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SLS / Orion / Beyond-LEO HSF - Constellation => Missions To Mars (HSF) => Topic started by: Bender on 06/01/2012 12:35 pm

Title: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Bender on 06/01/2012 12:35 pm
Has anyone else heard of this?
http://mars-one.com/
It's a private company that is looking to put humans on mars by 2023 using Falcon Heavy launchers and Dragons for landers. They admit in the FAQ page that they have no funding yet. so for now it's just a dream with some pretty pictures.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: peter-b on 06/01/2012 12:40 pm
Heavy on style, light on substance, unfortunately.  :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/01/2012 01:02 pm
The FAQ pages on radiation and zero-g mitigation are comical.

Makes me wonder if these clowns have read any of the literature.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/01/2012 01:31 pm
They have a more developed website than Shackleton Energy Company.

They need to redo that video to show something covering the dragon heat shield. (Unless I am missing something and superdraco or next gen dragons don't need heat shield?)

The contiguous connection of dragons is not that dissimilar from connected Constellation habs, or from various lunar colony plans I've seen. Modularity.

So 7 / 2 / year starting 2023 or 3.5 person increase per year. I'll assume middle adult with no strings or ~40 at the youngest, giving about 20 physically active years in this environment, perhaps less. At the end of 20 years Mars Moses gets to see 10 habs + 70ish persons + toys.

Now, 3:1 hab to greenhouse ratio means 21 bodies using what looks like .5 acre greenhouse. So intensive growth like "CEAC Lunar Greenhouse".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q128I9KNY9k .
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/01/2012 01:39 pm
They need to bury those habs on day one.

As for the reality tv show, I can see the pitch now: watch as we send young men and women to their death.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: peter-b on 06/01/2012 01:41 pm
Almost all of it is facepalm-inducing. On the other hand, I'd like to see what Elon's Mars cabal has come up with in terms of architecture...  ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mmeijeri on 06/01/2012 01:43 pm
Makes me wonder if these clowns have read any of the literature.

I'm surprised to learn they have a Nobel prize recipient in physics ('t Hooft) as one of their "ambassadors".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Naito on 06/01/2012 01:44 pm
Ugh, this is popping up everywhere today.  Seems like total bull, needs to be buried and ignored.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: peter-b on 06/01/2012 01:46 pm
The FAQ pages on radiation and zero-g mitigation are comical.

Makes me wonder if these clowns have read any of the literature.
I had a better understanding of the literature on human spaceflight when I was starting high school. "Projects" like this one give the whole HSF industry a bad name IMHO. >:(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chilly on 06/01/2012 01:46 pm
Amazing what can be accomplished with CGI these days. It brings "vaporware" into a whole new realm.

+1 to Peter-B. Mr. Musk probably has a few ideas sketched out in his desk somewhere. If he says he intends to go to Mars before he retires...well crap, after this week who'd doubt him?

Besides certain congress-critters from TX, AL, FL, etc...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/01/2012 03:31 pm
First, it's a one-way trip:

http://mars-one.com/mission/is-this-really-possible

Quote
"Emigration" The astronauts leave Earth for an indefinite time to settle on Mars for good.

No doubt, there's NSOV, but this is the "central point to this Mars mission".  Which is fine by me, but which is also a tall order.

Some of their approach sounds appropriate:

Quote
Mars One has designed a mission that exclusively utilizes components that can be made by existing suppliers...

This meshes with my belief that mankind has had the necessary skills and technology and capability to begin a colonization effort for at least the last forty years.

They have spoken with an interesting list of suppliers:

http://mars-one.com/about-mars-one/suppliers

I'm not sure that I agree with their choice of Mars, because it is so difficult a choice.  It does mesh with Mr. Musk's goals, however.

http://mars-one.com/faq-en/22-faq-mission-features/199-why-mars-why-not-another-planet

They don't address the issue of contamination all that well:

http://mars-one.com/faq-en/20-faq-sustainability/191-will-the-mission-be-harmful-to-mars-environment

In fact, they don't address it at all.  Probably they assume that Mars is barren.  Altho they observe correctly that 100% recycling will be needed, and that proficiency here could (not "shall") inform recycling efforts on Earth, they don't seem to have a good sense of the technical failure points of Biosphere 2.

I don't think they fully acknowledge the difficulties of a privately funded martian colonization effort. 

Plus, I'm not convinced of the one way trip aspect yet.  There's a great deal of cost savings by not having the capability to come back.  But there would also be a lot of angst, if the second group of four were to land only to be greeted by the corpses of the first group of four.  Presumably, the possible failure of the first crew would be well known before launching the second crew a year later, as they propose.  It will be hard, I think, to recruit volunteers with the necessary technical skills and bravery to embark on the second trip, if the first one fails.

If they change their methodology, they could increase their chances of success.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gospacex on 06/01/2012 03:39 pm
It will be hard, I think, to recruit volunteers with the necessary technical skills and bravery to embark on the second trip, if the first one fails.

I firmly believe you are mistaken. We have seven BILLION people here, do you seriously think there aren't a few dozens of (qualified, yes) (wo)men who are willing to take one-way trip even if it's very risky?

Think Amundsen and Scott.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mmeijeri on 06/01/2012 04:42 pm
Heh, another "ambassador" is Paul Römer, who together with three of his fellow members of the FC Ajax supervisory board tried to get Van Gaal appointed as the new director behind the back of the last member of the supervisory board, one Johan Cruijff. Cruijff went to court and had the appointment thrown out, and the whole supervisory board including himself too.

If Römer can't rule Ajax, maybe he can try to rule Mars!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/01/2012 04:57 pm
It will be hard, I think, to recruit volunteers with the necessary technical skills and bravery to embark on the second trip, if the first one fails.

I firmly believe you are mistaken. We have seven BILLION people here, do you seriously think there aren't a few dozens of (qualified, yes) (wo)men who are willing to take one-way trip even if it's very risky?

Think Amundsen and Scott.

Yes, I'm serious.  (And stop calling me Shirley!)

Of the (7B-4) people left, the challenge will be not to find volunteers who are willing to accept only the risk.  The challenge will be to find volunteers with the necessary technical skills and bravery to embark on the second trip, particularly if the first one fails.  If the reasons for the failure are not known, then it will prove even more difficult to find those volunteers.

I didn't say there aren't or wouldn't be any volunteers.  I said it will be difficult to find them.

In any case, there's a lot of hardware that needs to be set up on Mars, and also be perfectly functioning, before any people will be sent.

Of course, I think they should aim for the Moon first, establish a prop manufacturing plant, and tank up a huge mothership to go to Mars, orbiting at first, and always enabling two way traffic.  Future trips would supply habitats, landers, rovers, and all.  Then, make the attempt to live, knowing that there's a safety line to Momma Earth.

In case somebody gets a boo-boo, or something.  Seriously.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 06/01/2012 05:17 pm
They need to go to the moon first to see if people can live off world first for a three year mission. Then if a persons health can be maintained then they could head for Mars. A small Lunar base by 2017-2018? Is that even possible at the rate we are going? They would need to start by then for the first crew on Mars by 2023.

They do need to have a way back from Mars orbit and surface. At least for 8 crew in the early years.

If this idea does get off the ground would governments sponsor a crew of 4 each? If so what governments might do this?

What is needed to be sent before the crew?

What studies have been done to see if Mars has what is needed for ISRU to keep a colony going if it does not receive any more supplies from Earth?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/01/2012 05:25 pm
Supplies, tools, tabs, rovers, power supply, spares, mars suits, etc. will mass more than 40 tonnes (probably much more). The one thing that is needed to gain even a modicum of credibility is a manifest with mass estimate.

40 tonnes or more is going to be difficult to fit into 8 Red Dragons!

One-way-to-Mars style missions need to preposition not just supplies, equipment and spares until the next resupply opportunity, but enough for the crew's expected lifespan.

They seriously underestimate the robotics challenges to building a base.

They should say that the crew are returned at the end of their working lives, this is probably going to be cheaper. It certainly gets around all sorts of ethical and publicity issues.

All of this is irrelevant as they are not going to be able to raise the finance. Serious space ventures tend to be kept very quiet until financing is in place.

Its sad really, there are some potentially good ideas in there, but these half-baked plans will just make it more difficult for anyone with the technical and financial capability to get a Mars plan accepted.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: tigerade on 06/01/2012 05:26 pm
Pie in the sky.  They will need more than FH and Dragon to accomplish all that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/01/2012 05:54 pm
Supplies, tools, tabs, rovers, power supply, spares, mars suits, etc. will mass more than 40 tonnes ... one thing that is needed to gain even a modicum of credibility is a manifest with mass estimate.

40 tonnes or more is going to be difficult to fit into 8 Red Dragons! ...

Its sad really, there are some potentially good ideas in there, but these half-baked plans will just make it more difficult for anyone with the technical and financial capability to get a Mars plan accepted.

Unfortunately, I agree.  My license plate says "StarShip".  It's much easier to get the license plate than it is to build a starship.  Same with web pages and Mars bases.

I hope that they tighten up their act soon.  I certainly wish them good luck.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: js117 on 06/01/2012 09:26 pm
Has anyone else heard of this?
http://mars-one.com/
It's a private company that is looking to put humans on mars by 2023 using Falcon Heavy launchers and Dragons for landers. They admit in the FAQ page that they have no funding yet. so for now it's just a dream with some pretty pictures.

 This is a one way mission.

From the web site.

Is this ethical
A ‘one way’ trip (or, in other words: emigration) to Mars is currently the only way we can get people on Mars within the next 20 years. This is no way excludes the possibility of a return flight at some point in the future. It is likely that technological progress will make this less complex down the line, not to mention the fact that once the planet is inhabited, it will be that much easier to build the returning rocket there. This means that in time it could be possible for astronauts to return to Earth after a few years, should they want to do so.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: SpacexULA on 06/01/2012 10:28 pm
Pie in the sky.  They will need more than FH and Dragon to accomplish all that.

Not necessarily, Boeing, who would be an expert on such matters, was really quite sure they could do exploration of the moon with MLV with 1/2 the throw weight of a Falcon Heavy to the moon.

http://ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf

I agree the FAQ and animation looks to have been written/produced by people who really don't seem to know many of the details about how this would have to work, but it seems like they are wanting to act as a primary contractor with many sub contractors, so technical details don’t really have to be their strong suit.

The strangest / most damming thing to me is the lack of having Boeing or Bigelow on their list of suppliers. 

Getting that much mass and volume to Mars surface sans HLV, inflatables, or depots is going to require a lot of launches.

Considering this is very likely a company with no employees looking for seed money, I am not getting too excited :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: cro-magnon gramps on 06/02/2012 01:10 am
two words, James Town
    this won't go anywhere; it is just the first of many proposals sparked by the success of SpaceX; what I am interested in, is 2-4 years down the road, when the ones that are NOT seeking publicity, come to the briefing room, and announce like Planetary Resources, who their backers are and how they plan to do the deed, from the R&D that they have been doing for 2 to 4 years;
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: tigerade on 06/02/2012 04:50 am
I agree Gramps.  One of my big fears about a Mars colonization effort is that it may be a repeat of Jamestown.  That would be really tragic :( 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jorge on 06/02/2012 04:54 am
two words, James Town

One word: Roanoke.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/02/2012 01:38 pm
Three words:  WTF?

I think the most salient comment so far, was Mike's, up the thread a bit.  The idea of attempting martian colonization is a good one, in principle.  I'd even accept the notion of a one way trip, if only the proposal made more complete sense.  But their proposal can't withstand the scrutiny of even the armchair rocket scientists.

The biggest problem with their proposal at the moment is that it is woefully incomplete.

For example, I've announced my "plan" here and there on this forum, but it is woefully incomplete too.  I wouldn't want to create some web page implying that I have it all together unless I had the math to back it up.

The comment above suggesting that they supply a mass budget is a case in point.  If they've given thought to this, they're not sharing.  And it's more likely that they're not sharing because they don't know, rather than because they have it all figured out.  Websites can changed hourly, if need be.  One web metric that might indicate that they are working the problem, would be daily or weekly updates, perhaps even a blog asking for, and responding to, suggestions for how to accomplish their mission.

The comparison with the recent PRI announcement is also a good one.  PRI said that sure, they want to bring back an asteroid and take it apart.  But the majority of their presentation regards the far more believable near term business goal of launching fleets of scope sats, maybe expanding to scoping out the asteroids.  They don't stress their supposed end game.  Mars-One presents an emotional illustration of a possible one way trip, focusing on the end game, and glossing over how that trip really would be accomplished.

On the plus side, their animation flashed recognizable logos of various well known companies, even tho the contents of those letters remained unreadable.  So some important companies seem to be at least aware of their efforts.  The easiest thing they could do within the next 24 hours, in order to demonstrate credibility, is to post those letters.  They could also add an "Investors" button to their home page.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nathan on 06/03/2012 01:47 am
Still- it is an interesting attempt to use dragons to build a mars base at least conceptually. Problem I hav is that they need "slightly larger" dragons than currently exist. The development for this would likely cause schedule drift at a minimum.
That said- could this bea hint that the crewed dragon will be bigger than cargo dragon? Could some key design change news have slipped out here?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: spectre9 on 06/03/2012 01:48 am
When anybody but JPL says they can land something on Mars I just laugh.

Nice 3D graphics though. Kudos to the artist.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: neilh on 06/03/2012 03:43 am
two words, James Town

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/03/20/jamestown-is-a-17th-century-shoot-em-up-set-on-mars/

;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/03/2012 07:39 am
Still- it is an interesting attempt to use dragons to build a mars base at least conceptually. Problem I hav is that they need "slightly larger" dragons than currently exist. The development for this would likely cause schedule drift at a minimum.

I think in this case "slightly larger" means 5x or more payload which implies a volume 3-5x or more (1.4-1.7x linear dimensions), maybe twice the mass.

It also implies something that would take at least 2 FH for each cargo mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Wyvern on 06/03/2012 09:20 am
hmm, apparently they're building a demonstration base next year.  Personally I think that will be as far as they get.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nathan on 06/03/2012 09:27 am
The main problem with the approach to financing is that if the media event is not a success then bankruptcy results and the first settlers don't get resupplied. The only model that would really work is an aerological  exploration base to which people pay for their own ticket and all funds Erin go to fund resupply missions. This implies cheap launch. We are not there yet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/03/2012 11:19 am
"Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that this sort of thing happens all the time."

So. Let's make this interesting. The way Robert Irvine comes in and blows up your kitchen.

Analogue base similar to Mars Desert Research Station and ESA Mars500.

Utah or some other western U.S. magnificent desolation.

Scores of acres of quarantine zone for extended EVA. (In very small range vehicles.)

Participants are required to remain with and in the analogue program with no expectation of exit back to earth / real life. If they don't, simulation project is over, done, glassed.

First Dragon and 7 analogue crew "launch". Whatever fidelity event is affordable.

They have to stay alive for 6 months INSIDE that dragon / additional hab element. (Simulation article remains where it can be parked cheapest.)
Wide screen tvs pointing inward give them analogue sun, planets, star field.

Communications progressively delay over this six months.

Mars orbit insertion fidelity / analogue. (flatbed + some Willie Nelson to final analogue environment)

Mars landing fidelity / analogue.

MUST survive on their own rations, spares, medical stamina until next resupply dragon and crew. If they don't, simulation project is over, done, glassed.

MUST set up their own green house, etc.

Start stacking dragons per schedule, but only as many as the trickle of funding would allow in the real event.

I could go on. Suit and Nobel just need some redirection for their constructive energies. A fit 40 year old could garner some fame doing this, knowing they won't be allowed to perish just for the ratings, and it's for a greater cause.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: subzero788 on 06/03/2012 03:37 pm
I wonder who actually thinks up a plan like this and thinks that it's actually possible. And by 2023! These guys make Shackleton Energy Company's plan seem quite reasonable!  ;D
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: arnoux on 06/03/2012 06:17 pm
I am one of the people involved in Mars One. Let me try to answer some of your criticism and perhaps some misunderstanding due to the limitations of the website. First of all we do know about the radiation problem, we are currently doing simulations with the SPENVIS system here in Europe with two modules able to simulate the dose as a function of Mars altitude. We know that the habitats need be buried by some regolith. Concerning the zer-g mitigation, it appears that with a rigorous training scheme and additional medication, 7 months could be doable to be sure that the crew can perform on the Martian surface. As an overall remark, we are not planning to develop any technical system ourselves, we have discussed with the companies on the website whether they would be able to deliver certain systems and how much time and money it will take. Again we do not have and do not want to something ourselves others are much more qualified to do. A last remark. Yes, this is a very ambitious program and controversial as well, but we think this is currently the only way to have humans walking on another body in my lifetime.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/03/2012 06:45 pm
I am one of the people involved in Mars One.

These guys raise a good point:

What TV show has a $200 million budget then?
Friends cost around 175 Million a season at the end.
If this idea is to work (funded by popular media and marketing), the first astronauts better be good ad-lib actors/actresses (with a list of "human drama" ideas) and it wouldn't hurt if they looked like a young Courtney Cox and Jennifer Anniston (attractive and nubile). 

Generally the geologists and engineers would have rather uninteresting interpersonal interactions (based on experiences that tried to capture drama at both Antarctic stations and the Mars Desert Research Station and were dissappointed when everyone drink scotch and had chummy conversations about surrounding geology and technical issues).  That's not widely marketable.  The top chef finalists have interesting quirks, cooking skill is secondary. 

To fund through mainstream media dollars an episode would at minimum, need writers with baseline ideas like this:

"It's too hot in here!  Good thing I have a space-bikini..." -A re-occuring problem with the heater that requires lengthy fixes.     

Focus on sexual frustrations and foibles and keep the rest as a backdrop to that.  Your astronauts will need to have characters that they perform.  Real scientific discoveries would be mostly "off camera".   Video diaries that announce frustrations about other people's habits, etc.    They have to find silly things to make up conflict about. 

If you pitch your idea like that, or a hybrid of actual usefulness combinded with a minimum amount of stuff like that, then the chances of getting funding are higher imo. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Space Junkie on 06/03/2012 09:26 pm
hmm, apparently they're building a demonstration base next year.  Personally I think that will be as far as they get.
They should try building it remotely with something similar to one of their "utility" rovers. That would be an educational experience...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/03/2012 10:26 pm
hmm, apparently they're building a demonstration base next year.  Personally I think that will be as far as they get.
They should try building it remotely with something similar to one of their "utility" rovers. That would be an educational experience...

and a representative time delay.

Edit: just to be clear I mean speed of light round trip delay.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: SpacexULA on 06/03/2012 10:45 pm
I have a way to drive media attention.

Allow any person in the world to compete.  Any nation that can get enough volunteers & media attention can have their own show and competition.

Once a person is accepted they are allowed to buy a camera & microphone that they wear.  A person is judged by how many people pull up their camera though the site (At this point your only job is to get attention).  The completion would press that the camera should be worn as much as possible to increase your viewership.

The TV show will revolve around Cullings. Once you have enough competitors with a certain amount of viewership the TV producers come out and film a show with the participants.  The show will revolve around competitions which eliminates competitors.  You lose by not having enough viewers on your camera, not having enough up votes on the show, or being below a certain percentage in the testing.

The Cullings would revolve around intelligence, physical skill, fortitude, and keeping the viewers interested.  These early Cullings can take on many forms, from participation in public completions, such as races or iron man completions, to chess completions or spelling bees.  All that matters is that the central organization approves them and the tests vary across physical, mental, and constitutional tests, and draw attention.

As funding grows, regional, state, national and even international contests start up  (While away from home on Cullings you would be expected to keep the camera on as much as possible).  The whole time these people are competing with each other for viewership, donations, and upvotes.

Once funding is at a high enough level to start launching assets the main event starts.

A base is started in Antarctica (or even in the top of the himalayas), staffed by only people from the culls, and funded by donations to the participants and by sponsorships.  Hard locations are chosen because of the isolation, physical restraints, and need for safety awarement to even function in them.  If they can’t make it in these areas for many months and keep a following then they don’t need to go to Mars.

The persons that maintain their viewership, stays in the top 50% of the culls, is still in top mental & physical shape (which the culls will be designed to insure), and still want to go will be given the opportunity to be one of the 1st humans on Mars.  4 people from the Antarctic base will be selected by votes and donations for the opportunity to go to Mars.  If not selected, as long as your numbers stay high you are allowed to stay at the base in Antarctica and continue to train and cull till the next opportunity.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MrScienceGuy on 06/04/2012 02:42 am
I am one of the people involved in Mars One. Let me try to answer some of your criticism and perhaps some misunderstanding due to the limitations of the website. First of all we do know about the radiation problem, we are currently doing simulations with the SPENVIS system here in Europe with two modules able to simulate the dose as a function of Mars altitude. We know that the habitats need be buried by some regolith. Concerning the zer-g mitigation, it appears that with a rigorous training scheme and additional medication, 7 months could be doable to be sure that the crew can perform on the Martian surface. As an overall remark, we are not planning to develop any technical system ourselves, we have discussed with the companies on the website whether they would be able to deliver certain systems and how much time and money it will take. Again we do not have and do not want to something ourselves others are much more qualified to do. A last remark. Yes, this is a very ambitious program and controversial as well, but we think this is currently the only way to have humans walking on another body in my lifetime.

From my perspective, one of the biggest initial problems with the project (assuming funding is available in the quantities needed) is the rovers. Landing anything on Mars, let alone rovers that work, is an enormously difficult undertaking that has only been successfully achieved by two nations a handful of times. Ignoring the high development costs of building a rover of the size shown in the video and ignoring the resources required to assemble and monitor it, what is the plan to land such a rover? It looked to be roughly the size of the MSL which will be attempting one of the most complex landings ever simply due to the sheer size of the machine.

Without government contracts, what is the plan for a successful, long term heat source (considering Spirit, Opportunity, and MSL all have some sort of plutonium as a heat/power source)? Both Sojourner and Phoenix lasted less than a year before contact was lost. What will be done to ensure the rovers last the 5 years in between their landing and human arrival? What form of infrastructure will be in place to communicate with the rover once it has landed?

It seems like just the first steps of the mission plan have a high degree of uncertainty which could not only put the rest of the entire mission in jeopardy if they failed, but also the cause the price of the satellite and the rover to increase dramatically.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/04/2012 02:51 am
Indeed. Power source for the entire mission is completely undefined.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/04/2012 05:09 am
A base is started in Antarctica (or even in the top of the himalayas), staffed by only people from the culls, and funded by donations to the participants and by sponsorships.  Hard locations are chosen because of the isolation, physical restraints, and need for safety awareness to even function in them.  If they can’t make it in these areas for many months and keep a following then they don’t need to go to Mars.

Huh, "Mars Olympics". I assume you are taking the funding model from Hunger Games. (If so, you should read the short story "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".) We have the technology for that model. People routinely risk death and traffic jam to summit Everest, which costs a lot of private dollars. Wire them with all the latest DHS / NSA surveillance-level recording technology, stick them in teams, run them through joint operations, competitions. I guess the format of Survivor? Keep talking this out, SpaceXULA. There's a big black dead zone in the Gantt chart between collecting underpants and engaging public dollars. Make a space for your own vision with a DMZ between you and this arnoux guy. I want to hear more of this. These forums can serve as 3 GHz supercomputers that Monte Carlo the crap out of bad ideas.

Power: Can sport and spectacle that is arguably in the name of science be tied in with a deal to existing power grids like at McMurdo? Think big.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/04/2012 08:58 am
arnoux, I'll try to read your website to look for answers. Until then, are the hatches and connecting corridors you depict on the dragons something that the present design can quickly accommodate? I'm assuming the image was vetted by SpaceX. Or does something get torched out after landing?

Further along the track of Mars analogues / competition:
"NASA participates in the Arctic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) 2009"
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/articles/nasa-participates-in-the-arctic-mars-analogue-svalbard-expedition-amase-2009/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/04/2012 12:32 pm
Quote from: Arnoux
Let me try to answer some of your criticism and perhaps some misunderstanding due to the limitations of the website.

Welcome to the site and excellent first post; stepping up to the plate and all that.  Personally, I'm more of a grammatician than a programmer.  To be accurate, there are not really limitations to the website.  There are limitations to the proposal.

Quote
Yes, this is a very ambitious program and controversial as well, but we think this is currently the only way to have humans walking on another body in my lifetime.

Yes it is ambitious, no it is not the only way.  As presented at the moment, it doesn't seem workable.  On the plus side, there are no such programming limitations as to restrict the website to an incomplete presentation; that you all at least are looking here speaks volumes as to your intent to make a successful go of it.  It will be very interesting to see how you flesh out the details in public.  Of course, I'm rooting for the effort, since it is very important.

As to the idea of creating a TV show as some way of funding the project.  Just let the TV show be a documentary; stick to the facts; inform the viewer; do not dramatize.  This way, of the 7B people on the planet, you can qualify and shorten the list of volunteers, which will help save time in reading an incredibly huge list of mostly bogus resumes.  The excitement and drama of the trip is quite different than the excitement and drama of sexual foibles resolved by itty bitty teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikinis.

If you all do attempt a Biosphere 3 in Antarctica, you should implement the 20 or 40 (whatever the number is) minute time delay.

Looking at your video from this armchair, you have not supplied sufficient acreage of solar panels.  While the tentative idea of having the rovers pull out a roll of flexible panels to lay on the surface is indeed conceptually simple, it won't work very well, since they won't track the Sun.

As to your illustration of corridors connecting the various Red Dragons.  Obviously, these capsules could be modified to accomodate the necessary hatchways.  Also obviously, it's very unlikely that they would land with the accuracy required by the illustrated layout.  Not depicted is the fairly huge rover thingy which assembles them.  And from the illustration, they are crawlways.  It's very unrealistic to expect people to crawl for the rest of their lives.

Y'all need to get to Antarctica fairly soon.  There's a lot to be designed from an empirical standpoint.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/04/2012 02:03 pm
From:

http://mars-one.com/faq-en/22-faq-mission-features/209-what-are-simulation-missions

Quote
This is why we are building a copy of the Mars base in a cold, dry Earth environment with equipment similar to that joining them on the final journey. They will only be allowed to leave the base when wearing their Mars Suits, they must cultivate their own food and all communications with the outside world will be artificially delayed by twenty minutes. These trials will demonstrate whether they are suitable for all elements of the task ahead. Can they keep the group functioning? Will they keep a cool head when confronted with a problem? Are responsibilities distributed fairly? All broadcast footage will be live, so that everyone can watch their favorite candidate and all participants are portrayed equally and objectively.

