:03 am
The robotics for this is difficult. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it will take several years to design, build and test, and lots of money.

They would also need to test a variety of crops, which makes the robotics problem much harder.

I don't see why you need that for proof that crops can and will grow on Mars. Obviously, automated crop growth would be a nice-have.

You need more than one crop, no one crop is completely sufficient. So there is some inherent complexity. You got me to agree that their plan does not put people on Mars prior to testing crop growth. You didn't get me to agree that crop testing with 'bots was going to be easy.

ARE there any bots currently doing ag work? If not, or even if so, what is the TRL of automated crop growing? Low I expect.

Doable, sure, but their timeline is way exposed.

Edit: interesting reference on Nutritional Completeness... can't verify the bonafides but...
http://agroforestry.net/pubs/Can_I_Grow_a_Complete_Diet.pdf

They seem to think sweet potato might be enough, I gather, if you eat the tubers AND the leaves, and you add vitamins, without actually coming out and saying so. Vitamins and minerals would be low mass compared to the carbs and proteins... so maybe you ship a few years worth and count on ISRU greenhouses to expand your growing ability after you get there, and you plant seeds of the other crops that round things out?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: MickQ on 05/18/2013 09:51 am
I've a confession to make. My wife and I signed up.

It's a cute concept but there is no way I expect to be able to land on Mars. I might get a fun little bit of "space camp" out of it.

Am I Mars First? No. Heeeelll no. Mars requires a hab and a lander and lotsa supplies stuffed through the mass-reducing straw of other landers. I'm basically anything-but-Mars-first.

Anyway: Mars One.
-You have to PAY $12 to sign up. Already my nostrils started twitching.
-Then, their basic requirements... copied straight off of NASA's own astronaut candidate program. Except for the actually knowing anything about science bit.
-The majority of applicants are pimply faced 18 year olds who do web design or are DJs. Apparently popularity has something to do with their selection.
-The section where you upload quals/jobs is broken. If you studied or worked in a country other than the one you are currently in, it won't let you select it.
-The way the quals/jobs are entered makes me think that their applicants database is simply not structured for a proper search related to skills. If I entered "geophysics," they would only pick it up with a keyword search. They would probably look for engineer, geologist, doctor.


$ 12 ???   My sign on fee was $ 33 US.  Anyone else ?

Mick.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/18/2013 10:06 am
It's different for different countries (based on GDP).
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/18/2013 01:16 pm
That's fine and agreeable, but I can't not assume you weren't talking probability of panspermia. 

Danger, Danger, Jimmy Asteroid, parser overload!  ""Can't not assume you weren't" ... LOLwut?  ... are you from Boston?

What else could "we would be immigrants from Mars" mean?

Typo for "we would be immigrants TO Mars" ???


Tee hee.  Sometimes the shortest sentences need the longest thought.

Try:

I assumed you were talking about panspermia. 

Since the guy doesn't want to clarify, then the original statement can be written off as more or less a nonsensical drive-by.

Moving right along...
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/18/2013 01:27 pm
My point is that even if they succeed, here on earth, it might still fail there, for some reason we have not sussed out (gravity being #1 hardest to simulate). Then they starve. That's how it goes though.

What part of this are you missing? They intend to test crop growth ON MARS before sending humans to Mars. (Or, at least, that's the last I heard).

That part... withdraw the objection. :)

On the condition that they publish real data on yield.

Also note that NASA and presumably other organizations are willing to purchase data.  Crop yield statistics would be considered a form of data.  Any commercial competition on a Mars effort would love to get their hands on free data.

Assume that the data will be sold to the highest bidder and not given away.  Gotta pay to play.

Another circumstantial piece supporting my "kept home" conjecture.

Backing up to the idea that they'll be launching an automated test crop experiment on Mars, I hadn't heard that.  Just took a quick gander at their website, and didn't find that info.

As to the notion that they charge different countries different rates, that's interesting.  Move to Bangladesh, and you'll get a cheaper app fee.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/18/2013 01:30 pm
Backing up to the idea that they'll be launching an automated test crop experiment on Mars, I hadn't heard that.  Just took a quick gander at their website, and didn't find that info.

Guess I heard it on The Space Show then.. it's not in the FAQ?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: savuporo on 05/18/2013 02:01 pm
ARE there any bots currently doing ag work? If not, or even if so, what is the TRL of automated crop growing? Low I expect.
Yes, High, and Wrong.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 05/18/2013 03:41 pm
Backing up to the idea that they'll be launching an automated test crop experiment on Mars, I hadn't heard that.  Just took a quick gander at their website, and didn't find that info.

Guess I heard it on The Space Show then.. it's not in the FAQ?


Doesn't look like it.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Warren Platts on 05/23/2013 12:28 pm
Space Safety Magazine votes NO!  ;)

http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2013/05/23/opinion-mars/

Quote
the MarsOne project is a disingenuous and unethical adventure in human manipulation and hype. The only vision it represents is an updated version of the greedy foresight of 19th-century industrialists and 21st-century media barons.

;D
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Galactic Penguin SST on 05/23/2013 01:58 pm
The Chinese state-owned Xinhua News even called them a "scam operation" about a week ago - lemme see if I can find a link.  :o ::)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: R7 on 05/23/2013 02:57 pm
ARE there any bots currently doing ag work? If not, or even if so, what is the TRL of automated crop growing? Low I expect.
Yes, High, and Wrong.

Some examples, please.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: guckyfan on 05/23/2013 03:46 pm
ARE there any bots currently doing ag work? If not, or even if so, what is the TRL of automated crop growing? Low I expect.
Yes, High, and Wrong.

Yes there are amazing automated greenhouses. Machines/robots move trays of plants around, space plants larger as they grow and other tasks like that. But they are always people to keep things moving and intervene if something goes wrong.

An automated greenhouse on Mars producing food before people arrive are a completely different thing. IMO not achievable, and certainly not at reasonable cost.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: RanulfC on 05/23/2013 05:46 pm
There were several robot tended greenhouse projects at some major universities a few years ago including one that allowed "internet" input and monitoring (at MIT I think) but I can't see to get my "Net-Fu" working enough to find them at the moment. There was also something that was billed as a "fully-automated" plant growing system that fully fit inside a standard shipping container. (In Israel I seem to recall) Seeds, Nutrients, and water were inserted in one end (and a supply of potting soil, and pots in the other) and in a couple of weeks the system would produce various potted plants (in pots) for sale.

I agree with guckyfan that for actual food production there will probably have to be humans in the loop at some point, even if remotely, to monitor the system.
(One of the things that killed ANY respect I had for the film "Red Planet" was the fact there was NO monitoring of the Hab on Mars. We can communicate all we want but no one notices that the Habs data feed dropped off-line?)

There has been and still is a lot of research and interest in automated "field robotics" around:
http://students.asl.ethz.ch/upl_pdf/291-report.pdf?aslsid=ba1ac5a787787e29e281083486c86763
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/research_guide/field_robotics.html
http://cigr.ageng2012.org/images/fotosg/tabla_137_C0258.pdf

And hey, there is even an Arduino controlled greenhouse you can build at home. Just add robot arm :)
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/build-your-own-automated-greenhouse-for-effortless-gardening-video.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Hydroponic-Automated-Networking-Climate-Con/

Randy
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: grondilu on 05/28/2013 02:20 am
http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2013/05/23/opinion-mars/

« Dr. Kass’s analogy of the MarsOne project with the travels of Ferdinand Magellan and Ernest Shackleton is compelling, but it breaks down quickly. It is safe to say that although no one is known to have circumnavigated the globe or travelled to Antarctica before the time of Magellan and Shackleton respectively, the technology to accomplish these projects was well established. In Magellan’s case, people had been sailing those waters for at least 1,000 years before he left Spain. »

I like this part.  People often compare grandiose projects with great achievements of the past.  The problem is that we only remember successful attempts, not epic fails.  MarsOne might very well be a good example.  Enthusiastic proponents will compare it to the discovery of America by Columbus, I'd rather compare it with the Terra Nova Expedition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition).

Few days ago an article in io9.com made me think of mars-one:

13 unlucky inventors killed by their own inventions (http://io9.com/13-unlucky-inventors-killed-by-their-own-inventions-509842353)

I particularly like the case of Franz Reichelt, as we have a video document of his death on britishpathé and now on YouTube.  I already mentioned it on an other thread I think but I can't help mentioning it again.  I feel exactly the same thing when I think of the future mars-one crew and when I watch Franz Reichelt hesitating before he jumps towards his death.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/28/2013 02:23 am
I have great respect for people who try and fail... because they did.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 05/28/2013 02:28 am
I have great respect for people who try and fail... because they did.


Same here, I really do. But don't you think it creates a negative image in some cases?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: grondilu on 05/28/2013 02:32 am
I have great respect for people who try and fail... because they did.