Musta missed this the first time around.

Looks like some of my questions are going to be asked.

http://mars-one.com/faq-en/23-faq-feasability/243-how-will-you-finance-the-mission

404 Error.

http://mars-one.com/mission/mankind-on-mars

Quote
Even before they find their way onto the rocket, each astronaut will be put through the required ten years of training.

Which seems to indicate that four astros are in training at the moment, in anticipation of the 2022 first launch?

Quote
Once they arrive on Mars, the astronauts will begin making use of their spacious living units; over 50 m2 per person, and a total of more than 200 m2.

To me, the illustration doesn't show that kind of spaciousness.  But, "Within the settlement are inflatable components which contain bedrooms, working areas, a living room and a ‘plant production unit’, where they will grow greenery", which is not yet illustrated, that I can tell.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 06/04/2012 04:21 pm
I have a way to drive media attention.

Allow any person in the world to compete.  Any nation that can get enough volunteers & media attention can have their own show and competition.

Once a person is accepted they are allowed to buy a camera & microphone that they wear.  A person is judged by how many people pull up their camera though the site (At this point your only job is to get attention).  The completion would press that the camera should be worn as much as possible to increase your viewership.

The TV show will revolve around Cullings. Once you have enough competitors with a certain amount of viewership the TV producers come out and film a show with the participants.  The show will revolve around competitions which eliminates competitors.  You lose by not having enough viewers on your camera, not having enough up votes on the show, or being below a certain percentage in the testing.

The Cullings would revolve around intelligence, physical skill, fortitude, and keeping the viewers interested.  These early Cullings can take on many forms, from participation in public completions, such as races or iron man completions, to chess completions or spelling bees.  All that matters is that the central organization approves them and the tests vary across physical, mental, and constitutional tests, and draw attention.

As funding grows, regional, state, national and even international contests start up  (While away from home on Cullings you would be expected to keep the camera on as much as possible).  The whole time these people are competing with each other for viewership, donations, and upvotes.

Once funding is at a high enough level to start launching assets the main event starts.

A base is started in Antarctica (or even in the top of the himalayas), staffed by only people from the culls, and funded by donations to the participants and by sponsorships.  Hard locations are chosen because of the isolation, physical restraints, and need for safety awarement to even function in them.  If they can’t make it in these areas for many months and keep a following then they don’t need to go to Mars.

The persons that maintain their viewership, stays in the top 50% of the culls, is still in top mental & physical shape (which the culls will be designed to insure), and still want to go will be given the opportunity to be one of the 1st humans on Mars.  4 people from the Antarctic base will be selected by votes and donations for the opportunity to go to Mars.  If not selected, as long as your numbers stay high you are allowed to stay at the base in Antarctica and continue to train and cull till the next opportunity.


Would it be possible to invite Pauly Shore?  ;D
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mrmandias on 06/04/2012 04:42 pm
two words, James Town
    this won't go anywhere; it is just the first of many proposals sparked by the success of SpaceX; what I am interested in, is 2-4 years down the road, when the ones that are NOT seeking publicity, come to the briefing room, and announce like Planetary Resources, who their backers are and how they plan to do the deed, from the R&D that they have been doing for 2 to 4 years;

Hear hear.  MarsOne is "squirrel!" for space enthusiasts.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/04/2012 10:41 pm
At least when Bob Zubrin proposed his Mars Direct plan he included a nuclear reactor and the means to make fuel for heavy equipment like bulldozers.. solar panels and human labor are insufficient to colonize space.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MrScienceGuy on 06/04/2012 11:34 pm
At least when Bob Zubrin proposed his Mars Direct plan he included a nuclear reactor and the means to make fuel for heavy equipment like bulldozers.. solar panels and human labor are insufficient to colonize space.


What is the general consensus about Zubrin's Mars Direct plan here? I never really followed Zubrin's plan until recently and going from his basic mission proposal to Mars One was quite jarring with Mars One being a step backward.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/04/2012 11:50 pm
What is the general consensus about Zubrin's Mars Direct plan here? I never really followed Zubrin's plan until recently and going from his basic mission proposal to Mars One was quite jarring with Mars One being a step backward.

Zubrin, and his supporters, refuse to take radiation issues seriously because they know it breaks the primary direct concept - everything sent on a single booster, and even semi-direct - just a few boosters.

Similarly, his approach to zero-g mitigation is half-baked - unlike these guys he at least recognizes the need for artificial gravity during transit, but just like these guys he refuses to acknowledge that the astronauts may experience the same health issues on the surface of Mars due to reduced gravity. In a way, these guys have more consistent assumptions - that drugs used in zero-g could continue to be used on Mars if necessary - but those are still assumptions that need to be proven.

Which really brings us to the fundamental similarity between Mars One and Mars Direct - they're both big bang theories that fail to lay out a stepwise plan for solving the multitude of problems which need to be solved before humans can colonize Mars. Zubrin refuses to talk about such a plan as he sees it as mere details - that is, he actually knows you need a plan but he doesn't want to overwhelm the listener with it. These guys just seem to be unware.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: SpacexULA on 06/05/2012 12:12 am
I am one of the people involved in Mars One. Let me try to answer some of your criticism and perhaps some misunderstanding due to the limitations of the website. First of all we do know about the radiation problem, we are currently doing simulations with the SPENVIS system here in Europe with two modules able to simulate the dose as a function of Mars altitude. We know that the habitats need be buried by some regolith. Concerning the zer-g mitigation, it appears that with a rigorous training scheme and additional medication, 7 months could be doable to be sure that the crew can perform on the Martian surface. As an overall remark, we are not planning to develop any technical system ourselves, we have discussed with the companies on the website whether they would be able to deliver certain systems and how much time and money it will take. Again we do not have and do not want to something ourselves others are much more qualified to do. A last remark. Yes, this is a very ambitious program and controversial as well, but we think this is currently the only way to have humans walking on another body in my lifetime.

Welcome to NASASpaceFlight.com, and thank you for answering some questions.  Is there a reason you didn't seem to contact Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace?  Both companies have relationships with some of your suppliers, and have systems that have a strong synergy with what you are trying to do.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/05/2012 10:44 am
What is the general consensus about Zubrin's Mars Direct plan here? I never really followed Zubrin's plan until recently and going from his basic mission proposal to Mars One was quite jarring with Mars One being a step backward.

Mars Direct and Mars Semi-direct both suffer from optimistic (some would say wildly optimistic) mass budgets. Mars entry, descent and landing (EDL) is hard, he gives it insufficient attention. With more realistic mass budgets it looks like his EDL won't work (at least not without changing the plan considerably).

Radiation and zero/reduced gravity are serious issues and Zubrin by his approach (superficial analysis and ridicule) has failed to slay those dragons.

Although like him I think the gravity issue if overblown, to really slay the dragon experiments with reduced gravity will need to be done. There have been improvements in counteracting the effects of zero gravity since The Case For Mars was written.

In The Case For Mars Zubrin claims that the increased risk of dying from cancer is about 1% and that this is much less than either the expected risk of dying from cancer of 20% or the risk to the crew from the Mars mission from other causes. He may be right, but I would want to see a peer reviewed report written by acknowledged experts in the field. Total cancer risk depends on lifestyle, by being accepted onto astronaut training and then going on a Mars mission will change the lifestyle of the crew. This effect is likely to be of the same order as the radiation effect, but it is unclear whether it is positive or not. Risk of dying from cancer is greatly effected by early diagnosis and high quality treatment. The crew both before and after a Mars mission are likely to get much better health care than the general population. These and several other factors make it difficult to produce definitive results.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nathan on 06/05/2012 11:07 am
What is the general consensus about Zubrin's Mars Direct plan here? I never really followed Zubrin's plan until recently and going from his basic mission proposal to Mars One was quite jarring with Mars One being a step backward.

Mars Direct and Mars Semi-direct both suffer from optimistic (some would say wildly optimistic) mass budgets. Mars entry, descent and landing (EDL) is hard, he gives it insufficient attention. With more realistic mass budgets it looks like his EDL won't work (at least not without changing the plan considerably).

Radiation and zero/reduced gravity are serious issues and Zubrin by his approach (superficial analysis and ridicule) has failed to slay those dragons.

Although like him I think the gravity issue if overblown, to really slay the dragon experiments with reduced gravity will need to be done. There have been improvements in counteracting the effects of zero gravity since The Case For Mars was written.

In The Case For Mars Zubrin claims that the increased risk of dying from cancer is about 1% and that this is much less than either the expected risk of dying from cancer of 20% or the risk to the crew from the Mars mission from other causes. He may be right, but I would want to see a peer reviewed report written by acknowledged experts in the field. Total cancer risk depends on lifestyle, by being accepted onto astronaut training and then going on a Mars mission will change the lifestyle of the crew. This effect is likely to be of the same order as the radiation effect, but it is unclear whether it is positive or not. Risk of dying from cancer is greatly effected by early diagnosis and high quality treatment. The crew both before and after a Mars mission are likely to get much better health care than the general population. These and several other factors make it difficult to produce definitive results.
I've never actually seen a link to a paper that shows that zubrin's mass estimates were optimistic. Is there a link to something or is this just Internet chatter that has taken hold?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/05/2012 11:13 am
I've never actually seen a link to a paper that shows that zubrin's mass estimates were optimistic. Is there a link to something or is this just Internet chatter that has taken hold?

This community doesn't write papers that criticize other papers. They just write their own design reference missions and include what they consider realistic mass estimates, and they're higher than Zubrin's.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/05/2012 12:11 pm
Mars Direct and Mars Semi-direct both suffer from optimistic (some would say wildly optimistic) mass budgets. Mars entry, descent and landing (EDL) is hard, he gives it insufficient attention. With more realistic mass budgets it looks like his EDL won't work (at least not without changing the plan considerably).

Mars Semi-Direct (MSD) was a response to feedback of the original plans and addresses the major short coming of the original Mars Direct (MD).  MSD is probably the best overal architecture yet proposed, which is why most studies in the past 20 years have used a variant of it.

While Zubrins MSD masses are optimistic, equally other proposals, also using MSD have been pessimistic, possibly excessively so.

Nobody is saying that Mars EDL is easy, but it isn't impossible either. Since Zubrin did not propose a detailed EDL approach you can't stay it won't work.

Quote
Radiation and zero/reduced gravity are serious issues and Zubrin by his approach (superficial analysis and ridicule) has failed to slay those dragons.

Although like him I think the gravity issue if overblown, to really slay the dragon experiments with reduced gravity will need to be done. There have been improvements in counteracting the effects of zero gravity since The Case For Mars was written.

Mir and ISS experience has shown that the zero gravity and radiation problems are managable.

Quote
In The Case For Mars Zubrin claims that the increased risk of dying from cancer is about 1% and that this is much less than either the expected risk of dying from cancer of 20% or the risk to the crew from the Mars mission from other causes. He may be right, but I would want to see a peer reviewed report written by acknowledged experts in the field. Total cancer risk depends on lifestyle, by being accepted onto astronaut training and then going on a Mars mission will change the lifestyle of the crew. This effect is likely to be of the same order as the radiation effect, but it is unclear whether it is positive or not. Risk of dying from cancer is greatly effected by early diagnosis and high quality treatment. The crew both before and after a Mars mission are likely to get much better health care than the general population. These and several other factors make it difficult to produce definitive results.

None of which invalidates his general point.

To answer the original question, studies have moved a long way since MD and the original MSD.  Nsa DRM 3.0 and 4.0 would be among the best
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/05/2012 12:39 pm
I am one of the people involved in Mars One. Let me try to answer some of your criticism and perhaps some misunderstanding due to the limitations of the website. First of all we do know about the radiation problem, we are currently doing simulations with the SPENVIS system here in Europe with two modules able to simulate the dose as a function of Mars altitude. We know that the habitats need be buried by some regolith. Concerning the zer-g mitigation, it appears that with a rigorous training scheme and additional medication, 7 months could be doable to be sure that the crew can perform on the Martian surface. As an overall remark, we are not planning to develop any technical system ourselves, we have discussed with the companies on the website whether they would be able to deliver certain systems and how much time and money it will take. Again we do not have and do not want to something ourselves others are much more qualified to do. A last remark. Yes, this is a very ambitious program and controversial as well, but we think this is currently the only way to have humans walking on another body in my lifetime.

Welcome to this forum.

If I were you I would emphasize the return to earth aspect. By all means say that it is more efficient to have long stays (and it is safer per crew-year on Mars as less astronauts have to make the risky journey). But you don't know the long term effects of Mars gravity, and it is not feasible to perform experiments at it in the timescales you envisage. It is also probably more cost effective to return long-term sick or older astronauts to earth rather than caring for them on Mars.

I would also diversify you funding mechanism. You may be able to get some reality TV revenue when the crews are on Mars, but I seriously doubt it will cover the $2B a year running costs. There is no way you will be lent enough money for development costs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/05/2012 01:12 pm
As far as I know the current Mars Direct plan is still a reasonable baseline idea if you can accept the suggestion that if you hired a smoker, and made him/her quit smoking for a trip to Mars that their overall risk of cancer would decrease, and that the tether issues can get defined and solved in relatively short order. 

As to the effects of gravity at the surface of Mars, there are 2 ways to do it with arguments for either:  Build something near earth that simulates Mars gravity and test out health and strength of mice and men for a decade or so, or just do the mission and see what happens.  Like Dr. Bob, my preference is strongly toward the latter. 


However: I think Mars Direct is unlikely to ever be a private sector mission.  Fine for a quick, and useful government excursion. 
Elon understands that for the private sector to have hope of creating a viable market to tap, the scale needs to be far larger than Mars Direct, and hardware elements need to be fully reusable wherever remotely practicable.  Very few people will sign up for the tin cans and crawlways as a permanent solution imo.  Which doesn't preclude it as a starting point.  No Shortage Of Volunteers (NSOV), but for a viable expansion with scale, there will need to be a BFR to bring large tools such that useful things and large habitable spaces can be made and moved around on Mars. 

I might go with just the crawlways and a few tin cans, as long as I could get out in my space suit every day for some field geology.  But my wife would need a few extra creature comforts (primarily some open space) before she would agree to join me. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/05/2012 01:18 pm
Nobody is saying that Mars EDL is easy, but it isn't impossible either. Since Zubrin did not propose a detailed EDL approach you can't stay it won't work.

Although Zubrin did not give details of EDL, he did give mass estimates:
Trans-Mars throw capacity: 46.2 tonnes, Payload Delivered to surface: 28.6 tonnes (cargo) [The Case For Mars] - not only is this optimistic, but seems (based on diagrams in The Case For Mars and elsewhere) to be based on techniques that don't scale well to larger masses.

Mars Semi-direct (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.23.1915&rep=rep1&type=pdf) gives an aeroshell mass of 7.6 tonnes and a lander mass of (3.6 dry + 6.1 tonnes prop) to land 36.5 tonnes of payload.

In comparison DRM 5.0 has initial mass of 110.2 tonnes to land a 40.6 tonne payload. In my opinion it is probably not possible to better the DRM 5.0 payload mass fraction by much, unless some of your descent systems can double as usable payload, but that is not easy to do without driving up mass elsewhere.

Quote
None of which invalidates his general point.
Well no, but then it doesn't validate it either. Basing a multi-billion effort on a non-expert's opinion of radiation effects would be foolish.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/05/2012 01:26 pm
As to the effects of gravity at the surface of Mars, there are 2 ways to do it with arguments for either:  Build something near earth that simulates Mars gravity and test out health and strength of mice and men for a decade or so, or just do the mission and see what happens.  Like Dr. Bob, my preference is strongly toward the latter. 

Yes. If your intention is to send people to die on Mars, what's it matter what they die of? You get the information you need, right?

</germanaccent>

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: rushdrums on 06/05/2012 03:10 pm
As to the effects of gravity at the surface of Mars, there are 2 ways to do it with arguments for either:  Build something near earth that simulates Mars gravity and test out health and strength of mice and men for a decade or so, or just do the mission and see what happens.  Like Dr. Bob, my preference is strongly toward the latter. 

Yes. If your intention is to send people to die on Mars, what's it matter what they die of? You get the information you need, right?

</germanaccent>



(Shoots sweet tea out nose onto keyboard)
Note to self:
*Re-review MD and MSD proposals
*Send QuantumG bill for new keyboard
*Add paper towels to grocery list

-Rush

...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/05/2012 03:40 pm
Drudge just linked to these guys without overt scorn. A bit of a shift in the breeze since Gingrich.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: apace on 06/05/2012 03:53 pm
First astronaut training 10 years before first flight and before any technology testing? Additionally, their timetable contains no unmanned technology demonstrator for landing, power production, life support, etc. The whole project looks more like a simple TV plot than a real adventure...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/05/2012 04:00 pm
As to the effects of gravity at the surface of Mars, there are 2 ways to do it with arguments for either:  Build something near earth that simulates Mars gravity and test out health and strength of mice and men for a decade or so, or just do the mission and see what happens.  Like Dr. Bob, my preference is strongly toward the latter. 

Yes. If your intention is to send people to die on Mars, what's it matter what they die of? You get the information you need, right?

</germanaccent>

I bet there's a LOT of people in the world that would not mind to be BOTH the first human on Mars AND the first human to die in another planet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 06/05/2012 07:14 pm
"Vee only missed out Mars landing site by 10-meters!"

"That's amazing!"

"Yes! It would have been more amazing if the vehicle hadn't stopped 10 meters below the surface!"

Duck-And-Cover!

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/05/2012 10:56 pm
I bet there's a LOT of people in the world that would not mind to be BOTH the first human on Mars AND the first human to die in another planet.

So what? It's unethical to experiment on humans without due care for their well being, even volunteers who know they will die. Don't you think there's people lining up to be infected with fatal diseases and experimented on in the hopes of finding a cure? We don't do it, because it's wrong.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 06/06/2012 12:53 am
First astronaut training 10 years before first flight and before any technology testing? Additionally, their timetable contains no unmanned technology demonstrator for landing, power production, life support, etc. The whole project looks more like a simple TV plot than a real adventure...

I am embarrassed for NasaSpaceflight.com. 

Go read about the proposal!

They plan to set most of the infrastructure on the planet unmanned and years ahead of first human landing. They also plan to produce lots of water through unmanned landers and rovers of the same type that the humans will use when they arrive.

I don't think they have much chance of raising sufficient funds (I estimate $2B minimum for the launch campaign through first human landing: cheap for what it is, but a ton of money for a TV show).

And there are no doubt other problems.

But please, folks, read their material before you shoot off at the mouth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/06/2012 02:04 am
So I went to the MarsOne website.  Just trying to catch up on this topic.

So the idea of this TV show is that they are going to outright fake a manned mission to Mars and use some easy to fabricate/utilize some accessible props (SpaceX red tag hardware) to maximize profits for the show?

Sounds about right.. complete with radiation poisoning of the cast. I, for one, can't wait to see Dutch actors die a slow death with no access to modern medical treatment. I always wondered why it was called "consumption", and now we'll finally see!

 ;D
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mrmandias on 06/06/2012 05:17 am
I bet there's a LOT of people in the world that would not mind to be BOTH the first human on Mars AND the first human to die in another planet.

So what? It's unethical to experiment on humans without due care for their well being, even volunteers who know they will die. Don't you think there's people lining up to be infected with fatal diseases and experimented on in the hopes of finding a cure? We don't do it, because it's wrong.


Why?  Our policies on medical testing seem pretty ridiculous to me.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/06/2012 05:29 am
Why?  Our policies on medical testing seem pretty ridiculous to me.

Like many things in life, one can gain a sense of perspective by studying history.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MATTBLAK on 06/06/2012 07:01 am
Link (with video) of the 'Mars One' settlement concept:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7040607/Plan-to-colonise-red-planet-by-2023
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/06/2012 12:42 pm
I bet there's a LOT of people in the world that would not mind to be BOTH the first human on Mars AND the first human to die in another planet.

So what? It's unethical to experiment on humans without due care for their well being, even volunteers who know they will die. Don't you think there's people lining up to be infected with fatal diseases and experimented on in the hopes of finding a cure? We don't do it, because it's wrong.

Remember Soyuz 11:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/06/2012 02:53 pm
So I went to the MarsOne website.  Just trying to catch up on this topic.

So the idea of this TV show is that they are going to outright fake a manned mission to Mars and use some easy to fabricate/utilize some accessible props (SpaceX red tag hardware) to maximize profits for the show?

Sounds about right.. complete with radiation poisoning of the cast. I, for one, can't wait to see Dutch actors die a slow death with no access to modern medical treatment. I always wondered why it was called "consumption", and now we'll finally see!

 ;D

The whole radiation issue is very unknown. There are some places here on Earth with natural radiation levels above 70 mSv. I've seen estimates of 400-500 mSv for unshielded spacecraft away from Earth's belts. If a shield can reduce it to under 100 mSv it would be safe enough for a 6-12 months trip.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: apace on 06/06/2012 02:55 pm
Go read about the proposal!

I read the proposal and I stay with my words. This proposal is about creating a TV series and not about settlement on another planet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gospacex on 06/06/2012 02:58 pm
I bet there's a LOT of people in the world that would not mind to be BOTH the first human on Mars AND the first human to die in another planet.

So what? It's unethical to experiment on humans without due care for their well being, even volunteers who know they will die. Don't you think there's people lining up to be infected with fatal diseases and experimented on in the hopes of finding a cure? We don't do it, because it's wrong.

What is wrong is to tell other people what they should, or should not do with their own lives.

Some medical advances happened when doctors deliberately infected themselves and then tried experimental treatments.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/06/2012 03:11 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivity

Quote
Some areas around Ramsar have the highest level of natural radioactivity in the world, due to the presence of radioactive hot springs. In the high-background radiation districts of Ramsar, the average dose of radiation received by a person for one year is about 10 mSv, and can reach levels in excess of 260 mSv.
(...)
This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant, which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mr. mark on 06/06/2012 04:22 pm
While I support the idea of a base on either the Moon or Mars even private settlements, I think permanent residents should be out. As creatures tied to the Earth, through natural evolution of our species, we don't know what the effects of long term stays aboard sealed vessels will do to us either physically or physiologically. I think unfortunately, the crew would go mad in the end being confined to small spaces with no open air sources. A large dome structure could solve this but for now bases with limited stays are the way to go. I like the idea in principle.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/06/2012 10:28 pm
What is wrong is to tell other people what they should, or should not do with their own lives.

Some medical advances happened when doctors deliberately infected themselves and then tried experimental treatments.

And when it is possible for someone to own their own spacecraft and go do anything in space, you might have an adequate analogy. Until then it is people on Earth sending others to their death.. in this case, for entertainment. There is no moral case for that.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/07/2012 12:34 am
And when it is possible for someone to own their own spacecraft and go do anything in space, you might have an adequate analogy. Until then it is people on Earth sending others to their death.. in this case, for entertainment. There is no moral case for that.
Was there a moral case for or against sending prisoners to Australia to eventually face their deaths? 

What about people who want to move to Australia and expect to eventually die there? 

What if people want to move to Australia but can't afford to; but  then someone agrees to pay for their tickets if they would just send back some photos of Australia?  Is that wrong too? 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FinalFrontier on 06/07/2012 12:37 am
What is wrong is to tell other people what they should, or should not do with their own lives.

Some medical advances happened when doctors deliberately infected themselves and then tried experimental treatments.

And when it is possible for someone to own their own spacecraft and go do anything in space, you might have an adequate analogy. Until then it is people on Earth sending others to their death.. in this case, for entertainment. There is no moral case for that.




So if people decided they want to go, on their own dime, lets say, the government should step in and forcibly prevent them?


Not what we do here in  America anyway, although of late it seems government has forgotten that hence the tense election year, but I digress.


My point is freedom is freedom you can't have it both ways. If people want a one way trip, let them go. I see no issue with this. I also don't see what would qualify you or anyone else to be the judge of what other free individuals should or should not do with their own lives.




As to the TV show idea I find that totally ridiculous but the solution to that is not to watch it ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 01:04 am
Was there a moral case for or against sending prisoners to Australia to eventually face their deaths? 

Umm.. almost all criminals sentenced to transportation on the first fleets were commuted from death sentences. Don't they teach that in school anymore?

Quote
What about people who want to move to Australia and expect to eventually die there? 

Death is not the point, health is.

Quote
What if people want to move to Australia but can't afford to; but  then someone agrees to pay for their tickets if they would just send back some photos of Australia?  Is that wrong too? 

I don't even know what you're talking about now.. if I pay you to go live in a nuclear reactor, and you agree, I'm in violation of a dozen workplace health and safety laws.. including radiation provisions. If you'd like to make a libertarian argument that the government should not get involved in our private transaction, I expect I'll be receptive to it. But if you want to make a moral argument, which is what we were talking about, then I think we'll quickly discover that we differ.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/07/2012 01:27 am
Umm.. almost all criminals sentenced to transportation on the first fleets were commuted from death sentences. Don't they teach that in school anymore?
So you want us to send people who are awaiting execution of their death sentence? 

Death is not the point, health is.
What about sending a heroin addict with no heroin?  Or a terminally fat person with no potato chips?  Just time-released low-calorie healthy meals. 

if I pay you to go live in a nuclear reactor, and you agree, I'm in violation of a dozen workplace health and safety laws..
Would it be immoral if you bought my plane ticket in exchange for photos of poisonous snakes in Australia? (might get bit)  Or volcanoes? (might erupt) Or coral reefs? (might drown). 

If you'd like to make a libertarian argument that the government should not get involved in our private transaction, I expect I'll be receptive to it.
If I am king and call myself the government, is it moral for me to keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger? 
Is it my moral obligation to also outlaw skydiving?  Driving?  Those are worse because they place others at risk too.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 01:47 am
Umm.. almost all criminals sentenced to transportation on the first fleets were commuted from death sentences. Don't they teach that in school anymore?
So you want us to send people who are awaiting execution of their death sentence? 

In the 18th century you might, but today we don't even consider that moral.