The problem is that they are often pushed to do it by the mob around them.  It's quite clear that Franz Reichelt was hesitating to do it.  Had there not been any camera around him, he might have been more reasonable.

In the case of mars-one, I believe there is a huge mars delusion in the media, fueled by science-fiction and not by scientific knowledge.   Just look at people applying for this thing:  they are not exactly all rocket scientists, are they?

It's kind of like in a party when a group of friends pushes the smallest one to drink more than he is used to.   They want to have fun and they do it at his expenses, without even realizing it.  That can lead to accidents and sometimes death.

It's a shame, if you ask me.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/28/2013 02:33 am
I have great respect for people who try and fail... because they did.


Same here, I really do. But don't you think it creates a negative image in some cases?

No. Anyone who says you shouldn't try because someone else failed is inevitably the kind of person who never does anything anyway. We can learn more from real failure than decades of study.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/28/2013 02:34 am
In the case of mars-one, I believe there is a huge mars delusion in the media, fueled by science-fiction and not by scientific knowledge.

What media? Last I checked, having Mars in the title of your movie was a great way to ensure box office failure.

Quote
Just look at people applying for this thing:  they are not exactly all rocket scientists, are they?

You do understand that the vast majority of people aren't, right?
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: RocketmanUS on 05/28/2013 02:35 am
I have great respect for people who try and fail... because they did.


Same here, I really do. But don't you think it creates a negative image in some cases?

No. Anyone who says you shouldn't try because someone else failed is inevitably the kind of person who never does anything anyway. We can learn more from real failure than decades of study.


And someone else can pickup were another left off and succeed.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Chris Bergin on 05/31/2013 12:48 pm
Thread returned after a trim.

No more silly posts please.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 05/31/2013 11:26 pm
Space Safety Magazine votes NO!  ;)

http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2013/05/23/opinion-mars/

Quote
the MarsOne project is a disingenuous and unethical adventure in human manipulation and hype. The only vision it represents is an updated version of the greedy foresight of 19th-century industrialists and 21st-century media barons.

;D

I don't think the article's analogy to a company town (& fear of the astronauts having no control over their lives on Mars) is exactly accurate given the distances / communication lag / etc.

Micro-management isn't going to be workable, even if you wanted to...

(And no, I don't think Mars One will succeed. But I think the reason why they will fail will be lack of funding, that they could succeed given sufficient money - which would probably be much more than the stated $6 billion.)
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: QuantumG on 05/31/2013 11:37 pm
I don't think the article's analogy to a company town (& fear of the astronauts having no control over their lives on Mars) is exactly accurate given the distances / communication lag / etc.

Micro-management isn't going to be workable, even if you wanted to...

Yep.

Quote
(And no, I don't think Mars One will succeed. But I think the reason why they will fail will be lack of funding, that they could succeed given sufficient money - which would probably be much more than the stated $6 billion.)

Heh, and all the money people are saying they can raise enough before anyone even leaves Earth but they're unconvinced that they can get to Mars.

Personally, I'd be happy with a "failure" that redirects $6 billion of private funding to companies working on life support systems, spacesuits, habitats, launch vehicles, etc, while simultaneously engaging viewers, and building the space community beyond the rocket nerd sect again.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 06/01/2013 03:52 am

Heh, and all the money people are saying they can raise enough before anyone even leaves Earth but they're unconvinced that they can get to Mars.

Well, Mars One isn't actually designing spaceships themselves, they'll get someone else (quite likely SpaceX) to do that. So if they have sufficient money to pay that someone else I think they can get people to Mars.

Surviving there indefinitely ... probably harder.


Quote
Personally, I'd be happy with a "failure" that redirects $6 billion of private funding to companies working on life support systems, spacesuits, habitats, launch vehicles, etc, while simultaneously engaging viewers, and building the space community beyond the rocket nerd sect again.


I agree.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: damianevans on 07/01/2013 09:10 am
Quote

I don't think the article's analogy to a company town (& fear of the astronauts having no control over their lives on Mars) is exactly accurate given the distances / communication lag / etc.

Micro-management isn't going to be workable, even if you wanted to...

Bas Lansdorp discussed this issue when he presented the project at a recent lecture at the British Interplanetary Society. He said that the colonists could easily put duct tape across the cameras and there wouldn't be a thing that tv execs back on Earth could do about it.

Quote

(And no, I don't think Mars One will succeed. But I think the reason why they will fail will be lack of funding, that they could succeed given sufficient money - which would probably be much more than the stated $6 billion.)