Quote
Death is not the point, health is.
What about sending a heroin addict with no heroin?  Or a terminally fat person with no potato chips?  Just time-released low-calorie healthy meals.

At least you're asking better questions. 

Quote
if I pay you to go live in a nuclear reactor, and you agree, I'm in violation of a dozen workplace health and safety laws..
Would it be immoral if you bought my plane ticket in exchange for photos of poisonous snakes in Australia? (might get bit)  Or volcanoes? (might erupt) Or coral reefs? (might drown). 

It's not a risk we're talking about here. If you send someone to Mars now, with no intention of bringing them back, they will die a horrible death from cancer, lack of medical care, etc, etc. I don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise.

Quote
If you'd like to make a libertarian argument that the government should not get involved in our private transaction, I expect I'll be receptive to it.
If I am king and call myself the government, is it moral for me to keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger? 
Is it my moral obligation to also outlaw skydiving?  Driving?  Those are worse because they place others at risk too.

And you're back to making a fallacious analogy. We're not talking about whether or not it is moral for individuals to engage in risky activities of their own free will.. we're talking about sending people to Mars. When individuals can pay for it out of their own pocket and go for their own reasons, then they are in control of the circumstances under which they engage in the activity.

If you insist on making bad analogies, a more accurate one would be for a tv show to send people to jump out of airplanes without parachutes because they think it'll be a great spectacle. If they can find skydivers who are willing to do it because they really want to know what it feels like to crash into the earth at terminal velocity - and as every skydiver will tell you, it's entirely possible that you might not die! - then what's the problem? I expect there is a large segment of the Mars-one-way crowd who don't see one. I do.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/07/2012 03:21 am
It's not a risk we're talking about here. If you send someone to Mars now, with no intention of bringing them back, they will die a horrible death from cancer, lack of medical care, etc, etc. I don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise.
I wonder how many banana equivalent doses that would be. 

Why wouldn't there be any medical care?  Just make sure one of the participants is a doctor and has some tools and a hard drive full of reference material.  It isn't like every trip up Everest comes with a doctor.

We're not talking about whether or not it is moral for individuals to engage in risky activities of their own free will.. we're talking about sending people to Mars. When individuals can pay for it out of their own pocket and go for their own reasons, then they are in control of the circumstances under which they engage in the activity.
Why does it matter who the financier is?

If you offerred someone a certifiably one-way trip to Mars in a spaceship full of cash, and they did it for the money (instead of internal motivation), then they aren't the one you want doing your field geology on Mars anyway. 

When individuals can pay for it out of their own pocket and go for their own reasons, then they are in control of the circumstances under which they engage in the activity.
Assumming that the financier discloses risks and uncertainties to potential participants, and no one is coerced, then the participant has control of whether they accept or decline under the profferred circumstances.

I can accept the risks of re-roofing my house myself, but would feel no moral guilt if I hired someone, who understanding the risks, accepted the job and took an unfortunate fall.  I might feel regret and sadness, but not moral guilt.

I see this as analogous.  Participants who freely choose to go would encounter increased risk in their lives, but it is their personal decision whether they see the risks as worthwhile/acceptable. 
Robbing someone of their ability to decide where they can peacefully go and what they can peacefully do (taking their freedom) immorally asserts your superiority over them (whether "you" be a government or otherwise). 

Was Shackleton immoral to sign up volunteers for voyages of exploration?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 03:26 am
Okay. Thanks for making it clear that we disagree. Just be aware that many people agree with both of us.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/07/2012 03:31 am
Just be aware that many people agree with both of us.
That's a point we can heartily agree on!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Downix on 06/07/2012 03:38 am
Just be aware that many people agree with both of us.
That's a point we can heartily agree on!
Sometimes even the same people.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/07/2012 05:53 pm
Quote from: Dalhousie
Since Zubrin did not propose a detailed EDL approach you can't say it won't work.

If I understand this correctly, you're saying that Zubrin didn't specify a detailed EDL approach, therefore it cannot be deemed a failure.  In a way, it's like dividing by zero, an undefined operation.  I suppose an undefined approach can't be said to either work or not work.  Maybe that's true semantically, but it doesn't offer the reader any solutions.

Point is, neither can you say that Zubrin's EDL approach will work.

The reader is left to the mass estimates that Mike later pointed out.

Quote from: apace
First astronaut training 10 years before first flight and before any technology testing?

We're rapidly running out of 2012.  If their estimate of training time is accurate at 10 years, and they want to launch in 2022, then they need to get cracking. 

Are they?

Quote from: Randy
Vee only missed out Mars landing site by 10-meters!

And of course, there's M. Smart's analysis:

"Missed it by that much!"

Quote from: WmThomas
Go read about the proposal!

They plan to set most of the infrastructure on the planet unmanned and years ahead of first human landing. They also plan to produce lots of water through unmanned landers and rovers of the same type that the humans will use when they arrive.

Well, I've scanned all of their site; read the parts that seemed interesting, and tend to agree with Apace's questioning of the ten year training regimen, for example.  Maybe I missed something, but "their timetable contains no unmanned technology demonstrator for landing, power production, life support, etc."

While they may very well "plan" to set most of the infrastructure and other stuff as you point out, they haven't presented this plan very convincingly at the moment.

I guess I'm looking at the TV show idea as pretty shallow, and am attempting to take the idea of colonizing Mars as serious.  Maybe I shouldn't be?

Matt Black's link to the video is a duplicate of the one shown on the Mars-One site:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7040607/Plan-to-colonise-red-planet-by-2023

Quote
Watch the video and you'll get a distinct sense of the earnest amateur. For all its letters of intent from component suppliers and support from Nobel prize-winners, there doesn't seem to be a lot of money behind this venture ...

In absense of further clarification from Arnoux, we may just have to wait and see what happens "on the surprisingly specific date of September 14, 2022".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: arnoux on 06/07/2012 09:03 pm
I will try to answer as many questions as I can. First of all radiation, we are aware of this and will tackle it. As I told earlier we are doing the simulations and when Curiosity lands we will get a better view of what the real values for that specific point on Mars will be. The Radiation Assessment Detector will help in that respect. Let me clear about a second point, we are not sending the people, we give them the opportunity to go to Mars and live there. We will not force people and as we believe strongly in the fact that people should be allowed to do whatever they want without harassing other people. If you consider watching the show harassment, then turn off the TV, we do not force anyone to watch the show. The first mission is planned to land on Mars in 2016. This will be a demonstration mission for the EDL of the landers to be used in the later launches. Before the humans are launched, this EDL will have been tested at least a number of times. The later launches will bring redundant living quarters, power production (which are solar cells which are rolled up during flight and with the help of the rover, (which I rather call multipurpose vehilce as it has no resemblence in function and performance of the previous rovers send to Mars) and water extraction. Note again, that all these elements will be redundant on the surface of Mars before any human is launched. I saw a comment about the rover travelling over the whole surface of Mars, this is of course not the case. With the help of the HiRIse images coming back from MRO we will scout the surface for a best place to land, the rover lands there and will scout the terrain (some 20 by 20 km) for the best location for the base. As for contamination, we have thought about that and are planning to start discussing this with the ruling organisation (COSPAR) for planetary protection issues. We think we will be able to close a deal with COSPAR on this issue. As for medical issues, we plan to have indeed one person in the crew being able to perform basic medical practices. Selected equipment will be part of the mission, but of course the people will run a higher risk compared to people living 10 km away from a well-equipped hospital. The idea that people are not equipped to live off the planet is I think not correct. Humans are made for a very small temperature range and still we have people living on the poles and elsewhere. This holds from my point of view for a lot of circumstances, technology can help a lot in overcoming issues like that.

I can not always be online commenting on your questions, but will try to do so as much as possible.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: arnoux on 06/07/2012 09:07 pm


Welcome to NASASpaceFlight.com, and thank you for answering some questions.  Is there a reason you didn't seem to contact Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace?  Both companies have relationships with some of your suppliers, and have systems that have a strong synergy with what you are trying to do.
[/quote]

We did contact them and plan to do so again in the near future. I can not tell more at this moment in time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: arnoux on 06/07/2012 09:16 pm
These guys just seem to be unware.
[/quote]

No we are not unaware. There is currently no proof that 1/3 of a g is similar to zero g. We are in contact with reduced gravity researchers here in Europe and will find out more what the effects of 1/3 g are. Secondly, nuclear reactors on Mars are 50 years away in the future, making any exploration of Mars in our life times by humans impossible if you really need one, which we don't believe. Solar cells and batteries are sufficient. Lastly, we do not underestimate the radiation issue, but I also know that this subject is not so straightforward as people try make it. Being involved in radiation studies for spacecraft to Jupiter and in Earth's radiation belts, I know the effects and what kind of mitigation measures can be taken. Furthermore, the limits in milliSieverts currently being set on Earth are not always based on actual scientific analyses but try to predict long term (> 50 years) effects and minimise those. Again we will implement shielding strategies to protect the people.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: arnoux on 06/07/2012 09:26 pm

[/quote]

Welcome to this forum.

If I were you I would emphasize the return to earth aspect. By all means say that it is more efficient to have long stays (and it is safer per crew-year on Mars as less astronauts have to make the risky journey). But you don't know the long term effects of Mars gravity, and it is not feasible to perform experiments at it in the timescales you envisage. It is also probably more cost effective to return long-term sick or older astronauts to earth rather than caring for them on Mars.

I would also diversify you funding mechanism. You may be able to get some reality TV revenue when the crews are on Mars, but I seriously doubt it will cover the $2B a year running costs. There is no way you will be lent enough money for development costs.
[/quote]

Thank you. Yes we do not know the long term effects of the reduced gravity on Mars, but discussing this with a number of people seem to give wildely diverse answers. I personally think this issue is not severe for Mars itself and during the flight people really need to train sufficiently. As the cost for any return trip is way out from what we think we can raise, we will not offer it and will be fair with people and not promise something we can not deliver upon.  As for the funding scheme, we base our funding on different revenue streams, but I am not going into details. Thank you for your suggestions.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 06/07/2012 09:39 pm
Yes we do not know the long term effects of the reduced gravity on Mars, but discussing this with a number of people seem to give wildely diverse answers. I personally think this issue is not severe for Mars itself and during the flight people really need to train sufficiently.

I don't think it will be severe either. The wildly differing opinions will unfortunately carry weight with investors.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/07/2012 10:17 pm
If I understand this correctly, you're saying that Zubrin didn't specify a detailed EDL approach, therefore it cannot be deemed a failure.  In a way, it's like dividing by zero, an undefined operation.  I suppose an undefined approach can't be said to either work or not work.  Maybe that's true semantically, but it doesn't offer the reader any solutions.

Point is, neither can you say that Zubrin's EDL approach will work

The reader is left to the mass estimates that Mike later pointed out..

Zubrin did not specify and EDL method for MS or MSD.  The concepts were not worked out at that detail.  But the numbers to  work out. MD simply gives a Mars arrivial mass of 40 tonnes and a Mars surface mass of 25 tonnes.   We can reasonably assume that the other 15 tonnes (37%) is approximately the EDL fraction.  This is lower than some studies and similar to others from the period (NASA DRM 2.0 assigned 35%).

The main problem with MD was the size of the Earth Return vehcile, which is way too small for the crew.  This was addressed with MSD.















Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/07/2012 10:18 pm
Irene Schneider CV
http://www.thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=1592

"‪Irene Schneider Describes Lunar Analog Base in North Dakota‬"
("Ihrenes Enterprises, which provides radiation analysis for human spaceflight")
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSdpXCsQmLY>

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ireneschneider
:)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 10:55 pm
There is currently no proof that 1/3 of a g is similar to zero g.

There is currently no proof that it isn't.

Quote
We are in contact with reduced gravity researchers here in Europe and will find out more what the effects of 1/3 g are.

They don't know.

Quote
Secondly, nuclear reactors on Mars are 50 years away in the future, making any exploration of Mars in our life times by humans impossible if you really need one, which we don't believe. Solar cells and batteries are sufficient.

Prove it. Go build a base in the desert using just solar cells and batteries.. we'll wait. When you figure out that you need a lot more energy than those technologies can provide, I'll send you a nice fruit basket to welcome you back to the industrialized world.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 11:19 pm
Let me clear about a second point, we are not sending the people, we give them the opportunity to go to Mars and live there. We will not force people and as we believe strongly in the fact that people should be allowed to do whatever they want without harassing other people.

If you make a trip available, even if it is just a suborbital hop out of the atmosphere, you have a responsibility to inform the customer of all the risks they will be facing before they can consent to facing those risks. This is called "informed consent" and it's not just some archaic legal practice, it's the moral thing to do.

Hopefully by the time you've gotten to looking for volunteers your answers to questions about the risks involved will have become much more sophisticated, as your current dismissal of the fundamental showstoppers of human spaceflight and settlement are enough to get you sued into oblivion before you fly a single person.

You say "go to Mars and live there", but I've yet to see how you think people will be living on Mars. At this point it seems more accurate to say that you're going to give people the opportunity to go to Mars and die there. That may still attract volunteers, but they will be of a completely different breed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/07/2012 11:32 pm
]Prove it. Go build a base in the desert using just solar cells and batteries.. we'll wait. When you figure out that you need a lot more energy than those technologies can provide, I'll send you a nice fruit basket to welcome you back to the industrialized world.

Stand alone solar power stations for remote facilities in the Australian outback are not uncommon.  They range from the small scale (house supply to the ranger station at Dalhousie springs) to 100 kw (Wilpena) with 225 kw the current largest (Kings Canyon). Sometimes they are pure solar, others hybrid solar-wind, some are hybrid diesel-solar (diersel being for night time use). 

Don't forget either that the ISS has more than 100 kw of solar panels.

For a Mars station daily requirements of up to 250 kwh are certanly competitive using solar, and probably feasible up to at least1 mwh.  Beyond that you would probably want a nuclear-solar hydrid.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/07/2012 11:37 pm
Stand alone solar power stations for remote facilities in the Australian outback are not uncommon.  They range from the small scale (house supply to the ranger station at Dalhousie springs) to 100 kw (Wilpena) with 225 kw the current largest (Kings Canyon). Sometimes they are pure solar, others hybrid solar-wind, some are hybrid diesel-solar (diersel being for night time use). 

What part of the word "build" did you miss?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 02:37 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75ah6L10wfA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 03:00 am

What part of the word "build" did you miss?



What's your point?  That it is impossible to build such a solar power supply?

Solar stations have already been built in terrestrail deserts which produce more than 1 mwh per day.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 03:18 am
What's your point?  That it is impossible to build such a solar power supply?

Solar stations have already been built in terrestrail deserts which produce more than 1 mwh per day.

Wow.. I'm just yelling into the wind here aren't I?

You're on Mars.. you're trying to colonize the planet. You need to build stuff. How are you planning on doing that? Human labor? Solar powered tractors? This would be comical if people's lives weren't at stake.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Wyvern on 06/08/2012 03:41 am
Gonna side with QuantumG here.

Yes their are solar arrays good enough to power a hypothetical Mars base.  But how are you going to transport them from the Earth to Mars and still maintain your cost figures?  Will we even have the technology to transport a 1 MWH solar array to Mars by 2023?  What if a lander carrying vital equipment crashes? 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 03:42 am
What's your point?  That it is impossible to build such a solar power supply?

Solar stations have already been built in terrestrail deserts which produce more than 1 mwh per day.

Wow.. I'm just yelling into the wind here aren't I?

You're on Mars.. you're trying to colonize the planet. You need to build stuff. How are you planning on doing that? Human labor? Solar powered tractors? This would be comical if people's lives weren't at stake.


Calm down.

You would no more build this stuff on Mars than you would at Kings Canyon.  You would deploy components already built.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 03:45 am
Gonna side with QuantumG here.

Yes their are solar arrays good enough to power a hypothetical Mars base.  But how are you going to transport them from the Earth to Mars and still maintain your cost figures?  Will we even have the technology to transport a 1 MWH solar array to Mars by 2023?  What if a lander carrying vital equipment crashes? 

I don't think it will be possible in 2023 with the sort of money these people are talking about.

But it is certainly feasible to provide the sort of power required with current PV technology and certainly easier than using a nuclear reactor.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 03:48 am
Calm down.

You would no more build this stuff on Mars than you would at Kings Canyon.  You would deploy components already built.

If you can't see what's wrong with this idea, I can't explain it to you. Reality is not something you can just wish away.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 04:00 am
Calm down.

You would no more build this stuff on Mars than you would at Kings Canyon.  You would deploy components already built.

If you can't see what's wrong with this idea, I can't explain it to you. Reality is not something you can just wish away.


I understand the issues very clearly tanbk you, have been active in the field for the past decade.

I too have grave doubts at many levels with the "Marsone" concept.

However, they are not talking about manufacturing solar panels on Mars.  In post 87 arnoux writes that power production by "solar cells which are rolled up during flight", clearing refering to the deloyment of solar panels broughtfrom Earth.

In this regard at least the idea has reasonable elements, however many other issues there may be with the overal concept as presented.



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 04:04 am
However, they are not talking about manufacturing solar panels on Mars.  In post 87 arnoux writes that power production by "solar cells which are rolled up during flight", clearing refering to the deloyment of solar panels broughtfrom Earth.

I'm not talking about that either!

If you're sending people to live on Mars, with the intention of starting a colony there, you're going to need heavy machinery. People cannot live on Mars without industry. How are you going to power it? Answering "solar power and batteries" is just another way of saying you don't know.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 04:12 am
However, they are not talking about manufacturing solar panels on Mars.  In post 87 arnoux writes that power production by "solar cells which are rolled up during flight", clearing refering to the deloyment of solar panels broughtfrom Earth.

I'm not talking about that either!

If you're sending people to live on Mars, with the intention of starting a colony there, you're going to need heavy machinery. People cannot live on Mars without industry. How are you going to power it? Answering "solar power and batteries" is just another way of saying you don't know.


I agree, they need to show a reasonable energy budget showing much much power is needed, and a mass budget for the panels, batteries, contol systems, cables, deployment rovers, etc..  Since all this is supposed to be start being launched in four years time (supposedly) I would expect this in considerable detail, including things like like how the rover will unroll the panels and pegged down. In fact one would hope prototypes would be undergoing field trials by now.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 04:23 am
I agree, they need to show a reasonable energy budget showing much much power is needed, and a mass budget for the panels, batteries, contol systems, cables, deployment rovers, etc..  Since all this is supposed to be start being launched in four years time (supposedly) I would expect this in considerable detail, including things like like how the rover will unroll the panels and pegged down. In fact one would hope prototypes would be undergoing field trials by now.

Instead we have to pull teeth to find out how they intend to deal with radiation issues .. which they barely acknowledge exist .. and when they finally regurgitate some "cover the habs with dirt" solution, they make it clear that they expect this to be done with human labor.. or magic.

I dare not go on to asking how they intend to feed everyone. They mention a greenhouse, which I suppose is just wished into existence, but they seem to be unaware that you somehow need to produce fertilizers to grow plants in greenhouses, which are predominately derived from petroleum.

The settlement of space is the hardest challenge humanity will ever face, but these guys seem to think they can figure out the plan in 4 man-years.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/08/2012 04:38 am
Quote
I'm not talking about that either!

If you're sending people to live on Mars, with the intention of starting a colony there, you're going to need heavy machinery. People cannot live on Mars without industry. How are you going to power it? Answering "solar power and batteries" is just another way of saying you don't know.

I'm not so sure. The ISS main module structures have lasted for a while. I imagine that living on mars would have to do with simply growing enough food(which by default produces oxygen from the atmosphere) to feed the colony and so that you have enough oxygen. The main power problem won't be building stuff, but simply heating your habitats that are heavy duty enough to last decades. Equatorial locations(heating wise) though aren't too bad and aren't much worse than higher latitudes on earth. A greenhouse effect in the habitats/farms would go a long way. The lifestyle at first will be mainly agrarian with the ability to make simple structures/tools through CNC machines, power tools, etc. It is a fact that about 1 percent of the population in the US grows food to feed the other 99 percent of the population. Given large enough habitats, I don't think man power will be a problem even given the lower crop yields due to solar irradiance, soil composition differences. On earth, generally you can feed 1 person on .12 acres(5000 square feet). Triple that for mars and you get 15,000 square feet. Anybody know the weight of a glass cylindrical pressure vessel about 1 meter high of that size assuming about 1000 pascals atmosphere pressure? There is also the difference in that manual labor is much easier on mars due to 1/3 gravity. The colonists will need exercise regardless. The main problem I see is not energy, but water. The actual technology of it isn't that difficult given enough money. With less money, you need technology as a force multipler.

There ofcourse is the other approach which is to go there with the mining and tooling and build the colony from insitu resources from scratch. There is plenty of the right resources up there to do it. The refining and manufacturing process will just be a micro-scale version of how it is done on earth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: TomCaver on 06/08/2012 04:39 am
arnoux:   

I would like to ask what Mars One will do in the event of a month-long dust storm that shuts down solar power production.

One solution might be to site on Mons Olympus or another great height - above most dust storm effects.   That would mean ~50% higher radiation exposure when outside of shielded shelters, perhaps translating into reducing time spent outside by about 1/3rd. 

And related to that, I'd also like to ask whether Mars One would consider greater reliance on robots, to better address the radiation issue.  Ten more years of robot improvements should yield robots capable of operating independently for simple tasks (for example loading, transporting and unloading materials), and excellent robotic telepresence capabilities for more complex activities.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 04:44 am
It is a fact that about 1 percent of the population in the US grows food to feed the other 99 percent of the population. Given large enough habitats, I don't think man power will be a problem even given the lower crop yields due to solar irradiance, soil composition differences. On earth, generally you can feed 1 person on .12 acres(5000 square feet)

Bwahaha.. how do you think we do that? Magic?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 04:45 am
Instead we have to pull teeth to find out how they intend to deal with radiation issues .. which they barely acknowledge exist .. and when they finally regurgitate some "cover the habs with dirt" solution, they make it clear that they expect this to be done with human labor.. or magic.

I dare not go on to asking how they intend to feed everyone. They mention a greenhouse, which I suppose is just wished into existence, but they seem to be unaware that you somehow need to produce fertilizers to grow plants in greenhouses, which are predominately derived from petroleum.

The settlement of space is the hardest challenge humanity will ever face, but these guys seem to think they can figure out the plan in 4 man-years.

Workload is a massive issue, as shown by the Biosphere 2 people and that was for just 2 years, and not for life.

Also skill sets.  Four people is Ok for a Mars mission, but for a settlement.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 04:49 am
arnoux:   

I would like to ask what Mars One will do in the event of a month-long dust storm that shuts down solar power production.

One solution might be to site on Mons Olympus or another great height - above most dust storm effects.   That would mean ~50% higher radiation exposure when outside of shielded shelters, perhaps translating into reducing time spent outside by about 1/3rd. 

And related to that, I'd also like to ask whether Mars One would consider greater reliance on robots, to better address the radiation issue.  Ten more years of robot improvements should yield robots capable of operating independently for simple tasks (for example loading, transporting and unloading materials), and excellent robotic telepresence capabilities for more complex activities.


Dust storms reduce irrandiance, they don't eliminate it completely.  the most intense might reduce irradiance by 90%, but they are rare and the worst period only lasts a few soils.

BTW the oft quoted 99% reduction during a storm applies only to direct sunlight, solar panels run on total sunlight.

So managing with a major storm is a matter of making sure your array is large enough.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/08/2012 04:58 am
"Bwahaha.. how do you think we do that? Magic?"

I guess my point is that the agricultural industry will be closer to personnel ratio of pre-industrial revolution western society. Which is how it should be, if they aren't laser sights focused on survival, they are doing it wrong. Less making television sets, more providing for Maslow 1(breathing, food, water, sleep, homeostasis, excretion).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mjcrsmith on 06/08/2012 05:15 am


would have to do with simply growing ...

Simply is a misnomer.  None of it would be simple.  Impossible? No.  Simple, No.


Also by the logic of a 1/3rd gravity making work easier, would imply that work in 0G is even easier, which based in a couple hundred EVA's is clearly not the case.


Please, continue to think outside the box, but keep over optimism in check.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 05:35 am
"Bwahaha.. how do you think we do that? Magic?"

I guess my point is that the agricultural industry will be closer to personnel ratio of pre-industrial revolution western society. Which is how it should be, if they aren't laser sights focused on survival, they are doing it wrong. Less making television sets, more providing for Maslow 1(breathing, food, water, sleep, homeostasis, excretion).

I certainly agree with that, I thought you were saying the opposite.

What I think people fail to realize is that colonizing space will require that and industrialized society. You'll need tractors and the vast majority of the population to operate/maintain them. People hear "agrarian society" and think human labor.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 05:49 am
"Bwahaha.. how do you think we do that? Magic?"

I guess my point is that the agricultural industry will be closer to personnel ratio of pre-industrial revolution western society. Which is how it should be, if they aren't laser sights focused on survival, they are doing it wrong. Less making television sets, more providing for Maslow 1(breathing, food, water, sleep, homeostasis, excretion).

I would hope and expect that Mars exploers and Mars settlers would achieve a lot more than Maslow 1 needs.  Even in the Palaeolithic people found time for art, music, rituals, exploring, caring for the needy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/08/2012 01:19 pm
First, of Arnoux:  How often will you be updating your site?  There's not enough time in the day to read your site covert to cover in a search for updates.  To what extent will you share your specific solutions and other news of the project?  It would be nice for you to share names and pictures of your first four or eight astronauts, who need to begin training shortly.  That is, if your schedule, and your "surprisingly specific date" is intended to be believeable.

...we are aware of [radiation] and will tackle it.

Awareness and intention are prerequisites for tackling the radiation problem, but the info you have illustrated does not indicate a long term solution.

Quote from: Arnoux
Let me clear about a second point, we are not sending the people, we give them the opportunity to go to Mars and live there.

Of course nobody is to be coerced.  At least that was clear to me.  But you have still sidestepped the "informed consent" aspect of the argument presented by some on this thread. From a legal standpoint, it seems that the current liklihood of success for your project is very low, meaninig that the chances of the liklihood of failure are very high, resulting in almost certain death of the first astros.

Quote from: Arnoux
... we do not force anyone to watch the [TV] show.

Of course not.  Here, people will get incensed at the expression of opinion, and not realize that the PadeDown key works very well.  Personally, I think your TV show, well, sux.  If you were to have instead, a documentary diary of work as it is being accomplished, maybe even on a pay per view basis, that could provide not only information, but interest corporate funding.

Quote from: Arnoux
The first mission is planned to land on Mars in 2016.

Then you have not publicly shared the work that you have already accomplished.

Quote from: Arnoux
As for medical issues, we plan to have indeed one person in the crew being able to perform basic medical practices. Selected equipment will be part of the mission, but of course the people will run a higher risk compared to people living 10 km away from a well-equipped hospital. The idea that people are not equipped to live off the planet is I think not correct.

It stands to reason that this would be a prudent precaution.  You have not addressed the health issues surrounding what is thought to be the likely occurence of cancer in your crew, thirty or forty years hence.  For the moment, we can tentatively accept that you still have time to solve this possible health problem, but you have not really demonstrated that this will likely be a problem.  Then there's the issue of geriatrics, which you have completely overlooked to date.

The idea of a oneway trip is a flawed idea, I think.

Quote from: Arnoux
Nuclear reactors on Mars are 50 years away in the future, making any exploration of Mars in our life times by humans impossible if you really need one, which we don't believe. Solar cells and batteries are sufficient.

I intuitively agree with this, but your illustration doesn't appear to offer sufficient acreage for one thing.  For another, the flat on the ground installation doesn't make sens, given the dust and the distance from the sun.  You're going to have to make enough electricity when the Sun shines to provide power for the night and day, as well as for when dust storms cover up your panels.

While it is generally true that "stand alone solar power stations for remote facilities in the Australian outback are not uncommon", it is not the common aspect of terrestrial applications that is in effect for your mission.  It is the uncommon aspect of such extreme reliability, which you haven't demonstrated.

Bas Lansdorp spoke with the Aussie TV journalist on that video linked by QuantumG.

Six Billion dollars?  That's the cost they estimate for the attempt.  Our Constellation effort cost $11B and never got off the ground. Certainly, they could expect better efficiency, but this doesn't seem realistic.  The announced financial efficiency doesn't seem feasible.

The TV journalist:  "What about pregnancy?"  Mr. Lansdorp:  "This is a story of true exploration... the poeple going will be the best of the best ... exceptionally smart  ... will know what they're doing... they will make a huge sacrifice ..."

This is a dodge.  The medical issues have not really been addressed, at least not publicly.

There is plenty of the right resources up there to do it. The refining and manufacturing process will just be a micro-scale version of how it is done on earth.

True in general, not at all demonstrated in the specific case.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/08/2012 01:56 pm
Instead we have to pull teeth to find out how they intend to deal with radiation issues .. which they barely acknowledge exist .. and when they finally regurgitate some "cover the habs with dirt" solution, they make it clear that they expect this to be done with human labor.. or magic.

The radiation will be a problem (to be solved) during the 6-10 months trip to Mars, I agree. But I do not think it will be an issue on the surface: "There's actually less radiation on the surface of Mars than some natural locations on Earth." [1] Probably Dr. Dartnell is thinking about Ramsar (Iran) with up to 260 mSv/year of natural background radiation.

Even if the radiation levels on surface are found to be higher than expected, the colony could be built inside a cavern or lava tube, for example. Such places are already mapped. There are a lot of issues to solve, like energy or food, but it seems radiation on surface is not one of them.

[1] http://www.space.com/3396-study-surface-mars-devoid-life.html
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/08/2012 02:04 pm
The radiation will be a problem (to be solved) during the 6-10 months trip to Mars, I agree. But I do not think it will be an issue on the surface: "There's actually less radiation on the surface of Mars than some natural locations on Earth." [1] Probably Dr. Dartnell is thinking about Ramsar (Iran) with up to 260 mSv/year of natural background radiation.

This handwaving is just another way of demonstrating that you're not serious.

Quote
Even if the radiation levels on surface are found to be higher than expected, the colony could be built inside a cavern or lava tube, for example. Such places are already mapped. There are a lot of issues to solve, like energy or food, but it seems radiation on surface is not one of them.

How? Magic?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/08/2012 02:20 pm
We do not know the actual levels of radiation on Mars surface. Hopefully the Mars Curiosity rover will find it in August, then we will know if it's an issue or not. BTW, the rover has been measuring the radiation levels on space for more than 6 months.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Lampyridae on 06/08/2012 02:22 pm
This will fall off the radar in a matter of weeks or months once the hype has died down.

Investment is based on proven track records. Once space tourism extends to jaunts around the moon and lunar habitats, THEN something like this will be funded and perhaps may result in the first human on Mars being a private spaceflight participant. Meantime, between private and govt. investment, most of the infrastructure will be in place and most of the problems solved.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/08/2012 03:20 pm
I think the current focus on safety in spaceflight will probably die down once commercialized except for the billionaires that want to go and can afford the safety requirements(if there are any). Going to mars will likely mean reduced life expectancy and much higher life insurance payments. Cancer doesn't stop people from smoking, and smoking isn't illegal. There will be a few space/adventure junkies that will go regardless(Bear man style...let's go play with grizzly bears). It just sort of shows weird priorities. We really won't spend a billion dollars to give a person the safest car on the planet that won't lead to one of the 40,000 car crash casualties a year in the U.S. Likewise, the money spent on insuring a long healthy life on mars probably could insure a long healthy life for thousands here on earth that won't get it. It just goes to show that humans can psychologically adapt to bizarre scenerios. Even ones where people go to Mars and don't live into their 50s. Which btw lots of people don't here either because of bad lifestyle choices. Which, again, isn't illegal.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/08/2012 03:36 pm
Quote
Six Billion dollars?  That's the cost they estimate for the attempt.  Our Constellation effort cost $11B and never got off the ground. Certainly, they could expect better efficiency, but this doesn't seem realistic.  The announced financial efficiency doesn't seem feasible.

I think 6 billion is likely in the right ballpark if done right. That pays for about 30 falcon heavy launches with the other half being payload. 1 orbiter is 1 launch. A robotic lander is another. That leaves 28 launches to build a mars ship which can weigh up to 1400 metric tons(about 3x ISS).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: bad_astra on 06/08/2012 04:10 pm
When the tv ratings fail and the supply ships stop coming who'se going to bail these people out? What flag are they under? Does the last one get to mark "Croatoan" on a bulkhead?

We're not at the Jamestown stage for Mars, not even close. We're not even at the "Spain landing on Tenerife" stage yet. This is akin to a private group of Phoenician traders out of Tyre desciding to go ahead and put a colony in America funded by donations to bard's reciting poems about how the colonists may or may not be doing.

There is very very little information on human health in partial-earth G. There is no fundamental reason to think what information has been obtained in microgravity is applicable. What happens when a birth control method fails (these people will be baited to have interpersonal relationships for broadcast drama, and in any case there won't be much else to do for fun), for instance and there is a tubal pregnancy? The nearest ob-gyn might be pretty far away.

I realize the the idea of Mars is dramatic and inspiring, but we have, for all practices, another planet much closer to home and with far more survable (and afordable) evacuation times, good ole Luna. It doesn't make sense to sidestep it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/08/2012 04:30 pm
When the tv ratings fail and the supply ships stop coming who'se going to bail these people out? What flag are they under? Does the last one get to mark "Croatoan" on a bulkhead?

We're not at the Jamestown stage for Mars, not even close. We're not even at the "Spain landing on Tenerife" stage yet. This is akin to a private group of Phoenician traders out of Tyre desciding to go ahead and put a colony in America funded by donations to bard's reciting poems about how the colonists may or may not be doing.

There is very very little information on human health in partial-earth G. There is no fundamental reason to think what information has been obtained in microgravity is applicable. What happens when a birth control method fails (these people will be baited to have interpersonal relationships for broadcast drama, and in any case there won't be much else to do for fun), for instance and there is a tubal pregnancy? The nearest ob-gyn might be pretty far away.

I realize the the idea of Mars is dramatic and inspiring, but we have, for all practices, another planet much closer to home and with far more survable (and afordable) evacuation times, good ole Luna. It doesn't make sense to sidestep it.

Well, the fact that scientists seem to think that mars may support present or past life while life on the moon is a rarer/nonexistant topic should give you a hint that there are some advantages of mars when it comes to supporting, specifically, human life in a colony. From temperature extremes to an atmosphere composition supportive of plant respiration to a more benign radiation environment to a better day night cycle length. The existance of water in the ice caps(robitically mined?) and carbon dioxide makes long term logistics, if not short term logistics, much more feasible.

Given that this is a commercial endeavor, self sustainability is key. If the colony is negative cash flow, it will eventually go bankrupt just like any other commercial venture with negative cash flow for a certain amount of time. Therefore, it shouldn't count on rescue missions or resupply missions from earth. The hardware needs to be simple enough not to break and to be fixable using insitu resources and machinery. Ofcourse, CNC machines aren't simple. I would send a lot of spare/spare parts. Perhaps mold based manufacturing would be a better concept and more materially efficient. Send up a couple molds that build a very simple pressure vessel, mine the iron, aluminum and build very simple pressure vessels. You would need to have enough stored energy capacity to power the furnace. Perhaps stored hydro power would both work as water storage and energy storage. Much more reliable than batteries that will eventually fail.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: strangequark on 06/08/2012 05:00 pm
Well, the fact that scientists seem to think that mars may support present or past life while life on the moon is a rarer/nonexistant topic should give you a hint that there are some advantages of mars when it comes to supporting, specifically, human life in a colony.

We have only become aware of the volatiles present on the Moon pretty recently. That could well change.

Quote
From temperature extremes
Settle at a polar location with constant light.

Quote
to an atmosphere composition supportive of plant respiration
The current Martian atmosphere is not particularly supportive, and we will provide a higher pressure, tailored atmosphere for plants on either Luna or Mars

Quote
to a more benign radiation environment
Radiation shielding is a matter of mass. The first habitats on either will likely use local regolith, and Lunar works just as well.

Quote
to a better day night cycle length.
Pretty inconsequential for the first human habitats, as artificial light will be the norm for a long time. For the plants, at the poles the constant sunlight is a benefit, and you just need to "close the blinds". Same holds for later human habitats that manage to use natural light.

Quote
The existance of water in the ice caps(robitically mined?) and carbon dioxide makes long term logistics, if not
short term logistics, much more feasible.
And the existence of volatiles and water ice at the Lunar poles makes near and long term logistics far easier. Especially given that there is solid evidence of nitrogen compounds. We have no evidence of fixed nitrogen on Mars, and there is precious little in the atmosphere (2% of a 6 millibar atmosphere is sparse).

Quote
Given that this is a commercial endeavor, self sustainability is key. If the colony is negative cash flow, it will eventually go bankrupt just like any other commercial venture with negative cash flow for a certain amount of time. Therefore, it shouldn't count on rescue missions or resupply missions from earth. The hardware needs to be simple enough not to break and to be fixable using insitu resources and machinery.

Especially for a commercial endeavor, that isn't the case. "Shipping costs" between Mars-Earth, and especially Luna-Earth, are asymmetrical. Not that an economic case has been proven for either planet, but all they have to do is provide something of sufficient value back to Earth to afford the transportation costs of their needed supplies. It's not hard to see how a metric tonne of "Lunconel" might be tradeable for a metric tonne of low-value consumables.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/08/2012 05:05 pm
Quote from: ncb1111
I think 6 billion is likely in the right ballpark if done right. That pays for about 30 falcon heavy launches with the other half being payload. 1 orbiter is 1 launch. A robotic lander is another. That leaves 28 launches to build a mars ship which can weigh up to 1400 metric tons(about 3x ISS).

Who can say what "if done right" means.

From the oracle:

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&q=cost+of+MSL&oq=cost+of+MSL&aq=f&aqi=g1g-K3g-mK1&aql=&gs_l=serp.3..0j0i30l3j0i5i30.4109.6453.1.7531.11.9.0.2.2.0.141.831.8j1.9.0...0.0.r-b5E-HzpnE&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=538eb4257e6c5d49&biw=1050&bih=619

MSL has cost $2.5B, which agrees with:

http://www.space.com/10762-nasa-mars-rover-overbudget.html

Quote
Cost of NASA's Next Mars Rover Hits Nearly $2.5 Billion

"Everybody" is intuitively sure that NASA has paid a very high cost for this unmanned one-way mission, and that it could have been done for signigicantly less.  If you round off the numbers, maybe you could suggest 3 MSL's for $6B?  I don't think "everybody" would agree that you could get 30 of them for that price, even if NASA did pay a premium.  Much less 30 complete missions to Mars with rovers, habs, people, and supplies.

Quote from: ncb1111
...there are some advantages of mars when it comes to supporting, specifically, human life in a colony.

True again in principle, but you overlook the pragmatics almost entirely.  If $6B is sufficient to successfully put 30 trips and 4 people on Mars, how many more could be sent to Luna?  And how much sooner?

The Mars-One cost proposal seems to be taking advantage of the wide spread innumeracy in the population.  $600B maybe?  A bit less than one of our recent financial bailouts?

Quote from: Bad Astra
This is akin to a private group of Phoenician traders out of Tyre desciding to go ahead and put a colony in America funded by donations to bard's reciting poems about how the colonists may or may not be doing.

A cutting analogy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ARD on 06/08/2012 05:17 pm
Arnoux:

I am a layman, a mere student of engineering.  This in mind, I would like to ask about your proposed water-extraction mechanism, which is based on collecting soil and extracting water from that by means of a heating mechanism.  Presumably, the 'slag' left over is mechanically extracted from the Life Support unit following this procedure.  By this means, you plan to extract 1.5 metric tons of water, and another 120 kilograms of oxygen (produced by electrolysis from 135 kilograms of water).  Assuming that you can find soils that are, say, 5% water by weight, your 60-kilogram-capacity system could extract 3 kilograms of water per day.  While this would meet your 1.5 metric ton quota after 500 days, and produce oxygen feedstock after another 45 days, there's a lot of movement of potentially highly abrasive soil in this system--soil collected in the rover, fed into the life support system, and then the slag dumped out (and presumably carted off somewhere, because it might start blocking the disposal chute eventually).  There will be several moving parts far away from a repair mechanism (unless your rovers are capable of maintenance like that). 

Wouldn't it be easier to connect the water extraction mechanism to your nitrogen and argon extraction system?  You are already filtering the atmosphere for useful chemicals--why not get your water from the atmosphere as well?  The University of Washington proposed the WAVAR system (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/CB-955/washington.pdf), which would extract water from the very low humidity of the Martian atmosphere.  The moving parts here are limited to a fan and a mechanism for moving a zeolite bed into a microwave desorption chamber, both isolated from dust flow.  For 145 days of operation at the Viking 2 landing site, WAVAR was simulated to produce 421 kilograms of water.  The use of the Dragon capsule as a landing system will reduce the zeolite area available to this system, but might not the reduction of total complexity (rover will not need to collect soil, no specialized soil processing system, fewer moving parts exposed to regolith) be worth the increased time alloted to water production? 

Alright professionals, the amateur has had his say--feel free to cut into this. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/08/2012 06:16 pm
Perhaps mold based manufacturing would be a better concept and more materially efficient. Send up a couple molds that build a very simple pressure vessel, mine the iron, aluminum and build very simple pressure vessels. You would need to have enough stored energy capacity to power the furnace. Perhaps stored hydro power would both work as water storage and energy storage. Much more reliable than batteries that will eventually fail.

The Mars Science Lab is carrying a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). The MMRTG is designed to produce 125W electrical power at the start of mission, falling to about 100W after 14 years -- with a mass of only 43 kg. It also generates heat as a by-product. Why not send some of these in advance?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/08/2012 10:29 pm
This in mind, I would like to ask about your proposed water-extraction mechanism, which is based on collecting soil and extracting water from that by means of a heating mechanism.  Presumably, the 'slag' left over is mechanically extracted from the Life Support unit following this procedure.  By this means, you plan to extract 1.5 metric tons of water, and another 120 kilograms of oxygen (produced by electrolysis from 135 kilograms of water).  Assuming that you can find soils that are, say, 5% water by weight, your 60-kilogram-capacity system could extract 3 kilograms of water per day.  While this would meet your 1.5 metric ton quota after 500 days, and produce oxygen feedstock after another 45 days, there's a lot of movement of potentially highly abrasive soil in this system--soil collected in the rover, fed into the life support system, and then the slag dumped out (and presumably carted off somewhere, because it might start blocking the disposal chute eventually).  There will be several moving parts far away from a repair mechanism (unless your rovers are capable of maintenance like that). 

It’s a good question. But when we say the martian regolith might be highly abrasive we need to ask: compared to what?  Lunar regolith? Talcum powder? Basaltic ash? Ground metal?  Realsitically martian regolith does not appear to be excessively abrasive, at least in the areas we have visited.

If we need to extract 1.635 tonnes of water from regolith with 5% water that means processing 32.7 tonnes of regolith, which, assuming a density of 2.5, is 13.08 cubic m.  That is not a lot, even for a small excavator, which, if it were like a Dingo (a widely used, locally made stand on excavator usable with minimal training, that weighs 540 kg), would have a bucket of 0.16 m capacity, that’s 82 bucketfuls.  I don’t think wear and tear is going to be an issue, shifting that amount of regolith would be less than an hour and a half’s work, assuming a minute per excavate and dump cycle.


Quote
Wouldn't it be easier to connect the water extraction mechanism to your nitrogen and argon extraction system?  You are already filtering the atmosphere for useful chemicals--why not get your water from the atmosphere as well?  The University of Washington proposed the WAVAR system (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/CB-955/washington.pdf), which would extract water from the very low humidity of the Martian atmosphere.  The moving parts here are limited to a fan and a mechanism for moving a zeolite bed into a microwave desorption chamber, both isolated from dust flow.  For 145 days of operation at the Viking 2 landing site, WAVAR was simulated to produce 421 kilograms of water.  The use of the Dragon capsule as a landing system will reduce the zeolite area available to this system, but might not the reduction of total complexity (rover will not need to collect soil, no specialized soil processing system, fewer moving parts exposed to regolith) be worth the increased time alloted to water production? 

WAVAR is a great idea, however you have to process a lot of atmosphere.  The paper gives an atmospheric concentration of 2 micrograms water per cubic metre. To produce 1.5 tonnes of water you would need to process 750 million cubic metres of atmosphere. 

So as always, it comes to the trade studies, mass, volume, power.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jackspace on 06/09/2012 12:42 am
Some thoughts on Mars One

They should probably be using geothermal power instead of solar panels, they wouldn't have to be dusted, and would be cheaper than solar panels.

Does anyone know of a drug that can be mitigated by zero gravity, current tech and suppliers remember.

It would be much easier to just create artificial gravity,just ad a tether or use RC thrusters.

Are they going to allow natural sunlight into the greenhouses, it would take a massive amount of food to sustain a colony.

Could one rover really survey an entire planet.

What if the ratings go bad.

If the colonists entire lives on Mars are filmed, it could interfere with the mission.


On the positive side

It is ambitious, but I always hear people complaining that NASA isn't ambitious enough and that China has drive and stuff like that, so don't we want ambition.

I would wach a show about the first mission, if it wasn't anything like Jersy Shore and actually focused on the Sience, though some personal drama could be good.
 
It would inspire students, though that is no sole reason to go to Mars, it would really help motivate kids,I'm in seventh grade and I'm already excited about this.

There are some ways to produce artificial gravity without spinning an entire space craft, the Rusians have developed a system of electric pulses that trick muscles into working, and scientists at a university,Berkly I think, have engineered an excersise  machine that spins a chair around a pole by having a man petal on another seat, the man petaling gets a normal workout and the other guy gets Earth gravity.

If it fails, before the first crew lands, what harm would be done, no taxpayer money would have been spent, useful technology for future endeavors could have been developed, and it would set people's imaginations flying.

There are other ways to finance the mission, making colonists pay for their own tickets for starters.

I wish them the best.   









Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Wyvern on 06/09/2012 12:45 am
Geothermal?  Would it be possible to use geothermal power on Mars due to Mars having little geological activity?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: cosmicvoid on 06/09/2012 07:46 am
Geothermal?  Would it be possible to use geothermal power on Mars due to Mars having little geological activity?

I wonder how deep you'd have to dig/drill to reach a soil temperature high enough to allow harvesting a useful amount of energy from the temperature difference.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/09/2012 12:37 pm
Quote from: Alexander
(Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator)  The MMRTG is designed to produce 125W electrical power at the start of mission, falling to about 100W after 14 years ...

From a human needs standpoint, in that environment 125W is not much at all.  One would be hard pressed to heat one's capsule thru the night with that level of power.  They say that they will be sending equipment in advance, and I imagine they wouldn't categorically rule out RTG's, since they would need some kind of backup power.  I'm not sure that RTG's have yet been scaled up to the 10's of kW that would probably be needed.  "Scaled up" also implies more launched and landed mass.

Quote from: Dalhousie
If we need to extract 1.635 tonnes of water from regolith with 5% water that means processing 32.7 tonnes of regolith, which, assuming a density of 2.5, is 13.08 cubic m.  That is not a lot, even for a small excavator, which, if it were like a Dingo ...

http://www.dingo.ws/html/att/backhoe.htm

My lunar notions feature modified Simplicity garden tractors, 300-400kg, ready for use while wearing a space suit.  These devices could grade, till, pull loads, that sort of thing.  I'd certainly think that a Dingo type excavator could also be modified suitably to serve in the new environment.  The reduced gravity would probably indicate that the bucket size would be significantly smaller.  It is the mass of the excavator which provides the downward force needed for excavation.  Instead of 82 buckets, think more along the lines of 246 buckets.  Having done some excavation work, a minute per cycle would be insufficient, since much depends on the hardness of the terrain, and the distance that the material must travel from the excavator to the dryer.

As the work proceeds, the excavated portion moves further and further away from the dryer, increasing the time per cycle.  None of this means that the excavation is impossible or that it must be done manned, but it does start indicating that your 1.5 hour estimate is probably way too low.  If the colony is to grow, this process must be nearly continuous.

Quote from: Wyvern
Would it be possible to use geothermal power on Mars due to Mars having little geological activity?

I don't think so, but a geothermal heat storage solution might work to save heat during the day, and release it during the night. If you coordinate this effort with your excavation techniques, you could create the horizontal trenches for your geothermal system while you excavate for water.  Then put in the pipe and the slag could fill up the trenches afterward.

But they haven't shared an idea such as this just yet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/09/2012 01:18 pm
Ironically a couple of years ago I was involved in a project submission to test just this sort of system, using a robotic Dingo to excavate epsomite rich soils and extract the water via an automated heating plant.

Sulphates are locally very common on Mars, for example at Meridiani, and you could reasonably expect to extract 5-10% by mass water from them, possibly more.  Also you don't need to heat the soil by much for the water to be given off, less than 150 degrees (some MgSO4 minerals give off water at much lower temperatures). You could mine right next to the water extract plant at Meridiani, and excavation 4 X 4 m and less than 1 m deep could supply your 1.6 tonnes or so of water.

There are a range of small utility all terrain vehicles that can be fitted with a range of buckets and blades, pit trailers, augers and other tools, and tow bars, an still mass about half a tonne.  They are not quite as effective as a specialised vehicle - like a Dingo for instance - but their flexibility makes them ideal for early Mars missions.

Certainly less force could be applied on Mars because of the lower gravity, so the buckets might be smaller.  But the amounts are really so low that it doesn't matter.  Both batch and continuous mining are options for testing, and both might be used in different contexts.

 
Unfortunately we didn't get funding for our project, otherwise we would have some numbers for this by now. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RDoc on 06/09/2012 01:55 pm
Where is the 13 kw continuous to run each of these excavators coming from?

Hopefully no one is thinking you just put some gas into it and start it up on the Martian surface.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mmeijeri on 06/09/2012 02:00 pm

Nice pictures. Is one of these fine gentlemen your good self, digging up the garden in the name of science?  ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/09/2012 02:15 pm

Nice pictures. Is one of these fine gentlemen your good self, digging up the garden in the name of science?  ;)

Hah!  I'm having surprisingly good luck in planting tomatoes six feet under.  You should try it with tulips!

Nahhh... those pix are from that Dingo site.  I have yet to fully reveal my garden tractor scheme for either the Moon or Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/09/2012 03:01 pm
Quote from: Alexander
(Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator)  The MMRTG is designed to produce 125W electrical power at the start of mission, falling to about 100W after 14 years ...

From a human needs standpoint, in that environment 125W is not much at all.  One would be hard pressed to heat one's capsule thru the night with that level of power.  They say that they will be sending equipment in advance, and I imagine they wouldn't categorically rule out RTG's, since they would need some kind of backup power.  I'm not sure that RTG's have yet been scaled up to the 10's of kW that would probably be needed.  "Scaled up" also implies more launched and landed mass.

This model also generates 2000W of heat as a byproduct. With 43 kg of mass, how many could be sent in one single flight to Mars?

Right now there are more than 900 old soviet RTG's in Russia powering beacons and lighthouses in remote areas. Some people complain that they are unmaintained (mostly rusted, a few with leaks) and several of them are located in unprotected open places (subject to theft by clueless metal scrappers), but that would not be an issue on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/09/2012 10:54 pm
Where is the 13 kw continuous to run each of these excavators coming from?

Hopefully no one is thinking you just put some gas into it and start it up on the Martian surface.

To some extent you can trade power for time - slower operation means less power.

But you would probably be using some form of stored power to run.  Batteries, fuel cells, even "gas", RTGs might not have the energy delivery needed.

This equates it to a large power source to replenish them or batch operation (which again trades time for power)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/10/2012 12:44 am
Subsistence farming in Africa with one of those would be hard enough.. on Mars it's a death sentence.

Which seems to be the theme.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Geron on 06/10/2012 02:08 am
Life is a death sentence. If you are so anti-mars one then why are you spending so much time posting about it on a forum?

How can the cost of a complex scientific rover like MSL with many unique instruments developed by various institutions be compared to a Red dragon full of solar panels? There is no comparison.

The mass cynicism regarding this project in the face of limited preliminary information is dissapointing.

I wish Mars One all the best. If there were a way for me to donate $1000 to their cause I would do it!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 06/10/2012 03:53 am
I wish Mars One all the best. If there were a way for me to donate $1000 to their cause I would do it!