This is something else that Bas has aslo talked about - whenever he spoke to engineers about this project they would say, "yes we have the technology to do this, but where will the money come from?". Then he would talk to the TV execs and they would say, "Yes, the money is available to do this, but we don't have the technology".

As a side note (and a shameless plug); Having seen Bas Lansdorp's lecture, I was convinced that this project is feasible and signed up, please feel free to vote for my application here: http://applicants.mars-one.com/profile/cf1cd271-68ca-4251-847f-b98734bb9f6e
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: R7 on 07/01/2013 10:41 am
He said that the colonists could easily put duct tape across the cameras and there wouldn't be a thing that tv execs back on Earth could do about it.

Except issue an ultimatum that no feed, no ground support nor further supply runs.

Quote
Then he would talk to the TV execs and they would say, "Yes, the money is available to do this, but we don't have the technology".

He wouldn't happen to mention who those TV execs were? I would like to propose them a reality TV involving a billion dollar bridge transaction.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 07/02/2013 12:48 am
He said that the colonists could easily put duct tape across the cameras and there wouldn't be a thing that tv execs back on Earth could do about it.

Yikes, if a reality show is the main funding, those colonists might not be alive too longer if they put duct tape on the cameras!
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/02/2013 02:06 pm
Mars-One assert that they can furnish, install, and populate this initial base for $6B. As is well known, a US lunar lander alone, will cost $12B, which is completely unaffordable for the well, greatest spacefaring nation on Earth (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32227.msg1068769#msg1068769), according to the polls that I've read.

These two cost numbers cannot both be true at the same time.   

I read Damian's blurb on their site.  I considered, over the last hour, whether or not I wanted to apply.

As is well known, I think they should use Luna as a stepping stone to Mars; rather than a stunt, they should attempt to establish a sustainable private base on Mars.  This approach would have been what I would have suggested in the small text window allowed.

I checked out the Privacy, Terms & Conditions (https://apply.mars-one.com/static/docs/en/Mars-One-privacy-terms-conditions.pdf) for the online astronaut application process of Mars-One, before applying.

There is no termination clause therein.

The information about the applicant will include all the video rights, as could be expected.  A quick read of the terms indicates that the applicant maintains few, if any, personal rights, which only comes as a surprise to older readers.

Either the words of the terms have meaning and legal standing under Danish law, or they do not.  "The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information" of the applicant.  The applicant will have no legal personal rights, should they find themselves on that planet, after having signed the extensive sequence of aggreements thruout the process. 

Morality in the end game of their experiment is suspect, but the filming of the final conditions should draw many viewers.  Six billion dollars will not go far towards sustaining human life up there.

*********************************

I do like the light gray text on white background, featured on most of their site.  It makes it much easier for older people to read what they have to say.

*********************************

http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-selection/251-do-i-qualify-to-apply

Of my qualifications, in all honesty, by my own assertion, I got 'em all, except for these important categories:

Quote from: M-O
You are open and tolerant of ideas and approaches different from your own.

For one thing, the morality issue plays into this category.  Will you do "whatever it takes" to succeed?  Particularly at the end game.

Secondly, and more pragmatically, other ideas and approaches might very well be non-pragmatic.  I would avoid those had I choice.

Quote from: M-O
You trust in yourself and maintain trust in others.

The problem here is trusting others to honor your best interests and morality.  And I do trust myself.  Yeah, there's the copperhead incident.  I know, you're not supposed to pick 'em up.  I trusted in myself; things got a little hazy after that; and we'll talk about it some other time.

Quote from: M-O
Your humor is a creative resource, used appropriately as an emerging contextual response.

Of course, they reserve the right to define "appropriately".  If they don't get it, then it would be inappropriate.  It's their way of saying that they don't have a sense of humor, that I can tell. 

I'd talk about it with Lansdorp over a drink after work on Friday, but he probably wouldn't consent.  Interestingly enough, that "humorous" concept is considered "inappropriate" on this forum.  It's only funny if they say it is.

Dang.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 07/04/2013 12:40 am
Mars-One assert that they can furnish, install, and populate this initial base for $6B. As is well known, a US lunar lander alone, will cost $12B, which is completely unaffordable for the well, greatest spacefaring nation on Earth (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32227.msg1068769#msg1068769), according to the polls that I've read.

These two cost numbers cannot both be true at the same time.

I don't believe the $6B number... but there's no actual contradiction as Mars One is talking about doing it with all private industry.

Just because it would cost NASA $12B doesn't mean that's the cheapest possible... or even close.