I suspect your chance to do so will be coming in relatively short order.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: spectre9 on 06/10/2012 04:01 am
Living on Mars isn't exciting without the tourism infrastructure in place first.

Rover racing, mountain climbing, canyon touring.

Trying to grow seeds in the red soil while living in an airconditioned shoebox might be pioneering for some though.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/10/2012 05:21 am
Life is a death sentence. If you are so anti-mars one then why are you spending so much time posting about it on a forum?

Because the thread is full of ignorant rantings of people who don't understand basic engineering?  Isn't that sufficient?



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: vanad on 06/10/2012 09:57 am
Of course it’s going to be extremely dangerous mission - to the point that I wouldn’t even call it a "colonization attempt" - the sole goal of people there will be to just survive. Similarly - the healthcare problem concerns sound like out of the planet for me - yep, they are going to have much worse health care - and a whole "quality of life" for that matter - then average American family. Somehow I feel that this will not stop them - and good thing of this project being solely a private endeavor is that those who not support it will not be forced to participate in funding it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/10/2012 01:36 pm
Quote from: Geron
Life is a death sentence.

Of course it is.  But if this should be the substance of your argument, we might as well all stay home and revert to an agrarian society, complete with IpHones.  If, OTOH, the armchair community wishes to help the Mars-One folks, then the community should criticize their plan pragmatically and point out the very many flaws in their current published outline.  The criticism of their plans is not at all a statement of being "anti-Mars".

From me, at any rate, it is strictly a statement of:  "If you really want to succeed, you should answer these questions."

Quote from: Geron
How can the cost of ... MSL ... be compared to a Red dragon full of solar panels? There is no comparison.

Easy.  In a way, it's like comparing a chunk of graphite (used in pencils) with a diamond.  "Carbon-One", a new outfit, might be telling investors and the public that they can provide diamonds (Eight to a dozen Red Dragons) for the cost of graphite (Three MSL's).

The Mars-One price estimates are way off; I'd say by one or two orders of magnitude, at the scale they seem to be implying.  $60-600B, tho a large sum, is smaller than other sums recently printed by our government; to me, cost is not really the problem, unless it is mis-estimated.  The Mars-One estimate is an offer of diamonds for the price of graphite.

That Aussie TV guy interviewed Bas Lansdorp, linked up the thread a bit.  He questioned Lansdorp as politely as could be done, regarding the realistic chances of the Mars-One plan coming to fruition.  Lansdorp did not have the answers. At all.  At this point in time, he appears to be mostly enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, as granted by Warhol.

The group here is far less polite; even so, it is up to Lansdorp to reveal a better plan which supports his extraordinary claimed intentions.

The "mass cynicism regarding this project", to me, has more to do with the large holes in the fabric of the story that these entrepreneurs are weaving.

Right now, their website is a one way conversation, and the avatar here, purportedly speaking for them, has done little more than handwaving answers and solutions.  If there's any validity to the common meme regarding the value of crowd sourced expertise, there's a lot here that they could benefit from.

Of course I wish them well in principle.  At the same time, wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which hand gets filled up first.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/10/2012 09:50 pm
I kind of find it funny that someone proposes 1.5 billion per person for a house and farm on mars and they get laughed out of the room as low-balling. Elon Musk proposes $500,000 for a trip and he isn't exactly relegated to the loony bin around here.  In fact, people seem to idolize him a bit actually. Perhaps after Steve Job's passing, the reality distortion field effect got transfered to Elon Musk. That $500,000 will include atleast 3 months worth of food and so 1.5 billion could easily include 750 years worth of food.


http://digitalvideo.8m.net/SpaceX/RedDragon/karcz-red_dragon-nac-2011-10-29-1.pdf

Anyways, on page 4 of the above pdf, 190 million for a launch vehicle and lander. That gets you 1 ton of payload to mars and so we are looking at $190,000/kg. So, for 5 billion, we are looking at 26 tons to mars surface not including the dragons themselves. A person might eat 365 kg/year of food and so a quarter of that could just be reserved food for 4 people for 4 years if they aren't rationing.

So, my launch manifest might look like this:
food: 6.5 tons for 4 people for 4 years. Could easily be stretched to 8.
water: 4.5 tons(enough for 4 people to drink 1 kg per day for over 3 years). Of course, water will be recycled. Irrigation will have to use insitu water supplies. This is just a backup water supply to sustain human life.
seeds/fertilizer: 1 ton
soil:1.5 tons
solar panels: Assuming about 3kg per square meter and 30% triple junction effieciency. For a half-megawatt class array and assuming about 500 watts/m^2 solar irradiance. We are looking at 3333 square meters or 10 tons.
earth excavator/mover: 1 ton(MSL class).
1 tons: clothing, hygeine products, vitamins, -50 degree sleeping bags,etc.
.5 ton: electric furnace for water extraction, metalurgy.

Overall pressurized volume is 26 dragons or 260 cubic meters. Each person gets 10 cubic meters of space(their own dragon) and 200 cubic meters is reserved for agriculture(using grow lights). To sustain life, we need about 5000 square feet per person or 20,000 square feet of space total. We only have about 7000 cubic feet though which could probably be converted into about 5000 square feet of space. If you could somehow send a dragon a year with 1 ton of food, and each of them ate 250 kg/year under ration conditions, you could keep them alive indefinately just on that if farming doesn't quite work out. So, corporate sponsors and donations would have to generate about 200 million a year for that flight rate. Additional funding may need to come from government subsidies for the colony to get started. With more dragons coming gradually, you eventually have more space for agriculture. Ofcourse, this totally ignores the cost of sending humans there. 6 billion might be low. 10 billion might be more ballpark for 4 people including the base and the trip. As far as location, you need to land in a cave structure and move atleast the human habitation dragons under rock cover. For this reason, you probably want the dragons to land on skids, not legs. Solar panels would be outside and power transmitted over transmission lines down to the base.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/10/2012 11:02 pm
If, OTOH, the armchair community wishes to help the Mars-One folks, then the community should criticize their plan pragmatically and point out the very many flaws in their current published outline.

There's nothing to criticize. They haven't stated any numbers or even acknowledged the existence of the vast literature that has been published on the subject. Pointing out misinformation in the video or on their website just gets handwaving in response.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/11/2012 05:06 am
I have been looking over the numbers and I don't think you can grow food on Mars without nuclear power.

On Earth it takes about 60 m2 to support one person with high intensity farming.  On Mars the solar irradiance is less than a thir Earth's so while planst can be grown, (we grow crops in iceland after all at similar light levels) productivity will be lower.  On Mars we will need about 200 m2.

Either way you will need about 600 kwh a day per person to support food production.  As opposed to normal life support which is about 24 kWh Under good conditions ambient sunlight will survive this, but under peak dust storm consitions will will need extra lighting or your plants will die.  Your stations overal requirements will be low enough to run off solar power, even during peak dust storm conditions, but not a farm.  So for each person you will need a reserve generating capacity that can ramp up to 540 kwh per day.   I don't think solar can do this under the circumstances.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/11/2012 12:50 pm
Quote from: QuantumG
There's nothing plenty to criticize. They haven't stated any numbers or even acknowledged the existence of the vast literature that has been published on the subject. Pointing out misinformation in the video or on their website just gets handwaving in response.

Fixed that for ya.  Even so:

The avatar who briefly emerged to support and explain Mars-One has not, by my take, earned the title of "spokesperson" for that group, and has certainly not explained anything convincing to the armchair scientist.  Maybe he feels that this particular community is not all that important.

Let's veer off to PRI for a few sentences.  You don't see Paul Allen or James Cameron around here, talking about the soundness of their plan either.  No doubt, they are convinced that they have better things to do; so might it be with Lansdorp and Company.  Time will certainly tell if their plan has merit.  Perhaps the work so far is more along the lines of resume padding.  I have no idea.

Meanwhile, we have microwaves, popcorn, armchairs, and a certain amount of expertise to discuss the Mars-One plan.  Certainly some investors are reading this thread as part of their due diligence.

Point is, there's plenty to criticize about their plan.  Will it do any good?

Idk.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jason1701 on 06/11/2012 01:03 pm
I kind of find it funny that someone proposes 1.5 billion per person for a house and farm on mars and they get laughed out of the room as low-balling. Elon Musk proposes $500,000 for a trip and he isn't exactly relegated to the loony bin around here.

That's taking his statements way out of context. He said that $500,000 is what is needed to enable large-scale off-world colonization. Do you think that millions of people will ever leave Earth if it costs each one billions of dollars? Elon doesn't think that $500,000 is realistic in the near term, but that's the ultimate goal of him and of SpaceX.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/11/2012 02:22 pm
Quote from: Alexander
(Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator)  The MMRTG is designed to produce 125W electrical power at the start of mission, falling to about 100W after 14 years ...

From a human needs standpoint, in that environment 125W is not much at all.  One would be hard pressed to heat one's capsule thru the night with that level of power.  ...

This model also generates 2000W of heat as a byproduct. With 43 kg of mass, how many could be sent in one single flight to Mars? ...

Right now there are more than 900 old soviet RTG's in Russia...

I totally overlooked the waste heat from the RTG.  For maximum efficiency, you'd want to put that warm puppy right in the center of your geodesic dome, but for the radiation shielding.  A certain percentage of the waste heat could be piped in from a remote RTG, but that still leaves the problem of 125 watts of power, which isn't enough to run a microwave.  At least not big enough to cook a dinner for four, without severe scheduling constraints.  You'd get enough electricity for a light bulb and radio contact with Earth.

Not really clear if you have a point about the 900 Russian RTG's.

Living on Mars isn't exciting...

The first Jack who choses to live up there will be a dull boy indeed.  All work and no play.  There's no credible scheme to supply entertainment before basic needs are taken care of.  Life will be exciting enough, just stayin' alive.

I kind of find it funny that someone proposes 1.5 billion per person for a house and farm on mars and they get laughed out of the room as low-balling. Elon Musk proposes $500,000 for a trip and he isn't exactly relegated to the loony bin around here.

I agree.  StratoLaunch proposes to launch rockets sideways, and this is given accolades and knowing nods of assent.  I mean, rich people cain't be wrong, eh wot?  Ain't the blogosphere fun?

Quote from: ncb1111
Anyways, ... 190 million for a launch vehicle and lander. That gets you 1 ton of payload to mars and so we are looking at $190,000/kg. So, for 5 billion, we are looking at 26 tons to mars surface not including the dragons themselves.

Again, there's no question in my mind that MSL could have been done cheaper than $2.5B, but whatevs.  It strains credulity to suggest that such a mission could be performed for $190M.  I suppose your multiplication is correct, but your error is in assuming a straight line extrapolation.

Quote from: ncb1111
So, my lunch [heh, heh.  My misspelling] manifest might look like this:
1. Food: 6.5 tons for 4 people for 4 years. Could easily be stretched to 8.
2. Water: 4.5 tons(enough for 4 people to drink 1 kg per day for over 3 years). Of course, water will be recycled. Irrigation will have to use insitu water supplies. This is just a backup water supply to sustain human life.
3. Seeds/fertilizer: 1 ton
4. Soil:1.5 tons
5. Solar panels: Assuming about 3kg per square meter and 30% triple junction efficiency. For a half-megawatt class array and assuming about 500 watts/m^2 solar irradiance. We are looking at 3333 square meters or 10 tons.
6. Earth excavator/mover: 1 ton(MSL class).
7. 1 ton: clothing, hygeine products, vitamins, -50 degree sleeping bags,etc.
8. .5 ton: electric furnace for water extraction, metalurgy.

Nice try, but:

1. Four years is a death sentence without resupply or two way travel.  And if you want to assume Ghandi's diet, stretch it to eight years.  Typically, your problem continues to be straight line extrapolation; unstated, probably inaccurate assumptions; too much faith in unvetted cost estimates; and so forth.  Points for trying.

2. I'll accept this figure for purposes of discussion.

3.  Seeds, fifty pounds.  Let the remainder be fertilizer as you assume for purposes of discussion.  My garden is 50'x70'.  No fertilizer because you don't need it on good soil, but only about two pounds of seeds.  This will not feed a family of four for a year.  Plus they had better be heirloom seeds.  Plus, I get about 1367 +/- watts per square foot of solar radiation, 5 to 6 hours a day.

Your launch manifest doesn't include the pressurized geodesic dome under which you plant your garden in the reduced solar radiation.  Plus, you haven't included brooms or suits for climbing around the dome and sweeping off the dust every so often.

4. If I were doing this, I'd bring along a lot of forest humus, and till in into the martian soil, and empirically determine what to do next, assuming I wasn't afraid for my life.

There may be a dormant microorganism buried under the first twelve inches of soil, just waiting for the right environment.  Som blogodists have already declared that Mars is barren of life...

Contamination of sterile Mars is a tragedy... why?

...so that kind of contamination may not be a concern.  Idk.

But anyhoo, I don't think you bring enough soil.

5. There are quadruple junction cells coming on line, BTW.  My family of four, if we were a bit more conservative, gets by on 1,000 kWh of electricity per month.  We don't have CLSS either.  I'm not convinced that the martian family of four can get by on half this.

6. I'm certain that you can't bench press 1000 pounds, but I really can't prove that, can I?  I'm also certain that an MSL capable rover, with attachments to suit, cannot build the infrastructure you sketch out here, particularly the parts that you have omitted.  Of course, I can't prove that, can I?

Having a capable robot is a crucial piece of the equation for success of a martian endeavor.

7. Fine for purposes of discussion, but you do realize that if you need -50 degree sleeping bags, then your hab must be very cold indeed.  You won't be growing any plants.

8. You'd have to provide a link for this to be credible.

Quote from: ncb1111
If you could somehow send a dragon a year ...

I'm not inclined to assume a teacher's baby voice and suggest that you're trying really really hard, and that you're really really special, and all that clap trap.  Your estimate is just wrong.

I have been looking over the numbers and I don't think you can grow food on Mars without nuclear power.

On Earth it takes about 60 m2 to support one person with high intensity farming.

540 square feet?

Per:

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetable1/a/How-Much-Plant.htm

Quote
In "How To Grow More Vegetables", intensive gardening guru, John Jeavons, says you’ll need about 200 sq.ft. per person to grow enough vegetables and soft fruits for the growing season at intermediate yields. To grow all the food for one person's needs for the whole year requires, for most people, at least 4,000 square feet—though some diet designs are possible that can use a smaller area. [Note: This is a correction. I originally and mistakenly reported 400 sq. ft.]


I had always used the rule of thumb of 5000 square feet per person.  There's other estimates than this one, but you need a pretty good sized garden to eat for 365 days/year.  Sure, one could postulate a specific vegetable mix (Beets and Brussels sprouts?  Yeeesh.) which would have more calories per square foot of area.  One could postulate a more intensive methodology, but that would have to be described credibly.  I just don't accept 540 square feet at face value, knowing what I know as a gardener here on terra firma.  Nor do I accept your power estimate without further clarification.

But in general, I agree that food production will be very energy intensive.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/11/2012 02:58 pm
This model also generates 2000W of heat as a byproduct. With 43 kg of mass, how many could be sent in one single flight to Mars? ...

I totally overlooked the waste heat from the RTG.  For maximum efficiency, you'd want to put that warm puppy right in the center of your geodesic dome, but for the radiation shielding.  A certain percentage of the waste heat could be piped in from a remote RTG, but that still leaves the problem of 125 watts of power, which isn't enough to run a microwave.  At least not big enough to cook a dinner for four, without severe scheduling constraints.  You'd get enough electricity for a light bulb and radio contact with Earth.

1) At 43 kg each, you could send 20 of them on a single flight. That's 860 kg of cargo producing 2.5 kW of electric power and 40 kW of heat. They could be stored in a safe location and some of the heat could be piped.

2) The RTG would be the "reserve power", for use in worst-case scenarios, because most of the time the solar panels would work fine. The current pair of rovers on Mars have solar panels with noon output of 160 W -- and their panels are relatively small.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/11/2012 03:24 pm
At 43 kg each, you could send 20 of them on a single flight. That's 860 kg of cargo producing 2.5 kW of electric power and 40 kW of heat.

No, it's not a straight line calculation.  You forgot the spacecraft bus which needs to carry multiple units thru max Q, and the disposable lander which lands them.  I'm granting the robot which lays out the array and installs the piping, but you overlooked that as well.

Ignoring the above, now there's 1500kW for a suitably large microwave, radio contact, a couple of light bulbs and maybe a laptop and ItOuch. Which means you need to achieve CLSS on 1000kW, which I think unlikely.

Yes, you've handwaved the solar array in to existence, but you see that the RTG solution would not be all that much electric backup.  All I'm saying is that it's a very difficult problem.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/11/2012 04:05 pm
At 43 kg each, you could send 20 of them on a single flight. That's 860 kg of cargo producing 2.5 kW of electric power and 40 kW of heat.

No, it's not a straight line calculation.  You forgot the spacecraft bus which needs to carry multiple units thru max Q, and the disposable lander which lands them.  I'm granting the robot which lays out the array and installs the piping, but you overlooked that as well.

Ignoring the above, now there's 1500kW for a suitably large microwave, radio contact, a couple of light bulbs and maybe a laptop and ItOuch. Which means you need to achieve CLSS on 1000kW, which I think unlikely.

Yes, you've handwaved the solar array in to existence, but you see that the RTG solution would not be all that much electric backup.  All I'm saying is that it's a very difficult problem.

I'm considering 1000 kg of cargo delivered on Mars surface, assuming the problem of landing is solved. Probably would be better to send them in groups of 10 (10 x 43 = 430 kg), in multiple flights. This allows over 500 kg for the RTG rack mount, plumbing, wiring, some tools, etc.

No robot is needed to assembly pipes and wires, the first crew could do that with simple tools. The whole capsule could remain closed with all the material waiting for someone open and install them. I do not think an astronaut would have problems lifting a 43 kg RTG in Mars gravity.

The old Russian RTG I've mentioned before are heavier and clumsier, but the radiation shields allow humans to handle them without special suits, take a look on this picture:

(http://bellona.no/imagearchive/1de6bc4e1b248d8d35f7139c7154f8d5)

The solar arrays would be the main power source, the mission could send, say, 4 capsules (4000 kg) of solar arrays. Let's say we pack 900 kg of solar arrays per capsule because of the "racks". There are in the market solar panels that produce 300 W/kg near Earth, even with 50% of that output we could have 3600 kg x 150 W= theoretical 540 kW from solar panels.

Again, they could be installed by astronauts, no robot needed for that. The only robot needed would be the capsule-carrier rover to collect all scattered capsules in a single location. Of course, the rover could be used to "unroll" some specially designed solar array, but I consider that a bonus.

The 20 RTG units would add 2.5 kW and heat to the complex.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/11/2012 07:21 pm
I'm considering 1000 kg of cargo delivered on Mars surface, assuming the problem of landing is solved. Probably would be better to send them in groups of 10 (10 x 43 = 430 kg), in multiple flights. This allows over 500 kg for the RTG rack mount, plumbing, wiring, some tools, etc.

Good to see that you're acknowledging straight line extrapolation doesn't work in this case.  Of course you're adding "multiple flights", which increases your already extremely optimistic costs, for one thing.

Assuming the pre-existence of the lander can be tentatively allowed, but note that other than a handwavy assumption of existance on the Mars-One website, there is no such vehicle.

Quote
No robot is needed to assemble pipes and wires, the first crew could do that with simple tools. The whole capsule could remain closed with all the material waiting for someone open and install them. I do not think an astronaut would have problems lifting a 43 kg RTG in Mars gravity.

Consider the A/C technician and how she connects and works on the A/C unit to your house.  Imagine hooking up twenty of these things, checking for leakage, running the pipe, testing it, etc, all while in a bulky suit in a strange environment, after 6 months of zero gee.  Cranking a fitting to "x" foot-pounds of torque is gravity independent.  There is no error for falling, or ripping your "pants" on a sharp object.

The savings from reduced gravity are helpful in some cases, but do not offfer game changing ease of construction techniques.  The tools might be simple in concept, but the execution of that complex installation will not be a simple deal.

(quote]The solar arrays would be the main power source, the mission could send, say, 4 capsules (4000 kg) of solar arrays. [/quote]

You're playing a bit fast and loose with the numbers here.  Earlier you said "10 tons" of solar arrays; 9071.847 kg.  Now you're saying 4000 kg.

Quote
Let's say we pack 900 kg of solar arrays per capsule because of the "racks". There are in the market solar panels that produce 300 W/kg near Earth, even with 50% of that output we could have 3600 kg x 150 W= theoretical 540 kW from solar panels.

I don't have time for too much more of this, but: A comfortable family of four on Earth uses 1000 kWh per month, without CLSS.  You are giving your martian "family" about half that much power, and you include CLSS in the bargain.

You need to either sharpen your pencil, or get new batteries for your calculator.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hkultala on 06/11/2012 08:10 pm
2) The RTG would be the "reserve power", for use in worst-case scenarios, because most of the time the solar panels would work fine. The current pair of rovers on Mars have solar panels with noon output of 160 W -- and their panels are relatively small.


If you have the RTG, then it makes no sense to NOT use it all the time.
It's anyway always producing energy, it cannot be turned off or throttled down.

If you don't take any electricity out of it, it just makes more heat.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/11/2012 08:26 pm
Quote
You're playing a bit fast and loose with the numbers here.  Earlier you said "10 tons" of solar arrays; 9071.847 kg.  Now you're saying 4000 kg.

Well, I said 10 tons(meant 10 tonnes i.e. metric)  and alexsander said 4000 kg. Two different people saying different things.

Quote
Good to see that you're acknowledging straight line extrapolation doesn't work in this case.  Of course you're adding "multiple flights", which increases your already extremely optimistic costs, for one thing.

If anything, multiple flights will lower cost per flight. Straight line extrapolation is a conservative estimate not adjusting for economies of scale.

Quote
I don't have time for too much more of this, but: A comfortable family of four on Earth uses 1000 kWh per month, without CLSS.  You are giving your martian "family" about half that much power, and you include CLSS in the bargain.

It seems you are comparing kwh to kw. My 10 tonne half megawatt array would produce 360,000 kwh in a 30 earth day month in direct perpendicular martian sun light. Of course, you will probably only get 20 percent of that assuming a static array. But we are still looking at 72x more than your earth family of four.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 06/11/2012 08:38 pm
Assuming the pre-existence of the lander can be tentatively allowed, but note that other than a handwavy assumption of existance on the Mars-One website, there is no such vehicle.

Some kind of off-the-shelf lander is a pre-requisite. If the final product will deliver 1000 kg or 100 kg or 10 tonnes to Mars surface, it will just increase or decrease cost and number of flights needed.

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Consider the A/C technician and how she connects and works on the A/C unit to your house.  Imagine hooking up twenty of these things, checking for leakage, running the pipe, testing it, etc, all while in a bulky suit in a strange environment, after 6 months of zero gee.  Cranking a fitting to "x" foot-pounds of torque is gravity independent.  There is no error for falling, or ripping your "pants" on a sharp object.

First, most wiring and plumbing should be some sort of plug-and-play, with minimal assembly required. Second, I do not think the suits for Mars atmosphere would be as bulky as orbital EVA suits. Check the prototypes NASA has been testing for Mars.

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The savings from reduced gravity are helpful in some cases, but do not offfer game changing ease of construction techniques.  The tools might be simple in concept, but the execution of that complex installation will not be a simple deal.

I'm not saying it's simple, I'm saying it's doable by humans. The first crew could spread the assembly/installation for several days or weeks. A smart robot could help, but IMHO it's not an absolute requirement.

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You're playing a bit fast and loose with the numbers here.  Earlier you said "10 tons" of solar arrays; 9071.847 kg.  Now you're saying 4000 kg.

You are mixing the posters, I never said 10 tons of solar arrays. But if the budget allow 10 instead of 4, why not? Maybe 40 RTG instead of 20? It would only increase the number of preparation flights -- and the cost, of course. Nobody is saying it would be cheap.

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I don't have time for too much more of this, but: A comfortable family of four on Earth uses 1000 kWh per month, without CLSS.  You are giving your martian "family" about half that much power, and you include CLSS in the bargain.

You need to either sharpen your pencil, or get new batteries for your calculator.

You must be from United States. A lot of families-of-four around the world live comfortably with less than 500 kWh per month. Do not forget part of the heating could come from the RTG units.

My point is: with solar panels and backup RTG units, energy should not be a big issue. Life support, including food, water and pressurized air are the hardest problems. It would be better if the complex were built near some confirmed water deposit.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/12/2012 12:12 am
Quote from: one of those other guys
Well, I said 10 tons(meant 10 tonnes i.e. metric)  and alexsander said 4000 kg. Two different people saying different things.

Whoops.  Sorry about that.

If anything, multiple flights will lower cost per flight. Straight line extrapolation is a conservative estimate not adjusting for economies of scale.

He just added a couple more flights.  Unless there's some solid evidence to the contrary, these days, the next couple of flights, thanks to aerospace inflation, cost more than the first few.  Yeah, a hundred flights with the same model, one would hope, not necessarily expect, that the price would go down.

He's not really using straight line extrapolation all that well, since it doesn't really fit the problem.

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It seems you are comparing kwh to kw.

I keep having that problem:

http://www.energylens.com/articles/kw-and-kwh

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And people often don't make the distinction between average power and instantaneous power. You can ask them to clarify, but it can be a little embarrassing if they don't understand the distinction in the first place...

Yes, that it can be.  So uhhhh.... thanks for the correction.

Some kind of off-the-shelf lander is a pre-requisite.

Yeah it is.  But backing up to their website, you see that its existance is a hand wavy pre-requisite.  The point I'm trying to make is that they haven't convinced me, regardless of my easily rectified kilowattage.

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First, most wiring and plumbing should be some sort of plug-and-play, with minimal assembly required.

The word "should" is where the hand waving comes into play, as is the word "will".  Just because they, or you, say that this or that issue "should" or "will" be solved doesn't stand as a demonstration of having solved the issue.

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I'm not saying it's simple, I'm saying it's doable by humans.

Well that's fine, but you did say "the first crew could do that with simple tools".  The implication was not that the task was complex.

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The first crew could spread the assembly/installation for several days or weeks.