Quote
As is well known, I think they should use Luna as a stepping stone to Mars;

I don't see the advantage of the Moon as a stepping stone, it's a worthy destination in its own right.

Quote
rather than a stunt, they should attempt to establish a sustainable private base on Mars.

I believe they do in fact intend this - at least that's what they claim to intend.



Quote
  "The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information" of the applicant.  The applicant will have no legal personal rights, should they find themselves on that planet, after having signed the extensive sequence of aggreements thruout the process. 

I don't see how you conclude that second sentence from the first. It seems to be talking about their ability to use your information to promote it, and so on (and you're basically signing up for a reality tv show, so not surprising at all) -- what does it have to do with human rights on Mars?

Quote
Six billion dollars will not go far towards sustaining human life up there.

Depends on if SpaceX can get the costs they seem to expect.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Oli on 07/04/2013 04:46 am
Quote from: Vultur
Depends on if SpaceX can get the costs they seem to expect.

Right, a lot depends on whether SpaceX can supply the FH and the Mars lander in time and at low cost. For the FH there may be alternatives, at least for direct MTO insertion (A5 ME, D4H), but who else can promise a lander which puts 2.5t on Mars and simultaneously serves as a habitat?

Clearly a weakness in their "plan".
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/04/2013 01:34 pm
Mars-One assert that they can furnish, install, and populate this initial base for $6B. As is well known, a US lunar lander alone, will cost $12B...

These two cost numbers cannot both be true at the same time.

I don't believe the $6B number... but there's no actual contradiction as Mars One is talking about doing it with all private industry.

Just because it would cost NASA $12B doesn't mean that's the cheapest possible... or even close.

I have no idea what you mean by "cheapest possible".  These are the only two numbers we can work with.

$6B and $12B are huge numbers compared to everyone's personal check book.  There's little doubt in my mind that NASA's $12B cost is way too high; after all, the people who made that estimate had been instructed to hi-ball the lander and lo-ball the rock heist.

But assume for purposes of discussion that NASA could indeed build, launch and land a four person lunar lander for $6B.

Mars-One is asserting, without any proof, that they can build, launch and land a martian lander for four people, for $6B.  And, they'll  throw in the additional launches, landers, habitats, power supplies, food, yada yada, to keep those people alive for two years.  At no additional cost.

Everybody on this forum believes that there will be a re-supply mission in two years, or that there will be a retrieval mission in two years, or that they'll let the four people die up there.

What do you believe?

Quote from: JF
As is well known, I think they should use Luna as a stepping stone to Mars;

Quote from: Vulture
I don't see the advantage of the Moon as a stepping stone, it's a worthy destination in its own right.

There are a number of people who agree with you on this.  Some destinations, by a special ju-ju, absolutely forbid all other destinations for all time.  Luna has this special ju-ju.

Quote from: JF
Rather than a stunt, they should attempt to establish a sustainable private base on Mars.

Quote from: Vulture
I believe they do in fact intend this - at least that's what they claim to intend.

So they claim.

Quote from: The Mars-One application
"The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information [of the applicant]."

Quote from: JF
The applicant will have no legal personal rights, should they find themselves on that planet, after having signed the extensive sequence of aggreements thruout the process. 

Quote from: Vulture
I don't see how you conclude that second sentence from the first. It seems to be talking about their ability to use your information to promote it, and so on (and you're basically signing up for a reality tv show, so not surprising at all) -- what does it have to do with human rights on Mars?

Most scientists agree that personal morality has no place in science. This is not my belief at all. 

It has not gone unnoticed by anybody observing this $6B project, that people might be putting their lives at risk.  The producers of the TV show are writing the new legal language to own the video rights to those final moments.

The Danish legal concept of moral rights to personal "Information" is a new one for me.  The applicants so far, as indicated by their age, have signed an "informed consent" to this new legal concept.

Pragmatically, most of the applicants aren't worried by that requirement.

Quote from: JF
Six billion dollars will not go far towards sustaining human life up there.

Quote from: Vulture
Depends on if SpaceX can get the costs they seem to expect.

Blame it on SpaceX.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 07/04/2013 09:15 pm
There's little doubt in my mind that NASA's $12B cost is way too high; after all, the people who made that estimate had been instructed to hi-ball the lander and lo-ball the rock heist.

But assume for purposes of discussion that NASA could indeed build, launch and land a four person lunar lander for $6B.

NASA might only be able to get that low, but how much do you think SpaceX could do it for?

How much does Golden Spike say theirs would cost? (OK, it's not 4 person...)


Quote
Everybody on this forum believes that there will be a re-supply mission in two years, or that there will be a retrieval mission in two years, or that they'll let the four people die up there.

What do you believe?

I believe it's most likely that they will never get $1 billion much less $6 billion, and the project will never get any hardware to Mars, much less people.

But IF they manage to get enough money to start launching stuff... and enough money to actually send people and habitats and stuff... they just might be able to make it work.

The big problem is probably funding not feasibility.


Quote
Quote from: JF
As is well known, I think they should use Luna as a stepping stone to Mars;

Quote from: Vultur
I don't see the advantage of the Moon as a stepping stone, it's a worthy destination in its own right.

There are a number of people who agree with you on this.  Some destinations, by a special ju-ju, absolutely forbid all other destinations for all time.  Luna has this special ju-ju.

Hardly - I just think that we don't need Luna first to go to Mars, so for a project whose goal is Mars, Luna is an unnecessary delay.

A Moon base, and eventually colony, is very much a worthy thing in its own right, but IMO tying Moon to Mars will hurt both by delaying Mars and pushing Moon stuff to be developed based on 'what will help with Mars' rather than 'what will help us settle the Moon'.


Quote from: The Mars-One application
"The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information [of the applicant]."


Quote
Quote from: JF
The applicant will have no legal personal rights, should they find themselves on that planet, after having signed the extensive sequence of aggreements thruout the process. 

Quote from: Vultur
I don't see how you conclude that second sentence from the first. It seems to be talking about their ability to use your information to promote it, and so on (and you're basically signing up for a reality tv show, so not surprising at all) -- what does it have to do with human rights on Mars?

Most scientists agree that personal morality has no place in science. This is not my belief at all. 

Um... I'm not sure that "most scientists" would say that, and what does that have to do with anything anyway?

Quote
It has not gone unnoticed by anybody observing this $6B project, that people might be putting their lives at risk.

Well, sure. I mean, colonizing Mars is an inherently risky project.

Quote
The producers of the TV show are writing the new legal language to own the video rights to those final moments.

I hardly think that's what they want to happen! Are you suggesting they expect/want it to fail and people to die?


Quote
The Danish legal concept of moral rights to personal "Information" is a new one for me.  The applicants so far, as indicated by their age, have signed an "informed consent" to this new legal concept.

Pragmatically, most of the applicants aren't worried by that requirement.

Well, why would they be?  I don't understand what's so scary about it - at least for someone who would be willing to be on a reality TV show in the first place.

Quote from: JF
Six billion dollars will not go far towards sustaining human life up there.

Quote from: Vultur
Depends on if SpaceX can get the costs they seem to expect.

Blame it on SpaceX.
[/quote]

Blame what on them? My point is that IF launch costs remain at or near current values, no, they can't do it for $6B.

But IF SpaceX (or anyone else ... but SpaceX seems to be the most likely by far to do so within MarsOne's timeline) can get the enormous cost reductions SpaceX seems to expect, then it might actually be doable for $6B - depending on how much developing and building the Mars habitats/greenhouses/landers would cost.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/05/2013 01:10 pm
... assume for purposes of discussion that NASA could indeed build, launch and land a four person lunar lander for $6B.

NASA might only be able to get that low, but how much do you think SpaceX could do it for?

How much does Golden Spike say theirs would cost? (OK, it's not 4 person...)

Both of these companies make cost claims that cannot be verified.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you appear to be holding out these claims as proof of the feasibility of the Mars-One claim.  We'll just disagree on that.

Quote from: JF
What do you believe?

Quote from: Vultuire
I believe it's most likely that they will never get $1 billion much less $6 billion, and the project will never get any hardware to Mars, much less people.

But IF they manage to get enough money ... they just might be able to make it work.

The big problem is probably funding not feasibility.

Well, of course the funding is a big "IF", and I agree with that part.  As to the "feasibility", WvB had sketched out plans for a Mars mission years ago; seems to me that technical "feasibility" of the mission has always been the case.  I'm not convinced by their public statements that they've properly wed feasibility and funding.  Like they say, "No Moola, no Melvin the Martian".

Quote from: Vultur
... I just think that we don't need Luna first to go to Mars, so for a project whose goal is Mars, Luna is an unnecessary delay.

A Moon base, and eventually colony, is very much a worthy thing in its own right, but IMO tying Moon to Mars will hurt both by delaying Mars and pushing Moon stuff to be developed based on 'what will help with Mars' rather than 'what will help us settle the Moon'.