This is the bootstrapping problem.  They have to have a 100% livable enviromnent, complete with tools,robots, arrays, spare power, etc. before they embark on all that installation.  I'm not saying that I have the answers.  I'm saying that they don't have the answers either particularly mission cost.

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You must be from United States. A lot of families-of-four around the world live comfortably with less than 500 kWh per month. Do not forget part of the heating could come from the RTG units.

My point is: with solar panels and backup RTG units, energy should not be a big issue. Life support, including food, water and pressurized air are the hardest problems. It would be better if the complex were built near some confirmed water deposit.

Let's not get too nationalistic here.  A couple of years ago, we had a 30 inch blizzard and lost power for about five days.  Emptied the refrigerator into the snow, pumped water from the well, used a wood stove.  Fired up the generator an hour or two here and there for the microwave and TV and to recharge flashlights.  Lotta people here know that power goes out every so often, requiring coping methods.  There'd be quite a different coping method needed if we had to live that way all of our lives

Once the subject turns to "comfort", all objective observations are thrown out the window.  These colonists, I'd wager, will be roughly as "comfortable" as a typical US family in typical times.  Not as "comfortable" as we were during that blizzard.

Point is, energy will be a very big issue.  But I agree that it is a solvable issue along the general lines you sketch out:  PV panels and all.

Remember, "solvable" doesn't mean "solved".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/12/2012 12:40 am
Suppose they dropped the one-way-to-die madness and just decided to do Mars Direct - scaled to appropriate boosters, and with solar power instead of nuclear - as an entirely private effort. There would be a vast number of technical problems that need to be solved, but there's no reason they couldn't be solved to standards appropriate to achieve mission success. Long term health issues could then be set aside by the volunteers as something that "time will tell" and with the best medical treatment available to them on their return to Earth, that might well be a reasonable decision for them to make.

Here's an unrelated one-way program presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KECBrTtDD-U&feature=plcp

More realistic (in that they actually recognize many of the hard issues), but still far from flight ready (as stated by the presenter).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 06/12/2012 03:07 am
If the Mars base just uses solar power then it needs batteries to power it at night.  That is extra weight and extra solar arrays to charge up the batteries.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/12/2012 03:20 am
If the Mars base just uses solar power then it needs batteries to power it at night.  That is extra weight and extra solar arrays to charge up the batteries.

Obviously I agree with the skepticism over solar/batteries, but it deserves to be mentioned that pumped storage is another option.. especially considering that you're going to need to pump water out of the ground anyway. The reservoirs would need to be massive and fully enclosed (perhaps underground), which suggests you need a lot of power to build it in the first place :)

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/12/2012 04:03 pm
The only thing you have to do at night is heating/life support. Industrial process, transportation, plant photosynthesis can all happen solely during the day. Given sufficient air volume, life support can be turned off at night without harm especially if you have a plant animal ecoystem that will tend to support itself. So, why not spend the last couple hours of the day to heat your water tank. You could use the same pipes used for irrigation with just a redirected water source. In fact, you can hydrate plants and heat at the same time during the night. Have water circulate through the pipes that water the plants but only allow a portion of it to escape and hydrate/heat.

Another possibility is that the rovers will likely need large battery arrays to operate at a high tempo. These battery arrays could be grid connected at night during colder nights to supply power. So, they would have to charge during the morning to operate during the day and charge for a few hours in the evening.

The last possibility that I can come up with is fuel cells. Ofcourse, hydrogen has plenty of other uses like rocket fuel and O2 has lots of uses so electrolysis/thermolysis of water is a possibility for stored power with anxillary benefits(rovers could even run off of it but would have to store oxygen, hydrogen and probably water).

Just some math to back up the fuel cell idea. A half megawatt array could produce 10 kilograms of hydrogen and 80 kilograms of oxygen per hour at peak as a conservative estimate assuming 50% conversion efficiency(low end).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/12/2012 04:42 pm
Great video there, QuantumG.

At 28:58 +/-:

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... I'm sure there'll be no shortage of volunters...

:)

33:15 +/-

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...about half the area of the [hillside base] would be single layer greenhouse.

Plus, a fair amount of that acreage would be scheduled for non-food ag.  Bamboo, cotton, soy for industrial processes.

Although the people who land are supposed to stay, they do plan for eventual powered ascent.  In addition, the team in orbit is scheduled for two way traffic between Earth and Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ncb1111 on 06/12/2012 06:10 pm
I would also like to point out that MSL sends 3.839 tonnes to mars with .899 tonnes payload(23% payload). Red dragon proposes 7.5 tonnes with 1 tonne payload(13% payload). This highlights that red dragon is a very poor mars lander and it is also a very poor mars habitat(low volume, only one docking connector when the minimum for a scaleable base is 2 per module). It is also very poor at allowing robotics to get out of the vehicle or unload cargo for setup. If you have 6 billion dollars and you want SpaceX to make you a lander, I think paying them for a craft from scratch is more economical and should be sized to fit the falcon heavy 14 tonne mars transfer orbit capability(13 tonnes for margin). If you could somehow achieve 20% payload using upscaled thrusters/parachutes/heat shield, that gives you 2.6 tonnes of payload on a single falcon heavy. The question is how much will the lander cost to design and on a per unit basis which will eventually lead to your $/kg mars cargo cost. If you could get the lander and cruise stage to acheive cost similar to the launch vehicle, all of a sudden this becomes a lot more feasible.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 06/12/2012 07:21 pm
If the Mars base just uses solar power then it needs batteries to power it at night.  That is extra weight and extra solar arrays to charge up the batteries.

Obviously I agree with the skepticism over solar/batteries, but it deserves to be mentioned that pumped storage is another option.. especially considering that you're going to need to pump water out of the ground anyway. The reservoirs would need to be massive and fully enclosed (perhaps underground), which suggests you need a lot of power to build it in the first place :)

Another power storage method is the chemical reaction

2CO2 <=> 2CO + O2

Electrolysis of the carbon dioxide during the day and burning the carbon monoxide at night.

The equipment may be available to create CO/LOX propellant for the Mars landers, some extra being needed to power the base at night.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: truth is life on 06/12/2012 08:17 pm
The last possibility that I can come up with is fuel cells. Ofcourse, hydrogen has plenty of other uses like rocket fuel and O2 has lots of uses so electrolysis/thermolysis of water is a possibility for stored power with anxillary benefits(rovers could even run off of it but would have to store oxygen, hydrogen and probably water).

Oldie but a goodie; the earliest reference I know of to powering a base with photovoltaics and regenerating fuel cells is the 90-day report, but it was almost certainly brought up in earlier NASA studies and internal reports (which I have not read). 90-day envisioned using modular 25-kW PV/RFC systems to power an initial lunar base (up to three such modules before transitioning to nuclear for ISRU) and a Mars base (three such modules, no transition to nuclear envisioned...before the 2020s, at least). This was the pre-Mars Direct days, after all, so they didn't figure on Martian ISRU production. Only needed basic power.

It was also mentioned in ESAS for lunar base power, and indentified as a plausible means of doing so (especially for a polar base, of course, where the reserve capacity would not have to be very large with good placement).

Of course, that's 90-days and ESAS...take it for what it's worth. Definitely not a new idea, though, which is probably good.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 06/12/2012 09:52 pm
If the Mars base just uses solar power then it needs batteries to power it at night.  That is extra weight and extra solar arrays to charge up the batteries.
pumped storage is another option.. especially considering that you're going to need to pump water out of the ground anyway.
Another power storage method is the chemical reaction
2CO2 <=> 2CO + O2
All true.  And presumably fuel tanks could compress atmosphere and use it during the day, or small, high-RPM flywheels could be engaged (or a whole hab could be a flywheel for extra gravity), or large ISRU capacitors or many many other possibilities.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/12/2012 11:22 pm
If the Mars base just uses solar power then it needs batteries to power it at night.  That is extra weight and extra solar arrays to charge up the batteries.

Extra weight compared to what?

The batteries are part of an integrated power system. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/12/2012 11:27 pm
Another power storage method is the chemical reaction

2CO2 <=> 2CO + O2

Electrolysis of the carbon dioxide during the day and burning the carbon monoxide at night.

The equipment may be available to create CO/LOX propellant for the Mars landers, some extra being needed to power the base at night.

You can also run these gases in fuel cell
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/12/2012 11:38 pm
I am not sure why there is some much opposition to the use of solar and batteries for martian surface power, at least for initial stations.  the numbers are quite reasonable.

For a four person station we can caulate:

POWER REQUIRED

Power per person per day = 24 kwh (Larson and Pranke)

Four people = 96 kwh

Reserve = 24 kwh

Total = 120 kwh

PANELS

Average near equatorial surface irradiance = 0.3 kw/m2 (various sources)

Solar panel efficiency = 30% (currently operational on satellites)

Generating period = 10 hrs

Area panels required = 122 m2

With 25% dust obscuration = 153 m2

Allow for worse case dust storm (90% obscuration) = 1530 m2 (50 X50 m which is smaller than by suburban block))

Mass per m2 = 2 kg

Array mass 3060 kg

BATTERIES

Period power required = 14 hrs

Power stored = 70 kwh

Storage efficiency = 0.2 kwh/kg (mid-upper range with current Li batteries)

Mass batteries = 350 kg

With 20% margin = 420 kg

Volume efficiency = 0.6 kwh/L (mid-upper range with current Li batteries)

Volume batteries = 117 L

With 20% margin = 152 L

TOTAL POWER SYSTEM MASS

3.48 tonnes.

Keep in mind this is reliable, mature and readily available technology
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 12:35 am
Because we weren't talking about just keeping people alive! This isn't a NASA camping trip.. this is the first step in the colonization of a planet. How are you going to increase living space, food production, and everything else a growing population needs?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 01:37 am
Because we weren't talking about just keeping people alive! This isn't a NASA camping trip.. this is the first step in the colonization of a planet. How are you going to increase living space, food production, and everything else a growing population needs?


I am speaking about Mars missions generally.  For these solar power and batteries are feasible.  If you disagree, please provide some numbers.

If you want to grow food the situation gets ugly, as food production requires ~720 kwh per day of light per person.  This has to be maintained even during peak dust storms, which is why I suspect if you want to produce food would will what to have standby power from nuclear reactors.

Without actual numbers from the "Mars one" people we can't meaningfully assess their prposal, although, like you, I suspect the numbers don't add up very well.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 01:50 am
Yes, if your goal is to just send crews to sit on the surface of Mars and eat rations they brought with them, solar panels might well do it.. but they're probably not going to get much done. What are you going to do for transport? Are the astronauts going to be limited to how far they can walk? You're going to need power to produce a high density fuel for these vehicles, typically described as methane, and you're not doing that with solar power, are you? Or are we talking about electric buggies? How do the batteries on that compare to methane ICEs for mass?

Then there's a dozen other needs for power that we could talk about. I don't think solar panels will ever cut it because it is a hard limit which you can easily hit with just the bare minimum requirements of a Mars mission. Mars Semi-Direct basically came to the same conclusion, but they published anyway because they figured it was better than saying: go nuclear or stay home.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 02:09 am
Because we weren't talking about just keeping people alive! This isn't a NASA camping trip.. this is the first step in the colonization of a planet. How are you going to increase living space, food production, and everything else a growing population needs?


I am speaking about Mars missions generally.  For these solar power and batteries are feasible.  If you disagree, please provide some numbers.

If you want to grow food the situation gets ugly, as food production requires ~720 kwh per day of light per person.  This has to be maintained even during peak dust storms, which is why I suspect if you want to produce food would will what to have standby power from nuclear reactors.

Without actual numbers from the "Mars one" people we can't meaningfully assess their prposal, although, like you, I suspect the numbers don't add up very well.
Produce the food chemically or in greenhouses using natural light (you can reach Earth-like insolation through just using reflectors). They can operate at reduced pressures (1-2psi) in a largely raw Martian atmosphere, with those tending wearing oxygen masks and perhaps a counterpressure garment as backup. If you have a low roof, you can get a LOT of greenhouse space in a very low-mass kevlar-reinforced inflatable greenhouse. In order to pressurize the space, a simple compressor can be used. Oxygen (for plant respiration and possibly even human respiration) can be produced in-situ by the plants).

If you're going to rely on electricity for greenhouse light, might as well produce the macronutrients largely chemically. Chemically fixed nitrogen (ammonia) and chemically produced glucose (plus micronutrients, probably most of which can be found in the Martian soil or synthesized) can be fed to certain fungi to quickly and efficiently produce all the protein the body needs, though you need to remove the nucleic acid to prevent gout. Fats can also be synthesized largely chemically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 02:13 am
Produce the food chemically or in greenhouses using natural light (you can reach Earth-like insolation through just using reflectors). They can operate at reduced pressures (1-2psi) in a largely raw Martian atmosphere,

One thing we know from the (poorly funded) greenhouse experiments done by NASA and a number of universities is that Mars atmosphere isn't sufficient. You need a filler gas of some sort. Also you'll either need to provide continuous light or pump in oxygen at night.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 02:14 am
Produce the food chemically or in greenhouses using natural light (you can reach Earth-like insolation through just using reflectors). They can operate at reduced pressures (1-2psi) in a largely raw Martian atmosphere,

One thing we know from the (poorly funded) greenhouse experiments done by NASA and a number of universities is that Mars atmosphere isn't sufficient. You need a filler gas of some sort. Also you'll either need to provide continuous light or pump in oxygen at night.
Genetic engineering. We're not even good at it, yet. ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Silmfeanor on 06/13/2012 02:24 am
I think this thread should be moved to advanced concepts post-haste..
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Wyvern on 06/13/2012 02:34 am
Shouldn't the whole Mars One project be labelled an advanced concept instead of what it is now?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 02:43 am
Genetic engineering. We're not even good at it, yet. ;)

But.. but.. GMO foods are bad! ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 02:58 am
If you're going to rely on electricity for greenhouse light, might as well produce the macronutrients largely chemically. Chemically fixed nitrogen (ammonia) and chemically produced glucose (plus micronutrients, probably most of which can be found in the Martian soil or synthesized) can be fed to certain fungi to quickly and efficiently produce all the protein the body needs, though you need to remove the nucleic acid to prevent gout. Fats can also be synthesized largely chemically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein

I would stick with greenhouses and natural light as much as possible.  However you need the ability to top up the natural light artifically during dust storms.  This means you have to equivalent power on tap. 

The problem with pure CO2 in the greenhouse is that you need some O2 to support plant respiration.  I am not sure what the minimum partial presure required is.  Maintaining plant turgor is also challenging if pressures are too low pressures as well.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 06/13/2012 03:10 am
Produce the food chemically or in greenhouses using natural light (you can reach Earth-like insolation through just using reflectors). They can operate at reduced pressures (1-2psi) in a largely raw Martian atmosphere,

One thing we know from the (poorly funded) greenhouse experiments done by NASA and a number of universities is that Mars atmosphere isn't sufficient. You need a filler gas of some sort. Also you'll either need to provide continuous light or pump in oxygen at night.

Filler gas - Mars's atmosphere is 2.7% nitrogen and 1.6% argon.  These are the same filler gasses used on Earth.  They can be extracted by refrigerating the CO2 out and compressing the remaining gasses.  It will take a while to fill each green house using IRSU but it can be done.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 03:26 am
It will take a while to fill each green house using IRSU but it can be done with sufficient power.

There, fixed that for you. It all comes back to power, and solar isn't going to be enough.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 06/13/2012 03:31 am
It will take a while to fill each green house using IRSU but it can be done with sufficient power.

There, fixed that for you. It all comes back to power, and solar isn't going to be enough.


You need both time and power.  However filling each green house is a one off process - so the main shortage is time.  Once filled you only need to replace losses so the compressor can be moved to a second green house.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 04:35 am
It will take a while to fill each green house using IRSU but it can be done with sufficient power.

There, fixed that for you. It all comes back to power, and solar isn't going to be enough.

Why? What's the specific power (averaged over the whole year) of a roll of thin-film solar cells?

I know what you're saying, and nuclear power probably should be used, but I'm not entirely sure the case is as open-and-shut as you imply it is. When fossil fuels are not an option, solar is a pretty good choice. And has the best chance of being manufactured on Mars (next to, maybe, wind power, though that is not as attractive).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 04:38 am
I know what you're saying, and nuclear power probably should be used, but I'm not entirely sure the case is as open-and-shut as you imply it is. When fossil fuels are not an option, solar is a pretty good choice. And has the best chance of being manufactured on Mars (next to, maybe, wind power, though that is not as attractive).

Solar thermal is probably the most likely in that category. Until then your power has to be imported from Earth and that makes it mass limited. Nuclear is the highest density available and has other advantages besides.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 04:42 am
I know what you're saying, and nuclear power probably should be used, but I'm not entirely sure the case is as open-and-shut as you imply it is. When fossil fuels are not an option, solar is a pretty good choice. And has the best chance of being manufactured on Mars (next to, maybe, wind power, though that is not as attractive).

Solar thermal is probably the most likely in that category. Until then your power has to be imported from Earth and that makes it mass limited. Nuclear is the highest density available and has other advantages besides.

Tell me the specific power (i.e. watts per kilogram) of a nuclear power source, including radiator and turbine and any shielding and everything.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 05:09 am
Solar thermal is probably the most likely in that category. Until then your power has to be imported from Earth and that makes it mass limited. Nuclear is the highest density available and has other advantages besides.

Why is solar thermal the most likely?

Why, until it is available, must power be imported from Earth?

Please supply some numbers to justify and qualify your statments.

Power density is not the only criteria the power density of nuclear power is not that good when all the ancillary systems are included.  There are many disadvantages to using nuclear power on Mars as well.




Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 05:18 am
Why is solar thermal the most likely?

Because a solar thermal system can be as simple as a mirror.. something it is a lot easier to imagine being created out of nothing than a photovoltaic cell.

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Why, until it is available, must power be imported from Earth?

Umm.. that's axiomatic.

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Power density is not the only criteria the power density of nuclear power is not that good when all the ancillary systems are included.  There are many disadvantages to using nuclear power on Mars as well.

What ancillary systems are you talking about? What disadvantages? Having abundant amounts of thermal energy available?

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Please supply some numbers to justify and qualify your statements.

That's a perfectly reasonable objection and the best one leveled against nuclear advocates: solar systems exist now and are easily characterizable, whereas competitive space nuclear systems awaits someone to actually build them.

That doesn't invalidate my objections to your claim that a growing colony can be supported using solar alone.. or even an exploration mission. Show us an energy budget for your proposed mission and how you plan to supply that energy. I can get away with saying "use nuclear" and not providing numbers, because there are none, solar-only advocates don't have that luxury.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 05:57 am
Here's an all solar-electric exploration architecture attempt:

http://marssociety.org.au/sites/default/files/library/willson-et-al.pdf

Their rovers run on a carbon monoxide fuel cell.

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Note that the rover, not discussed in this paper operate on oxygen and carbon monoxide propellant. We chose this compared to using methane/oxygen propellant suggested by others as the water from this process must be extracted. The water extraction would require the need for large radiators located on the rover which effectively limits the rover motor capacity. It is more practical for rover control to use an oxygen/carbon monoxide fuel cell although a combustion engine is also possible.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 07:24 am
Because a solar thermal system can be as simple as a mirror.. something it is a lot easier to imagine being created out of nothing than a photovoltaic cell.

Why would you create either from nothing?  You would bring it from Earth.

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Umm.. that's axiomatic.

No it’s not.  Solar power is not brought from earth.  Only the components.

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What ancillary systems are you talking about? What disadvantages? Having abundant amounts of thermal energy available?

Ancillary systems include control systems, cooling loops, radiators, shielding.  These far outweigh the mass of the reactor core.

Disadvantages include: high levels of system complexity. Inability to service or maintain without massive and highly specialised equipment. High levels of gamma and neutron radiation requiring either substantial stand off (several km from your base, in which case you end up rendering large areas inaccessible), or burial (in which case you need to construct a special shelter).  However, if there is ground ice you can’t bury it beause of the risk of ground melting and subsidence, you will need above ground shielding..  Small reactors (up to 100 kW require highly enriched (weapons grade) fuel and have short operating lives (couple of years max).  This has launch security issues.  Because of their small size and the high enrichment, there is rapid burn up of fuel and a short operating life (a couple of years).  Failure modes mostly catastrophic, requiring at least one backup, preferably more.

Using the waste heat is more difficult than it appears.  You can’t use the cooling fluid directly (it will be radioactive), you need a heat exchanger.  Then, if your reactor is several km away, you need to run a long, insulated, and heavy pipe to your station.  Having your reactor buried on site or in a shielded above ground installation would be easier, but has other draw backs.

Most studies using reactors have a solar backup supply.  So you might as well use solar for your main supply and be done with it, at least for initial missions near the equator.  Once you start meeding megawatts of power the equation changes, but for that level of power you can use much lower levels of enrichment.

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That's a perfectly reasonable objection and the best one leveled against nuclear advocates: solar systems exist now and are easily characterizable, whereas competitive space nuclear systems awaits someone to actually build them.

we agree!

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That doesn't invalidate my objections to your claim that a growing colony can be supported using solar alone.. or even an exploration mission. Show us an energy budget for your proposed mission and how you plan to supply that energy. I can get away with saying "use nuclear" and not providing numbers, because there are none, solar-only advocates don't have that luxury.

I agree, while initial missions can get away with solar only, continued growth and a shift to local food production will need nuclear support.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 07:25 am
Here's an all solar-electric exploration architecture attempt:

http://marssociety.org.au/sites/default/files/library/willson-et-al.pdf

Their rovers run on a carbon monoxide fuel cell.

Quote
Note that the rover, not discussed in this paper operate on oxygen and carbon monoxide propellant. We chose this compared to using methane/oxygen propellant suggested by others as the water from this process must be extracted. The water extraction would require the need for large radiators located on the rover which effectively limits the rover motor capacity. It is more practical for rover control to use an oxygen/carbon monoxide fuel cell although a combustion engine is also possible.

I know that sudy well.  What do you think?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 12:20 pm
Because a solar thermal system can be as simple as a mirror.. something it is a lot easier to imagine being created out of nothing than a photovoltaic cell.

Why would you create either from nothing?  You would bring it from Earth.

Context is important:

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solar is a pretty good choice. And has the best chance of being manufactured on Mars (next to, maybe, wind power, though that is not as attractive).

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/13/2012 12:25 pm
I know that sudy well.  What do you think?

I think it's basically an admission that even with a 130 ton to LEO launch vehicle, and LH2/LOX Mars transit injection stages sent up separate from cargo, you still can't get much done. I wonder if upgrading the Mars Transfer Vehicle to a cycler and planning for multiple missions would make it look better.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/13/2012 02:52 pm
I am not sure why there is some much opposition to the use of solar and batteries for martian surface power...

There's no opposition from me on the use of solar power in principle in that application.  I'm convinced that it will be absolutely necessary.  From me, the opposition comes from my sense that their illustrated scheme is underpowered.  Again, their panels are flat on the ground, and don't track the sun, for one thing.

Larson & Prank; $89 on Amazon, if anybody's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Spaceflight-Mission-Analysis-Technology/dp/007236811X

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Power per person per day = 24 kwh

Times 4 = 96 kWh, plus 24 kWH equals 120kWh per day, as you say.

Terrestrial family of four, with one math challenged member:

1000 kWh/month divided by 30; equals 33.33 kWh per day for four people, about four times less power per day than that martian family.  One fourth the power.

Our power usage includes a small bit of CLSS: it provides about a 20 degree F temperature differential between 0 and 90 degrees F.  Our power usage does not include our rovers (Volvos and Simplicity tractors in this case), repairs (for example, the ETM in the S60 as of today), food, the vast majority of CLSS, clothing for outdoor work, and a number of other things not listed herein.

There's a lot of properly amortized power required to provide all the things we need here on Earth; the electricity bill tells a fraction of the whole story.

Intuitively, I don't think 120kWh per day is enough.  Are you also asserting that there are no mistakes in your assumptions?  Later, you clarify that you haven't included food, ("If you want to grow food the situation gets ugly, as food production requires ~720 kwh per day of light per person.") but what else is not included in your "tentative" power budget?

I certainly believe that PV panels are feasible, but I do not believe that your assumptions are correct.

...you can reach Earth-like insolation through just using reflectors...

Yeah, in principle, but how many, and how massive are "just" the right number of reflectors?

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If you have a low roof...

... then you have a large flat area.  The reflecting mechanism will be constrained by the flatness of the greenhouse.

PV is not the only solution.  There's also CSP.  Massive, and many moving parts, true. Potentially reliable, also true.

Because a solar thermal system can be as simple as a mirror.. something it is a lot easier to imagine being created out of nothing than a photovoltaic cell.

Why would you create either from nothing?

Your literalitudininity may be keeping you from understanding.  If I may translate my understanding:  It is easier to consider building a mirror array from martian materials than it is to consider building a PV array.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: docmordrid on 06/13/2012 03:31 pm
Also consider that the Martian environment can sandblast the surface layers of either a PV or reflector based solar thermal.  OTOH a miniature self-regulating reactor design could be buried, providing both shielding and a large thermal mass for cooling. Such reactors are already in the pipeline for terrestrial use, though still much larger than what would be needed for a Mars outpost.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: truth is life on 06/13/2012 04:47 pm
Why is it considered necessary to specify construction of a nuclear reactor to power lights during dust storms instead of overscaling the greenhouses to produce a stored surplus, which may then be consumed during and immediately after dust storms? This seems to me to be rather lower-tech and therefore much more robust, given that a large number of people in the past did just that and survived fine. It also avoids the inevitable political and public opinion complications which attend nuclear power and takes advantage of the relatively sterile and cold conditions of Mars' surface, which should aid in food preservation and storage.

EDIT: By "did just that," I mean that many people in the past, eg. Scandinavians, have confronted issues, eg. winter, which prevented them from growing foods for long periods of time and which were not, at the time, amenable to solution by technological means. Therefore, they grew a surplus and stored it to survive during winter and before the next harvest. Similarly, the practice of storing food against famines, referred to in the Biblical story of Joseph.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 04:52 pm
Why is it considered necessary to specify construction of a nuclear reactor to power lights during dust storms instead of overscaling the greenhouses to produce a stored surplus, which may then be consumed during and immediately after dust storms? This seems to me to be rather lower-tech and therefore much more robust, given that a large number of people in the past did just that and survived fine. It also avoids the inevitable political and public opinion complications which attend nuclear power and takes advantage of the relatively sterile and cold conditions of Mars' surface, which should aid in food preservation and storage.
+1
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/13/2012 05:00 pm
Why is it considered necessary to specify construction of a nuclear reactor to power lights during dust storms instead of overscaling the greenhouses to produce a stored surplus, which may then be consumed during and immediately after dust storms?