I don't mind disagreeing on this point either.

Quote from: The Mars-One application
(First Sentence)"The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information [of the applicant]."

Quote from: JF
(Second Sentence)The applicant will have no legal personal rights, should they find themselves on that planet, after having signed the extensive sequence of aggreements thruout the process. 

Quote from: Vultur
I don't see how you conclude that second sentence from the first. It seems to be talking about their ability to use your information to promote it, and so on (and you're basically signing up for a reality tv show, so not surprising at all) -- what does it have to do with human rights on Mars?

Quote from: JF
Most scientists agree that personal morality has no place in science. This is not my belief at all. 

Quote from: Vultur
Um... I'm not sure that "most scientists" would say that, and what does that have to do with anything anyway?

Well, you said that the Second Sentence didn't follow the First Sentence. That's what it has to do with anything.  I'm fine with disagreeing for the moment on the "most scientists" aspect.  Still, personal morality, a free will choice, does not follow from the compulsions of a strict scientific standpoint.

Quote from: JF
The producers of the TV show are writing the new legal language to own the video rights to those final moments.

Quote from: Vultur
I hardly think that's what they want to happen! Are you suggesting they expect/want it to fail and people to die?

They are planning for the legalities of a possible failure.  They are, in a legal fashion, admitting the expectation of possible mission failure.

Quote from: JF
The Danish legal concept of moral rights to personal "Information" is a new one for me.  The applicants so far, as indicated by their age, have signed an "informed consent" to this new legal concept.

Pragmatically, most of the applicants aren't worried by that requirement. (Because everybody knows that so few people will be selected after all.)

Quote from: Vultur
Well, why would they be?  I don't understand what's so scary about it - at least for someone who would be willing to be on a reality TV show in the first place.

I worry about that sort of thing, assuming that the language in the Application is meant to cover an expected contingency.

Quote from: JF
Six billion dollars will not go far towards sustaining human life up there.

Quote from: Vultur
Depends on if SpaceX can get the costs they seem to expect.

Quote from: JF
Blame it on SpaceX.

Quote from: Vultur
Blame what on them? My point is that IF launch costs remain at or near current values, no, they can't do it for $6B.

Blame the cost failure on SpaceX. 
SpaceX has only discussed publicly, at least, launch costs, not all the other payload stuff.   My point is that SpaceX cannot be "blamed" for the failure of Mars-One to properly scope and cost the mission.

You have what I would call an unwarranted confidence in the lowering of the costs of that proposed mission, based on the unverifiable cost assertions seen here and there on the memex.

You do say "IF", but you don't sound, to me, like you believe that the costs are way, way underestimated, and that the mission particulars are virtually unknown.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ChileVerde on 07/05/2013 02:08 pm
Quote from: JohnFornaro link=topic=31437.msg1071061#msg1071061

[quote=The Mars-One application
(First Sentence)"The Applicant waives any and all the moral rights in and to the Information [of the applicant]."

<snip>

Quote from: JF
The Danish legal concept of moral rights to personal "Information" is a new one for me.  The applicants so far, as indicated by their age, have signed an "informed consent" to this new legal concept.

<snip>

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think it's possible that the "moral rights" under discussion may be described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights .

Edit: Which Wikipedia article contains a quote that I believe explains the moral rights idea in more detail.

Quote from: Wiki
Article 6bis of the Berne Convention protects attribution and integrity, stating:
Quote from: 6bis
Independent of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/05/2013 06:43 pm
...I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think it's possible that the "moral rights" under discussion may be described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights .
...

Neither Am I.

Thanks, Chili.  Like I said, this concept of "moral rights" is a new one on me. 

I know that I do not have the "correct" scientificismist view on morality, but the Wiki definition, apparently based on agenda 21 UN law appears to limit "moral rights" to that subset of rights within copyright law.  Naturally I reject this re-framing of the concept of morality to such a narrow view.

But even within this narrow view, Mars-One has stripped all applicants of their "moral rights", by that definition, charged them for the stripping, and offers no termination clause, should an applicant no longer wish to be bound by these terms.

Such a Brave New World, where the victims applicants no longer own their own life and death stories.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 07/07/2013 07:34 pm
...I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think it's possible that the "moral rights" under discussion may be described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights .
...

Neither Am I.

Thanks, Chili.  Like I said, this concept of "moral rights" is a new one on me. 

I know that I do not have the "correct" scientificismist view on morality, but the Wiki definition, apparently based on agenda 21 UN law appears to limit "moral rights" to that subset of rights within copyright law.  Naturally I reject this re-framing of the concept of morality to such a narrow view.

Wait, what?

If I understand what you're saying (not sure that I do), I think you are completely misinterpreting this. Moral rights in this contet has to do with copyright-law stuff. It is a legal term.

It has nothing really to do with morality in general (outside the context of authorship/copyright/IP) or human rights.


Quote
But even within this narrow view, Mars-One has stripped all applicants of their "moral rights", by that definition, charged them for the stripping, and offers no termination clause, should an applicant no longer wish to be bound by these terms.

Selling copyrights and associated IP rights is hardly new or unusual, AFAIK.

I do not see how this is different in principle from any other reality TV show involving people in dangerous situations like "Deadliest Catch".

EDIT: I mean, yes, the risks of going to Mars are going to be greater than those of Alaskan fishing, but it doesn't strike me as a difference of kind, just degree.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 07/07/2013 07:43 pm
Both of these companies make cost claims that cannot be verified.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you appear to be holding out these claims as proof of the feasibility of the Mars-One claim. 


Not "proof".

I'm more suggesting that we don't know what will happen to space costs over the next 5-10 years as the "new space" private companies hit their stride.... if in fact they do.

Quote
Quote from: Vultur
I hardly think that's what they want to happen! Are you suggesting they expect/want it to fail and people to die?

They are planning for the legalities of a possible failure.  They are, in a legal fashion, admitting the expectation of possible mission failure.

Well... yes. Something like this is inherently risky, and they'd be stupid to act like, or say, it was 100% certain/safe.

But what are you saying the problem is? The morality/ethics of televising a catastrophe, if it happens?



Quote
Blame the cost failure on SpaceX. 
SpaceX has only discussed publicly, at least, launch costs, not all the other payload stuff.   My point is that SpaceX cannot be "blamed" for the failure of Mars-One to properly scope and cost the mission.

Well, no of course not.

Quote
You have what I would call an unwarranted confidence in the lowering of the costs of that proposed mission, based on the unverifiable cost assertions seen here and there on the memex.

You do say "IF", but you don't sound, to me, like you believe that the costs are way, way underestimated, and that the mission particulars are virtually unknown.

Hardly "confidence". I don't "believe" either that the costs are "way, way, underestimated", or that they are not -- as I don't believe anyone (not MarsOne, not SpaceX, not you, not me) really knows what will happen to space costs over the next 5-10 years.

I would expect some cost overrun, of course -- but whether it will be more than normal for aerospace, I don't know.

I rather think that IF (which I think is unlikely) they are able to raise anything like $6B, then they will likely be able to get the technologies developed to make it doable.

Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/07/2013 10:27 pm

EDIT: I mean, yes, the risks of going to Mars are going to be greater than those of Alaskan fishing, but it doesn't strike me as a difference of kind, just degree.


What we have here, kemosabe, "is a failure to communicate".

It is a difference of kind.  But you are free to disassociate the more primal meaning of "morality" to suit your unclear purposes.

You raise some interesting points.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Vultur on 07/10/2013 02:18 am

EDIT: I mean, yes, the risks of going to Mars are going to be greater than those of Alaskan fishing, but it doesn't strike me as a difference of kind, just degree.

It is a difference of kind. 

Why?

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But you are free to disassociate the more primal meaning of "morality" to suit your unclear purposes.

I'm ... not sure I understand what you mean.

The term "moral rights" has a specific intellectual-property/copyright application. Its use in the MarsOne terms doesn't imply anything broader about morality.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/10/2013 12:46 pm

EDIT: I mean, yes, the risks of going to Mars are going to be greater than those of Alaskan fishing, but it doesn't strike me as a difference of kind, just degree.

It is a difference of kind. 

Why?

Quote
But you are free to disassociate the more primal meaning of "morality" to suit your unclear purposes.

I'm ... not sure I understand what you mean.

The term "moral rights" has a specific intellectual-property/copyright application. Its use in the MarsOne terms doesn't imply anything broader about morality.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint.
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: Robert Thompson on 07/15/2013 03:04 am
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tylerowen/lacuna-passage
"Survive in a massive open environment using real Mars topography from satellite imagery. Uncover the mystery."
Title: Re: Will Mars One Succeed in Their Goal of Landing Humans on Mars?
Post by: ClaytonBirchenough on 07/15/2013 03:37 pm
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tylerowen/lacuna-passage
"Survive in a massive open environment using real Mars topography from satellite imagery. Uncover the mystery."

... Has something to do with Mars One?