I agree, but the nuclear option is the simplest concept, if the mass, politics, and time of construction can be solved.  Remember that the overscaling will have to be launched and assembled, calling into question the greenhouse size assumptions.  The extra greenhouse would be harder to install than the reactor, which theoretically could be set down and "plugged in".  What's the mass trade, putting aside politics for a moment?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 06/13/2012 05:49 pm
Why is it considered necessary to specify construction of a nuclear reactor to power lights during dust storms instead of overscaling the greenhouses to produce a stored surplus, which may then be consumed during and immediately after dust storms? This seems to me to be rather lower-tech and therefore much more robust, given that a large number of people in the past did just that and survived fine. It also avoids the inevitable political and public opinion complications which attend nuclear power and takes advantage of the relatively sterile and cold conditions of Mars' surface, which should aid in food preservation and storage.

Just to inject some thoughts here let me point out a VERY specific qualifier that seems to be getting forgotten in the discussion:

MARS not EARTH! This is important in that (as in the above example) while people on EARTH could manage this type of activity they had a HUGE amount of "free-infrastructure" and a relativly benign enviroment in which to do it. This is not going to be the case on Mars.

People anywhere on Earth have a pretty "easy" time over people anywhere on Mars in basic survival. And I think it needs to be addressed that the Mars One "base" set up is going to have to be capable of fully supporting the "crew" from day one with NO human "intervention" needed.

Once people get there and become accustomed to the enviroment and conditions then expansion can be undertaken to deepen and upgrade the depth of the bases ability to sustain and support humans. But the capability as well as the ability has to be in-place first because there is no way to ascertain in advance what condition(s) may be applicable to the crew when they first arrive.

As an example; base-lining that the crew will have to do certain tasks before the base if fit for habitation is dangerous in that a simple lander accident that leaves everyone alive but bruised and inujured would doom to the crew if they are for whatever reason unable to perform those required tasks.

The base is going to have to be "turn-key" (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnkey) in status before the crew arrives and allow for more than just basic survival while the crew works on and deploys more advance systems.

"Nuclear" versus "Solar" is not the argument as they will both have places but the INTIAL set up should be reversed from the current assumption:
RTG main and solar back up for the near future since the settlement is intially embarking on an expansion program rather than a simple arrive-and-survive mission. MORE power, not less is going to be required for a long time to come as facilities and capabilities are expanded.

My general concern is the lack of discussion on the various and sundry "pre-cursor" missions and capability suggested but not articulated on. Simply put this is focusing on the Human crew arrival and work but what is lacking and needs focusing on at the current stage is what and how your robotic pre-cursor and building capability is going to be, what its going to do and how its going to prepare the way for the first human visitors.

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EDIT: By "did just that," I mean that many people in the past, eg. Scandinavians, have confronted issues, eg. winter, which prevented them from growing foods for long periods of time and which were not, at the time, amenable to solution by technological means. Therefore, they grew a surplus and stored it to survive during winter and before the next harvest. Similarly, the practice of storing food against famines, referred to in the Biblical story of Joseph.
The "problem" with this is when they didn't manage to grow a "surplus"  for whatever reason, (and there were many) they died. The same situation applies to the Mars One crew and even more so since they arrive with no surplus and an activly hostile environment to boot.

Now if, as per a certain movie "The hydroponics will have been up and running for months before arrival" the situation changes drastically for the better...

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/13/2012 05:55 pm
We'll never colonize Mars if we wait until the base needs no human intervention for operation.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 06/13/2012 09:45 pm
We'll never colonize Mars if we wait until the base needs no human intervention for operation.
Didn't say OR mean that which I think you know :)

What I said was it has to be operational ON ITS OWN to a certain level prior to humans arriving. That means it can and has proven ability to support the humans while they do the stuff that humans are going to have to do to make it MORE than a base of operations.

Human "colonization" of space (anywhere in space) is going to be a lot more difficult than anywhere on Earth and that is a simple and basic fact of the universe. Before we can get to the point where we can apply Earth-analogies to places like Mars we have to first get the infrastructure to a point where humans there and humans here have all the SAME basic needs for survival. Mars is much more hostile to humans than anywhere on Earth we've "colonized" so it has futher to go to even begin to be in the ball-park for comparisions to Earth colonization.
Again this is a fact and not simple opinion of speculation.

It's not impossible and one could say it's not even that 'difficult' if you're willing to throw enough money, time, and effort at the basics to get them up to speed. But it is far, far from something that can be assumed or hand-waved away by "comparisions" to Earthly experiance.

One of the things that has always "bugged" me about Mars Direct is the amount of "hand-waving" and "dismisal" that Zubrin, (and many of the Mars-Firsters I've interacted with) do to a lot of the basic issues surrounding the concept. Don't get me wrong I think it's a GREAT basic concept, but that's pretty much ALL it is. It has always lacked "depth" and sustablity and the very arguments Zubrin (and others) use to support it have always pointed this out to me. Though obviously not to them :)

As someone noted basic MD is GREAT for a short-term, limited, Apollo style government "flags-and-footprints" type mission but it lacks the infrastructure and depth to be any type of "colonization" program and a lot of what I'm seeing with Mars One seems to come down along the same lines.

If humans are REQUIRED for simple base operations then we'll never really "colonize" Mars anyway because a HUGE amount of human effort will be 'wasted' in simply maintaining their ability to live on Mars instead of making a "living" on Mars. No human colonization effort on Earth has had to spend large amounts of time, energy, and effort on, for example, keeping the air breathable. It surrounds us and is a back-ground part of the environment. In space that is not true and in fact it is a high priority "item" that must be artifically produced and maintained or people parish.

That's a type of substinance living and for the most part people who are living in "substinance" living standards do NOT colonize voluntarily, nor expand greatly. Again this will be worse not easier in space as people will have to expend a good deal of energy and effort in order to simply maintain the basic ability to survive day to day let alone expand and build.

Again it's not impossible to do so if one has the excess energy and labor to put into the effort but it an much larger amount than would be needed under a similar situation on Earth.

And I've yet to see a good understanding of that situation from ANY of the folks who talk about colonization of space as if it's right around the corner.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 10:12 pm
I think it's basically an admission that even with a 130 ton to LEO launch vehicle, and LH2/LOX Mars transit injection stages sent up separate from cargo, you still can't get much done. I wonder if upgrading the Mars Transfer Vehicle to a cycler and planning for multiple missions would make it look better.

The study actually says the opposite.  With a pressurised vehicle, three unpressurised vehicles, and a tonne of science equipment they would get a great deal done.

More specifically relevant to this this discussion is they give a mass and power pudget using solar only power supply and very coinservative numbers.

I am not a fan of cyclers for early missions.  But that is another discussion.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 06/14/2012 12:18 am
Because a solar thermal system can be as simple as a mirror.. something it is a lot easier to imagine being created out of nothing than a photovoltaic cell.

Why would you create either from nothing?  You would bring it from Earth.
{snip}

The first solar power source will definitely be brought from Earth, the fifth could be made on Mars.

Stirling engines can convert sun light into motion and the motion can power a generator.  Stirling engines can be made from practically any metal including iron.  There are meteors on Mars, some of which are suspected of containing iron ore.

The best working gasses for Stirling Engines are hydrogen and helium but carbon dioxide will work at a lower efficiency.

The equipment to make the Stirling engines will have to be brought from Earth.  The mass of ISRU Stirling engine making equipment Vs. the mass of solar arrays to generate the same power can form a trade study.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/14/2012 04:16 pm
Quote from: Randy
One of the things that has always "bugged" me about Mars Direct is the amount of "hand-waving" and "dismissal" that Zubrin ... (and others) use ...

Unfortunately, Mars-One is doing the same thing at the moment.

Quote from: Randy
If humans are required for simple base operations then we'll never really "colonize" Mars anyway because a huge amount of human effort will be 'wasted' in simply maintaining their ability to live on Mars instead of making a "living" on Mars.

For the foreseeable future, making a "living" on Mars will be exactly as you describe; "maintaining their ability to live on Mars".  They will be doing exploration and science, which will pay some bills I imagine, but those activities would almost be spare time activities.  If there's two way travel, then tourists can help pay for some expenses too, and perhaps bring home first hand accounts as to the lifestyle being lived up there.  These accounts could encourage other wealthy individuals to finance one way excursions, perhaps even on an altruistic basis.  I could envision the possibility of the beginnings of a colonization effort.

Even if this should come to pass, combined with a huge terrestrial LV construction program, population pressures here on Earth are unlikely to be solved by sheer numbers of emigrants, for obvious reasons.  So a colonization effort would increase humanity's possibility of long term survival to some percentage, but the major reason for going, I think, would be: "Because it's there".

Handwaved away by most of these martian proponents.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/16/2012 11:46 pm

I am not sure why there is some much opposition to the use of solar and batteries for martian surface power...

There's no opposition from me on the use of solar power in principle in that application.  I'm convinced that it will be absolutely necessary.  From me, the opposition comes from my sense that their illustrated scheme is underpowered.  Again, their panels are flat on the ground, and don't track the sun, for one thing.

Flat panels are much easier to deploy and are lighter because they don’t need tracking and support.  They are obviously are less efficient in terms of power per area.  For simplicity you can get round it by using average daily irradiance, as I have done, to calculate areas.

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Larson & Prank; $89 on Amazon, if anybody's interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Spaceflight-Mission-Analysis-Technology/dp/007236811X

I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Quote
Quote
Power per person per day = 24 kwh

Times 4 = 96 kWh, plus 24 kWH equals 120kWh per day, as you say.

Terrestrial family of four, with one math challenged member:

1000 kWh/month divided by 30; equals 33.33 kWh per day for four people, about four times less power per day than that martian family.  One fourth the power.

Our power usage includes a small bit of CLSS: it provides about a 20 degree F temperature differential between 0 and 90 degrees F.  Our power usage does not include our rovers (Volvos and Simplicity tractors in this case), repairs (for example, the ETM in the S60 as of today), food, the vast majority of CLSS, clothing for outdoor work, and a number of other things not listed herein.

Remember that on a spacecraft power is used much more efficiently than in a house.

Quote
There's a lot of properly amortized power required to provide all the things we need here on Earth; the electricity bill tells a fraction of the whole story.

Intuitively, I don't think 120kWh per day is enough.  Are you also asserting that there are no mistakes in your assumptions?  Later, you clarify that you haven't included food, ("If you want to grow food the situation gets ugly, as food production requires ~720 kwh per day of light per person.") but what else is not included in your "tentative" power budget?

The numbers are from Larson and Pranke (copy not to hand at the moment unfortunately) but from memory cover full life support with high level of closure (90% water).  From experience Larson and Ranke’s numbers are conservative.

Of course operational power requirements will be on top of that.  Numbers for this I have crunched for other studies, but I was just looking at basic life support, since that is the minimum needed. The problem with including operations in a general discussion is that it depends on what you want to do, so the requirements vary accordingly.  For one study I did we had a daily power budget of 192 kwh for when the crew were on Mars, with resources stockpiled beforehand.

Manufactured items are imported and, in the case of the studies I have done, food.  So the energy costs are outside the system.

If you want to have a completely self-contained system on Mars then yes, you would need much larger numbers.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: PonynautTwilight on 06/17/2012 01:01 am
So...The astronauts will still land on Mars in the next 11 years or so?  ???
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/17/2012 05:00 am
So...The astronauts will still land on Mars in the next 11 years or so?  ???

Hi, PonynautTwilight.

A well meaning and possibly somewhat funded individual has managed to talk to a number of established aerospace and space engineering firms, and has put a bit of money into making a pretty CGI video with an attractive and intelligent British female voice over. He has also managed to make a Nobel Laureate a bit starry and misty eyed for some duration of time, and has captured that on camera along with some misty quotations, which have been carefully preserved in quotation marks as you'll see on the site. He has also garnered a dash of public face time on local channels, which gives a bit of legitimacy to the very tentative idea, a whisper, a gossamer thread, a very delicate thing, that public stock in space has gone up by one-quarter the width of a human hair, due in large part to the success of Space X's landing, despite the disappointing association caused by Newt Gingrich of space ambitions, or daring to exceed in needful challenges, with unwarranted excess and indulgence. So as true as he is to his word this guy's going to scale a bit of a knowledge hill.

In answer to your question, No, but keep that a secret for as long as you can. For as long as he can hold out, he is going to do the very difficult work of spearheading into the public consciousness the concept of a reality of what is only a science fiction under the present multicellular apex political species. So it is important right now to keep this guy talking and to work him for as long as he can work. The temperature of the conversation inside crucibles like here is conducted along various heat sinks or interfaces to the greater conversations in the public sphere. If you raise the awareness you raise the stock. Do you need more Lindsay Lohan news? I don't. This toothy Suit will go on his way eventually (that's the 15 minutes) but hopefully he will have left a synapse of recollection in some X millions of media consumers. That's the way of slow good things.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/17/2012 02:48 pm
A well meaning and possibly somewhat funded individual has managed ... to scale a bit of a knowledge hill.

Carefully edited to summarize some of my own purposes, of course.  But still, a stellar example of yet another graduate of my fictitious online school of sarcasm.

This is brilliant:

Quote
The temperature of the conversation inside crucibles like here is conducted along various heat sinks or interfaces to the greater conversations in the public sphere.

I know plenty about sarcasm and praise.

Remember that on a spacecraft power is used much more efficiently than in a house. ...

If you want to have a completely self-contained system on Mars then yes, you would need much larger numbers.

I haven't been discussing the cruise phase at all.  I'm only focusing on living on the planet surface at the moment.  That should be very clear.

Also clear is my intent to discuss a completely self contained system, part and parcel of the Mars-One proposal, mentioned in the OP, BTW.  Particularly crucial in a one-way trip scenario.

Moving to Larson & Pranke for a moment.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Power per person per day = 24 kwh

P.997:  L&P suggest just under 60kWh/day for a crew of six on Mars, assuming that they're eating "store bought" food.  The system they're modeling is not closed life support nor completely self contained.

To me, this seems low.  So I guess I'll read up some more.

Before I forget:

Quote from: me
Are you also asserting that there are no mistakes in your assumptions?

Quote from: you
The numbers are from Larson and Pranke

Nice dodge.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/17/2012 11:39 pm

Remember that on a spacecraft power is used much more efficiently than in a house. ...

If you want to have a completely self-contained system on Mars then yes, you would need much larger numbers.

I haven't been discussing the cruise phase at all.  I'm only focusing on living on the planet surface at the moment.  That should be very clear.

It should be clear that I have been talking about surface operations as well.  Not that basic life support requirements are actually significantly different in either case.

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Also clear is my intent to discuss a completely self contained system, part and parcel of the Mars-One proposal, mentioned in the OP, BTW.  Particularly crucial in a one-way trip scenario.

That is fine, is a calculation that needs to be done. I myself are more interested in early missions and Mars stations.  These are not mutually exclusive, early missions, whether one way or expeditions, will be very similar. Later missions will also be similar, with higher degrees of self sufficiency, and a gradual change from one to the other. 

What you need to define of course is the desired level of self sufficiency in all cases.  Even highly closed systems are not totally efficient, not even on a planetary scale.  There are always losses, so there will always need to be replenishment.  The advantage with being on Mars is that you can replenish from the local environment.  So for example 90% water recycling with an open O2 system is reasonable for an expedition.  Water recycling still makes sense, as waste water disposal on Mars is going to be tricky.

Quote
Moving to Larson & Pranke for a moment.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Power per person per day = 24 kwh

P.997:  L&P suggest just under 60kWh/day for a crew of six on Mars, assuming that they're eating "store bought" food.  The system they're modeling is not closed life support nor completely self contained.

To me, this seems low.  So I guess I'll read up some more.

It did to me at first too, but when you follow the numbers through it does work out, across checked against actual missions.  Note that the total power for past and present space stations is misleading as they must supply very power-hungry experiments such as smelting.  Actual life support power is much less.

Quote
Before I forget:
Quote from: me
Are you also asserting that there are no mistakes in your assumptions?

Quote from: you
The numbers are from Larson and Pranke

Nice dodge.

How is this a “dodge”?  It is the truth. I don’t have the book to hand, so I can’t double check. When I did this exercise six years ago with a colleague the numbers appear to work out.  According to my notes the information is from the chapter in Larson and Pranke by G.A Landis, B.I McKissock, and S.G Bailey, p 645 – p 648. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/18/2012 02:05 pm

Remember that on a spacecraft power is used much more efficiently than in a house. ...

If you want to have a completely self-contained system on Mars then yes, you would need much larger numbers.

I haven't been discussing the cruise phase at all.  I'm only focusing on living on the planet surface at the moment.  That should be very clear.

It should be clear that I have been talking about surface operations as well.  Not that basic life support requirements are actually significantly different in either case.

However, in that particular exchange, you were talking about "spacecraft power", which is only an issue during the cruise phase.  Perhaps you meant to say: "Remember that on a martian base, power is used much more efficiently than in a house."?

Quote
What you they need to define of course is the desired level of self sufficiency in all cases.

Fixed that for ya.  "They" meaning the Mars-One people.  I'm just reading and commenting, I'm not proposing.  Their ostensible goal is that the one way mission they send up there will be completely self sufficient over the natural lives of the colonists sent, which includes the thorny and difficut issue of geriatric care.  Their website asserts that they have considered all the attendant difficulties of realizing this mission, and offer the surprisingly low, low, price of $6B.  Six percent of the cost of the nearby ISS.  Were I to have suggested this, the humor index on this site would have undergone a huge spike upwards.

Me:Are you also asserting that there are no mistakes in your assumptions?

You: The numbers are from Larson and Pranke.

Me: Nice dodge.

You, all innocent like: "How is this a 'dodge'?  It is the truth."

Of course it is true that you're quoting your recollection of L&P.  The dodge, obviously, is that you have not answered the question.  You have accepted your recollection of L&P's numbers as your own.  Are these assumptions completely free of mistakes?

I suspect that the answer is "no".  Were I to describe a successful mission planner, I would say that she would answer questions directly, not insist upon scoring debate points.

If the answer is an unambiguous "yes", then the hard work is finished already, and we can use the data in L&P without further consideration or verification. 

Checking out p.645 of L&P for a moment, we find a lengthy discussion of how to figure power requirements, but it summarizes a Mars mission, and doesn't break it down completely.

Quote from: L&P, p.645
NASA's studies for a MArs mission project baseline power to be 30kW-50kW for transfer vehicles, 25kW-100kW for initial surface habitats (growing ot 160kW for resource processing), and 10kW for surface rovers.

Per table 18.4, on p.583, this would be for a six man crew.  For a first order estimate, OK, I guess.  I simply don't know enough to analyze this figure completely at this time.  I'd go with the larger numbers.  Note that they assume "store bought" food.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/19/2012 11:17 pm

Fixed that for ya.  "They" meaning the Mars-One people.  I'm just reading and commenting, I'm not proposing.  Their ostensible goal is that the one way mission they send up there will be completely self sufficient over the natural lives of the colonists sent, which includes the thorny and difficut issue of geriatric care.  Their website asserts that they have considered all the attendant difficulties of realizing this mission, and offer the surprisingly low, low, price of $6B.  Six percent of the cost of the nearby ISS.  Were I to have suggested this, the humor index on this site would have undergone a huge spike upwards.

No argument from me.  I have many issues with the Mars one idea, not least there isn’t enough detail to sensibly evaluate it.


Quote
You, all innocent like: "How is this a 'dodge'?  It is the truth."

Of course it is true that you're quoting your recollection of L&P.  The dodge, obviously, is that you have not answered the question.  You have accepted your recollection of L&P's numbers as your own.  Are these assumptions completely free of mistakes?

I suspect that the answer is "no".  Were I to describe a successful mission planner, I would say that she would answer questions directly, not insist upon scoring debate points. [/quote]

You are the one trying to score points here, not me. I don’t play games. I do not currently have a copy of Larson and Pranke to hand to cross check. I have given you the page numbers I got the numbers from, if you wish.  This is not dodging the issue, this is stating facts.

Quote
If the answer is an unambiguous "yes", then the hard work is finished already, and we can use the data in L&P without further consideration or verification. 

Checking out p.645 of L&P for a moment, we find a lengthy discussion of how to figure power requirements, but it summarizes a Mars mission, and doesn't break it down completely.

Quote from: L&P, p.645
NASA's studies for a MArs mission project baseline power to be 30kW-50kW for transfer vehicles, 25kW-100kW for initial surface habitats (growing ot 160kW for resource processing), and 10kW for surface rovers.

Per table 18.4, on p.583, this would be for a six man crew.  For a first order estimate, OK, I guess.  I simply don't know enough to analyze this figure completely at this time.  I'd go with the larger numbers.  Note that they assume "store bought" food.

Are these kw or kwh?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/19/2012 11:36 pm
Why is it considered necessary to specify construction of a nuclear reactor to power lights during dust storms instead of overscaling the greenhouses to produce a stored surplus, which may then be consumed during and immediately after dust storms? This seems to me to be rather lower-tech and therefore much more robust, given that a large number of people in the past did just that and survived fine. It also avoids the inevitable political and public opinion complications which attend nuclear power and takes advantage of the relatively sterile and cold conditions of Mars' surface, which should aid in food preservation and storage.

EDIT: By "did just that," I mean that many people in the past, eg. Scandinavians, have confronted issues, eg. winter, which prevented them from growing foods for long periods of time and which were not, at the time, amenable to solution by technological means. Therefore, they grew a surplus and stored it to survive during winter and before the next harvest. Similarly, the practice of storing food against famines, referred to in the Biblical story of Joseph.

Sorry for the slow response, I have been caught up with the Shenzhou mission.

This is a good question.  The issue for me is that, on Mars is that, unlike terrestrial winters, which are predictable, and unlike Joseph, who had advance notice, dust storms are not predictable enough to fit into a growing cycle.  If you were to rely purely on natural sunlight you could loose your crop at any time and then need to grow a new one.  Maybe on average you could produce enough storable food (and not all food is storable without extensive preservation to tide you over the storms, maybe not.  You would of course be restricted to crops with fast growth cycles.  No perennial crops for instance.

If you were replying on plant growths for water and oxygen recycling then I suspect that some kind of artificial light supplement on demand is essential.

The issue with nculerar power alos is, other than the management of the reactors, the fact that you need to important the fuel from Earth.  Useful uranium and thorium deposits are not likely on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/20/2012 06:23 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18506033
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/20/2012 02:12 pm
Quote from: JF
Are these assumptions completely free of mistakes?

Quote from: Dalhousie
I suspect that the answer is "no".

Yer so modest.  I'm less so.  L&P's assumptions are not completely free of mistakes.  The book, by acknowledgement from the authors is a primer, and not a substitute for mission analysis and design.  If I knew better than they, I'd have written the book before they did.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Are these kw or kwh?

I just checked again.  KW.

The assumptions on power requirements for a six person martian base, as reported in L&P, are dependent on verification, and are not discussed in extensive detail.

There is a conflict in the daily power requirements of a six person martian base, between  the numbers on page 645 and 997, as reported in L&P.  I don't know which is correct, and am working this problem from a lunar standpoint.

If anyone wants to score points with me, I'd certainly apprecieate independently verifiable facts or assumptions about power usage in these two contexts, Mars and Luna.

Quote from: Dalhousie
What you they need to define of course is the desired level of self sufficiency in all cases. 

I keep having to fix this for ya.

They have stated quite clearly that their goal is for the one way manned Mars mission to be completely self sufficient, while seeming to acknowledge that resupply from Earth will be crucial for the survival of the colony/base, possibly for natural lifetimes of the original crew members.

Quote from: that BBC article just posted
"If you look at the team involved in Mars One, none of us would do this as a hoax," says Mr Lansdorp.

I'm certain that they are not a hoax and I am certain that the mission so far desribed would fail.

Quote from: that BBC article
We're chatting over glasses of steaming mint tea at a road side cafe in The Hague.

Helpful background information.  I find myself believing that the mission as described is more likely now to succeed!  As they say in Burn Before (or was it After?) Reading, "tea can do many things darling, but it can't bring back the dead".

Quote from: Chris Welch
However, at the moment, the focus appears to be more on the monetisation [British for monetization (ahem)] of the concept in an expectation that the income will assure the solution of the problems by others.

Which is what everyone's trying to do.  No blame.

Quote from: the same talking head
Even ignoring the potential mismatch between the project income and its costs and questions about its longer-term viability, the Mars One proposal does not demonstrate a sufficiently deep understanding of the problems to give real confidence that the project would be able to meet its very ambitious schedule.

Don't believe me, believe him!  [Points thumb over shoulder.]

Quote from: back to the BBC
They have already lined up the potential suppliers ...

So have I, incidentally.  Ask for a proposal; get a proposal.  How am I going to pay these guys?  It's a mystery.  But enough about me...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: truth is life on 06/20/2012 09:37 pm
This is a good question.  The issue for me is that, on Mars is that, unlike terrestrial winters, which are predictable, and unlike Joseph, who had advance notice, dust storms are not predictable enough to fit into a growing cycle.  If you were to rely purely on natural sunlight you could loose your crop at any time and then need to grow a new one.  Maybe on average you could produce enough storable food (and not all food is storable without extensive preservation) to tide you over the storms, maybe not.  You would of course be restricted to crops with fast growth cycles.  No perennial crops for instance.

I suspect that you could produce enough storable foods based on the observed high productivity of farms in Western nations. Although those do depend on extensive material and non-material inputs, any Martian farm would be quite intensive and probably have high per-acre outputs...maybe enough to match, say, the US on a per-capita productivity level, especially if optimized foods are chosen. Mars could be a foodie's paradise--everything is local and seasonal, after all ;)

(How many commercially important perennial crops are there, BTW? I know that at least some very important crops, like rice and wheat, are annuals, by and large)

Could be the basis for an interesting trade study, although I suspect any actual colonization is far enough away that it would be entirely pointless except as a mental exercise. After all, some people have semi-seriously proposed that we could all be robots by the time any of this could possibly be relevant, which would make "life-support" entirely pointless, no?

If you were replying on plant growths for water and oxygen recycling then I suspect that some kind of artificial light supplement on demand is essential.

Well, yes, stockpiling a year or two's worth of food won't do you much good if you all suffocate from CO2 buildup or dehydrate (is there some relatively short, convenient term for that like "starve", anyone?) to death because your air/water filtration system died. And physical-chemical means might take enough extra power that you would be better off having a nuclear plant in the first place...hm...

The issue with nculerar power alos is, other than the management of the reactors, the fact that you need to important the fuel from Earth.  Useful uranium and thorium deposits are not likely on Mars.

And why is that, I wonder (genuine question: don't know much about Martian geology)? I wonder how incorporating the need to import fuel and spares might impact the relative masses for nuclear and solar systems.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/20/2012 11:31 pm
I suspect that you could produce enough storable foods based on the observed high productivity of farms in Western nations. Although those do depend on extensive material and non-material inputs, any Martian farm would be quite intensive and probably have high per-acre outputs...maybe enough to match, say, the US on a per-capita productivity level, especially if optimized foods are chosen. Mars could be a foodie's paradise--everything is local and seasonal, after all ;)

(How many commercially important perennial crops are there, BTW? I know that at least some very important crops, like rice and wheat, are annuals, by and large)

Most fruits and nuts, and bamboo spring to mind, although bamboo can be harvested at almost any stage.  They are not essential, but are useful for dietary diversity and bamboo is a useful raw material.

Quote
Could be the basis for an interesting trade study, although I suspect any actual colonization is far enough away that it would be entirely pointless except as a mental exercise. After all, some people have semi-seriously proposed that we could all be robots by the time any of this could possibly be relevant, which would make "life-support" entirely pointless, no?

Certainly would make an interesting trade study.  I don't know enough about horticulture to do it though!

Quote
The issue with nculerar power alos is, other than the management of the reactors, the fact that you need to important the fuel from Earth.  Useful uranium and thorium deposits are not likely on Mars.

And why is that, I wonder (genuine question: don't know much about Martian geology)? I wonder how incorporating the need to import fuel and spares might impact the relative masses for nuclear and solar systems.

Uranium (and thorium) are what are called lithophile elements, they are concentrated in highly fractionated rocks like granite.  The martian crust is generally poorly fractionated (mostly basaltic as far as we know) and has very little granite (a few highly differeniated plugs asscoaietd with the older eroded vlocanoes and probably equivalent to terrestrial hawaiites or icelandites).  The probability of uranium and thorium deposits is therefore low.  You can always invoke unknown processes operating on Mars, but that is special pleading and should not be relied upon.

Hope this helps!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: docmordrid on 06/21/2012 12:10 am
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1981Geokh.......10B (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mars+%2B+uranium&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fadsabs.harvard.edu%2Fabs%2F1981Geokh.......10B&ei=JmXiT9_vNeXa2wXa8YnrCw&usg=AFQjCNHzSY5L0PxG0-BA_LLdWWtku95EBw)

Quote
....In the first case, it is found that the thorium and uranium  contents of the volcanic Martian rocks (5 + or - 2.5 and 1.1 + or - 0.8 ppm,  respectively) are similar to those of many typical terrestrial and lunar basalts...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/21/2012 01:09 am
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1981Geokh.......10B (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mars+%2B+uranium&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fadsabs.harvard.edu%2Fabs%2F1981Geokh.......10B&ei=JmXiT9_vNeXa2wXa8YnrCw&usg=AFQjCNHzSY5L0PxG0-BA_LLdWWtku95EBw)

Quote
....In the first case, it is found that the thorium and uranium  contents of the volcanic Martian rocks (5 + or - 2.5 and 1.1 + or - 0.8 ppm,  respectively) are similar to those of many typical terrestrial and lunar basalts...

Which illustrates my point.  Basaltic rocks generally not highly fractionated (with a few exceptions).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Crispy on 06/26/2012 04:22 pm
Slashdot are doing a Q&A with the company's founder, Bas Lansdorp:

http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/12/06/26/140241/ask-bas-lansdorp-about-going-to-mars-one-way

One question per post. The ones with the most upvotes gets passed on and he'll reply in a few days.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Atlan on 06/26/2012 04:30 pm
I dont quite understand why it has to be Mars. If they were doing the same thing on the Moon...i would say that more people, including me, would see this project as realistic. And it still would be challenging and interesting.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/26/2012 05:14 pm
I dont quite understand why it has to be Mars. If they were doing the same thing on the Moon...i would say that more people, including me, would see this project as realistic. And it still would be challenging and interesting.
The Moon has its own challenges, like much greater temperature swings, micrometeorites pelting every exposed surface, more abrasive dust, longer nights, more difficult to access volatiles (Mars has an atmosphere that provides most of what you'd need, with easy access on much of the Martian surface to buried ice). Also, the risk of acute radiation from solar particle events is higher, as is the overall radiation level (because of lack of atmosphere). Plus, the totally unshielded vacuum UV light from the sun limits what you can use for materials. Also, we know Mars has tons of essentially pre-refined iron-nickel alloy easily within walking distance from any point. And lots of salts and even some clay-like deposits.

I love the Moon, and if you think Mars is the wrong place for such an effort, go ahead and start an effort to do this on the Moon!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/27/2012 02:04 pm
I dont quite understand why it has to be Mars. If they were doing the same thing on the Moon...i would say that more people, including me, would see this project as realistic. And it still would be challenging and interesting.

It's easy to understand why it has to be Mars.  That's where they want to go!  But I agree, a lunar expedition would be far more realistic, and more quickly implemented.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/10/2012 03:37 am
Their looking to start selecting crew in 2013.
What age group are they looking at?
If they are to start landing crew in 2023 and it is a colony they will have to be young enough to have kids. I would assume they would be in their mid 20's in the year 2023.

How many people are qualified.
They would need to be trained in multiple educations and experiences.

They will need to be couples and in order to increase the population be willing to have four kids per couple.

I would assume they would want someone graduating high school in around 2016 to be the right age and have time to get the right education and training needed.

I wounder how many companies and organizations would sponsor such candidates?  To put them through college and the other training needed. They sponsor for the olympics so why not for a possible Mars colony?

Mars One wants to send a crew of four every two years. I believe they should send two crafts with four crew each at the same time. If one craft had a problem then the crew could transfer to the other. That would be one way to reducing the in flight risks. Also starting off with eight crew instead of four would increase their working knowledge that will be needed once on Mars, as well as increasing the population on Mars much faster than 4 at a time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/10/2012 02:01 pm
Quote from: RocketMan
I would assume they would want someone graduating high school in around 2016 to be the right age and have time to get the right education and training needed.

Interesting speculation, forward looking in a way, as I would look.  There's always a but, of course:

Should these candidates be 18 when they graduate from hi school in 2016, they'll be 15 when they are selected in 2013.  Rather than express "wonder" at their corporate sponsors, I would wonder about parental consent, as well as the informed consent of the child candidates themselves.

I remember a sci-fi story where kids were selected to play a "war game" against "simulated" insectoid hive minded alien invaders.  They were selected because of their lightning reflexes and ability to concentrate.  Turned out it wasn't a game, but rather a real alien invasion.  In that story, they selected children; somehow like they select Jedi knights, I suppose.  In real life, the Dalai Lama is selected as a child.  So there's some sort of precedence for selecting children at an early age.

I'd not suppose that Mars-one would be doing this.

People can reliably reproduce at the age of 40; even more reliably at the age of 30.  Again, there's NSoV in general, but there would be a shortage of trained, skilled, properly qualified volunteers; a prerequisite for the effort by Mars-One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/10/2012 05:31 pm
Selected candidates would need to be at least 18 years of age before signing and agreement. Anyone under that age would need parent(s) or legal guardian to sign them up as a possible candidate. Until they are a 18 or older they would just be getting a college scholarship.

I'm looking at least 100 males and 100 females to be selected in the U.S.
By 2022 the year the first crew will possible depart for Mars there will most likely only be 10 males and 10 female candidates left after the education and training. It will not be an easy task to complete. Just like the olympics only a few sponsored people qualify for the games. So for the sponsor a person they realize the candidate might not get to go to Mars. If all works out and added funding is found then more of the candidates could possible go.   

If later this decade all seems to be going good for the Mars One team then countries might want to spend money on a crew a four ( for the base for a crew of four and the craft needed to get there along with added needed supply missions ). That would mean they would by the hardware and launch services. So if five countries or space agencies would go along with this each with a crew of four that would bring the total to twenty for 2023 to start with. Countries and or organizations would not need to start funding around 2018.

Edited last sentence. Changed they to Countries and or organizations. And deleted the word until.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/11/2012 06:37 pm
Selected candidates would need to be at least 18 years of age before signing and agreement.

So what you meant to say here was...

I would assume they would want someone graduating high school in around 2016 2013 ...

Quote
I'm looking at least 100 males and 100 females to be selected in the U.S.

Ya gotta start a speculation with some number somewhere.  So fine; 100 each gender it can be, for purposes of discussion.  They may be actively marketing their selection idea in the US hi-schools already, but I doubt it, since this would be an incredibly newsworthy factoid, sure to be publicized.  And it isn't.

To blithely think that an 18 year old would commit to such a speculative venture as early as next year, would be a total mistake.  But to even seriously think that 200, 18 year olds could be found to start this exhaustive selection process is a pretty extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof.

True, 18 year olds regularly sign up for active military duty, full of danger, knowing that a coffin might be in their near future, but that analogy wouldn't pertain, since those volunteers will not need the smarts and training that the Mars-One volunteers would need.

Even with this caveat, and widening the search to the entire globe, I imagine that there could be found 200 volunteers, perhaps whittled down to 20.  However, your post doesn't present a convincing case that this could be done, and Mars-One is silent on the issue.

I didn't check the Mars-One website today.  Are the  addresses of the training centers already posted?  The qualification?  The training dates?

Quote
They would not need to start funding until around 2018.

Unfortunately, this is almost a nonsensical statement.  They (Mars-One) are looking for funding now. Clarification?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/11/2012 07:04 pm
Selected candidates would need to be at least 18 years of age before signing and agreement.

So what you meant to say here was...

I would assume they would want someone graduating high school in around 2016 2013 ...

Quote
I'm looking at least 100 males and 100 females to be selected in the U.S.

Ya gotta start a speculation with some number somewhere.  So fine; 100 each gender it can be, for purposes of discussion.  They may be actively marketing their selection idea in the US hi-schools already, but I doubt it, since this would be an incredibly newsworthy factoid, sure to be publicized.  And it isn't.

To blithely think that an 18 year old would commit to such a speculative venture as early as next year, would be a total mistake.  But to even seriously think that 200, 18 year olds could be found to start this exhaustive selection process is a pretty extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof.

True, 18 year olds regularly sign up for active military duty, full of danger, knowing that a coffin might be in their near future, but that analogy wouldn't pertain, since those volunteers will not need the smarts and training that the Mars-One volunteers would need.

Even with this caveat, and widening the search to the entire globe, I imagine that there could be found 200 volunteers, perhaps whittled down to 20.  However, your post doesn't present a convincing case that this could be done, and Mars-One is silent on the issue.

I didn't check the Mars-One website today.  Are the  addresses of the training centers already posted?  The qualification?  The training dates?

Quote
They would not need to start funding until around 2018.

Unfortunately, this is almost a nonsensical statement.  They (Mars-One) are looking for funding now. Clarification?
First I've been thinks over Mars One's idea. And I've looked at what I believe needs to be for the crew selection. I do not know were Mars One will be looking for there first crew members or how they plan on funding them. Trying to find people already trained will not be easy.

In order to have young crew in 2022 launch time we would need to select crew in 2016, not before if they are to be 18 years old. That way they can sign a contract.

How many babies are born each year in the U.S.? So what percentage is 200 out of that. So I see no problem in finding 200 candidate at age 18 in the U.S.

Keep in mind part of the selection process would need to include finding out if this is really what that person wants to do and is it right for them. It will not be an easy process.

If they do select high school seniors or college students at least they would end up with a good education. For most of the let's say 200 candidates will wash out before 2022. They would still get there college education. Many factors can wash out a candidate.

My last sentence I miss wrote and redid it. It is for Countries and or organizations when they would need to start to fund for a base, transportation, ect. That is if they send crew also.

Mars has been a goal for a long time for many. It is past time now to start planning and funding such a project in full and not play around with it and more.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/12/2012 01:45 pm
Quote
How many babies are born each year in the U.S.? So what percentage is 200 out of that. So I see no problem in finding 200 candidate at age 18 in the U.S.

The percentage of 200 live births over the total live births in the US has no relationship whatsoever with any qualifications of those babies.

This is a nonsensical statement.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/12/2012 05:08 pm
Any info on the modified Dragon, size , mass, new openings, ect.?

Any info on the EDS and trans hab?

Do they have any plans on how to use ISRU for making more habitats, buildings?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/16/2012 11:06 pm
I wonder how many people would start to donate in the year 2014
$10
$25
$50
$100
$500
$1,000
or more to this project if they meet there goal throw 2013?

Looks like people did some donating here.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space

And people do donate to other things too.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/17/2012 01:38 pm
I wonder how many people would start to donate in the year 2014
$10
$25
$50
$100
$500
$1,000
or more to this project if they meet there goal throw 2013?

Looks like people did some donating here.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space

And people do donate to other things too.

My bold.

I just need to ask you to tighten up on your logic.  You're getting dangerously close to the 6BF argument:  Eat poop.  6 Billyun Flies can't be wrong!

With the generally accepted estimate that ISS cost $100B, the Mars-One group, with a straight face, announces that they can actually set up a complete life support system for four people on Mars for the bargain basement price of $6B.

Sure, ISS probably cost more than it should have because of US political shenanigans.  And it could, in theory, have cost less if we continued to build upon Skylab, instead of ditching all that equipment, and starting from scratch.  And yes, as a small prototype model, it would cost more per cubic foot than a large production model.

Sure, ISS could have cost somewhat less.  With hindsight, and the benefit of learned experience, an argument could be made that ISS could have cost $60B.  It's a couple hundred miles away.  My intuition fails to accept that the first martian outpost could be built for a tenth of that.

So, the $6B pricetag for the Mars-One effort doesn't sound credible in the least, and suggests, to me, the 6BF argument, by this route:

Say that Mars-One could in fact work with a $600B budget.  How? Two possibilities.  Bernanke takes a quant, and out comes $600B, less than either the Bush or Obama bailouts.  Money can be printed, political insiders willing.  An alternate funding source could be donation.  If 6B of the world's people donate $100, there ya go.  Or if 600M donate "only" $1000, there ya go.

Since Mars-One can make up figures, so can I.  Say that they could make it work with only $60B.  Then the 600M only need donate $100 each.  Drop the pricetag to their imaginary number.  Then the 600M only need donate $10!  And 6B people only need donate a buck!

Six billyun people can't be wrong!

Uhhhh... What 6 billyun people?

I sound harsh, but, just because "people do donate to other things", the observation offers no predictive value whatsoever to the strategy of crowd sourcing, particularly with a massive project of this sort, incompletely understood, unrealistically presented, and incorrectly priced.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 07/17/2012 02:42 pm
Average age of a Nasa astronaut going to LEO for ~6 months is 34. I think you'd have to scale that age up substantially and commensurately for permanent Mars surface.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/17/2012 05:32 pm
I wonder how many people would start to donate in the year 2014
$10
$25
$50
$100
$500
$1,000
or more to this project if they meet there goal throw 2013?

Looks like people did some donating here.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space

And people do donate to other things too.

My bold.

I just need to ask you to tighten up on your logic.  You're getting dangerously close to the 6BF argument:  Eat poop.  6 Billyun Flies can't be wrong!

With the generally accepted estimate that ISS cost $100B, the Mars-One group, with a straight face, announces that they can actually set up a complete life support system for four people on Mars for the bargain basement price of $6B.

Sure, ISS probably cost more than it should have because of US political shenanigans.  And it could, in theory, have cost less if we continued to build upon Skylab, instead of ditching all that equipment, and starting from scratch.  And yes, as a small prototype model, it would cost more per cubic foot than a large production model.

Sure, ISS could have cost somewhat less.  With hindsight, and the benefit of learned experience, an argument could be made that ISS could have cost $60B.  It's a couple hundred miles away.  My intuition fails to accept that the first martian outpost could be built for a tenth of that.

So, the $6B pricetag for the Mars-One effort doesn't sound credible in the least, and suggests, to me, the 6BF argument, by this route:

Say that Mars-One could in fact work with a $600B budget.  How? Two possibilities.  Bernanke takes a quant, and out comes $600B, less than either the Bush or Obama bailouts.  Money can be printed, political insiders willing.  An alternate funding source could be donation.  If 6B of the world's people donate $100, there ya go.  Or if 600M donate "only" $1000, there ya go.

Since Mars-One can make up figures, so can I.  Say that they could make it work with only $60B.  Then the 600M only need donate $100 each.  Drop the pricetag to their imaginary number.  Then the 600M only need donate $10!  And 6B people only need donate a buck!

Six billyun people can't be wrong!

Uhhhh... What 6 billyun people?

I sound harsh, but, just because "people do donate to other things", the observation offers no predictive value whatsoever to the strategy of crowd sourcing, particularly with a massive project of this sort, incompletely understood, unrealistically presented, and incorrectly priced.
Their price tag of $6B might be in today's dollars not in 2023 for total amount that might be spent up to then. The $100B for ISS was up to what date and when did funding start ( for reference ).

How many elements have to be sent to Mars and how many test units will they need here on Earth? Plus crew training and other expenses.

In today's dollars
FH about $128M per launch
F9 $54M
Crewed Dragon estimates $140M

I will say it would most likely cost more than $6B in today's dollars, more like $12B. A lot of the development was or is being funded for other projects. They will need to build test and launch their hardware not design all of it.

And my question was I wounder how many people would donate a given amount of money. My question was not about how much the project will cost or is it feasible.

So how many people are out there that are interested in sending people to Mars for a colony and have money to donate?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/17/2012 06:22 pm
And my question was I wounder how many people would donate a given amount of money. My question was not about how much the project will cost or is it feasible.

Color me confused, as usual.  For a guy who's not all that concerned about costs, you're presenting a lot of dollar figures.  Low figures, I might add.  If we have a period of severe deflation, where wages drop in real dollars by an order of magnitude or so, then maybe a $6-$12B number could be feasible.  Idk.

However, if you're interested mostly in the statistic of how many people would donate to their effort, I can certainly understand that interest.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/17/2012 06:34 pm
And my question was I wounder how many people would donate a given amount of money. My question was not about how much the project will cost or is it feasible.

Color me confused, as usual.  For a guy who's not all that concerned about costs, you're presenting a lot of dollar figures.  Low figures, I might add.  If we have a period of severe deflation, where wages drop in real dollars by an order of magnitude or so, then maybe a $6-$12B number could be feasible.  Idk.

However, if you're interested mostly in the statistic of how many people would donate to their effort, I can certainly understand that interest.


If things do progress for Mars one we should see a better price tag by the end if 2014. And yes I am concerned about cost, It's just one part of the whole plan. They hardware and safety concern me more than the cost.

A good part of what is needed is being developed for LEO and or here on Earth ( advanced green houses for example and the F9/FH for LEO,GTO ).

Keep in mind that a person could donate $10 a year over many years for example. The Mars One team does not need all the money up front.

And you could look into a private venture for the moon ( with or without EML2 ).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/17/2012 08:27 pm
True that I overlooked the possibility that people could donate more than once.

Since Mars-One can make up figures, so can I.  Say that they could make it work with only $60B.  Then the 600M only need donate $100 each. 

Or choose a different possible statistic: 60M people could donate $100/year for ten years each.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/17/2012 09:15 pm
True that I overlooked the possibility that people could donate more than once.

Since Mars-One can make up figures, so can I.  Say that they could make it work with only $60B.  Then the 600M only need donate $100 each. 

Or choose a different possible statistic: 60M people could donate $100/year for ten years each.
Let's just say $60B is needed though 2025 ( before second crew is sent ).
60M people on average they donate $100 for ten years. That is around 20% of the U.S. population. Now if we go global there are a lot of rich people around the would. So it is plausible to get the needed funds.

They will need credibility, web site showing how much has been raised , what that months goal is, and a bank for deposits. The bank could show how much has been received and how much has been spent.

Personally I don't think they will need that much funding, more like $30B max up to 2025.

I see the biggest problem will be the ISRU for the long term needs and larger growth with less and less dependance on Earth resupplies. New hab , replacement parts for life support, ect.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/17/2012 10:14 pm
$60 billion is easy to raise. Just invest $100 at 7% interest (average) and wait 300 years. ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: vulture4 on 07/18/2012 12:48 am
How many actual dollars have any of you raised in donations or grants? I've worked on a critical medical research project that could save many lives. We actually raised about $200K from a local philanthropy.  We approached numerous wealthy people and some loved to be entertained, but in the end made excuses. We hald a bake sale and benefit run that brought in $60, not $60M.

In the end we only got meaningful funding from federal and state grants and the local foundation, and I could have made almost as much working for the same amount of time. I've been a space advocate since the 60's. People with money do not give it away, they use it to lobby Congress. I do not believe we are going to get enough donations to send a few people to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/18/2012 12:55 am
How many actual dollars have any of you raised in donations or grants? I've worked on a critical medical research project that could save many lives. We actually raised about $200K from a local philanthropy.  We approached numerous wealthy people and some loved to be entertained, but in the end made excuses. We hald a bake sale and benefit run that brought in $60, not $60M.

In the end we only got meaningful funding from federal and state grants and the local foundation, and I could have made almost as much working for the same amount of time. I've been a space advocate since the 60's. People with money do not give it away, they use it to lobby Congress. I do not believe we are going to get enough donations to send a few people to Mars.
Good post.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 02:30 am
How many actual dollars have any of you raised in donations or grants? I've worked on a critical medical research project that could save many lives. We actually raised about $200K from a local philanthropy.  We approached numerous wealthy people and some loved to be entertained, but in the end made excuses. We hald a bake sale and benefit run that brought in $60, not $60M.

In the end we only got meaningful funding from federal and state grants and the local foundation, and I could have made almost as much working for the same amount of time. I've been a space advocate since the 60's. People with money do not give it away, they use it to lobby Congress. I do not believe we are going to get enough donations to send a few people to Mars.
Good post.
It's in the sales pitch and to who you are asking.
They would not be giving away money, they are investing it. They need a return on their investment. Some space societies send out news letters or magazines to their members.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 07/18/2012 02:45 am
I think a fair point of reference for what one can expect in the way of fundraising efforts would be the original X-prize. Originally, it was expected that the entire $10 million prize would be raised through donations. However, the effort stalled around the $5 million level. The prize had to be restructured with an insurance company "betting" that no one would win the prize by the end of 2004.

Another point of reference would be the annual Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon which in over 40 years has managed to raise $2.45 billion.

The notion of a manned Mars mission of any description funded by donations seems impossibly naive.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/18/2012 02:56 am
Another point of reference would be the annual Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon which in over 40 years has managed to raise $2.45 billion.

The notion of a manned Mars mission of any description funded by donations seems impossibly naive.

While I agree with you, that particular fact you cited seems to disagree with us. In a few years, a billion will be more than enough.

In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 04:02 am
Another point of reference would be the annual Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon which in over 40 years has managed to raise $2.45 billion.

The notion of a manned Mars mission of any description funded by donations seems impossibly naive.

While I agree with you, that particular fact you cited seems to disagree with us. In a few years, a billion will be more than enough.

In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.

Your last line, what do you mean?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/18/2012 04:32 am
In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.
Your last line, what do you mean?

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

It doesn't just apply to government space efforts.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 05:10 am
In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.
Your last line, what do you mean?

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

It doesn't just apply to government space efforts.


Are you thinking that they are not serious and or will be unable to send crew to Mars 2023 or 2025 time frame?
From tech point of view ?
From financing point of view?
Do you think they are just trying for a tv show?

There definitely has been to much talk over the years to send the first crew to Mars. Were do you think we should start?

If Mars One is to send crew in 2023 then they definitely have a long way to go.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/18/2012 05:32 am
Are you thinking that they are not serious and or will be unable to send crew to Mars 2023 or 2025 time frame?

I think it is kindest to say they're not serious.

Quote
From tech point of view ?

Yes.

Quote
From financing point of view?

Yes.

Quote
Do you think they are just trying for a tv show?

No idea.

Quote
There definitely has been to much talk over the years to send the first crew to Mars. Were do you think we should start?

Raise the funding and land something, anything, successfully on Mars.. or even do an orbiter.. and you might have a shot of getting people to take you seriously. Fly humans around the Moon or better yet, land them, and you'll really get somewhere.

Quote
If Mars One is to send crew in 2023 then they definitely have a long way to go.

Understatement of the thread.

Now imagine you're The Mars Society and you're trying to get the next round of funding for MDRS or Flashline.. despite years of efforts, they are no doubt being compared to Mars One right now. There's probably more than one sponsor asking why they don't do a reality tv show to raise funding.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: majormajor42 on 07/18/2012 05:36 am
In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.
Your last line, what do you mean?

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

It doesn't just apply to government space efforts.


There definitely has been to much talk over the years to send the first crew to Mars. Were do you think we should start?

Start with Elon Musk. He just said in an interview that he thinks he has a viable Mars plan. I'm willing to wait and see what the Falcon Dragon Mars plan is from the guy who's building and launching the Falcons and the Dragons (if that is what he wants to use to get there). It is far more credible than these folks, or Zubrin, who come along and say they have a plan.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 06:16 am
Raise the funding and land something, anything, successfully on Mars.. or even do an orbiter.. and you might have a shot of getting people to take you seriously. Fly humans around the Moon or better yet, land them, and you'll really get somewhere.
Crew to land on the moon, I'll go for that. Sooner the better. Just after cargo.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 06:21 am
In any case, an endless stream of Mars One style "non-serious" efforts is not going to help anyone.
Your last line, what do you mean?

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

It doesn't just apply to government space efforts.


There definitely has been to much talk over the years to send the first crew to Mars. Were do you think we should start?

Start with Elon Musk. He just said in an interview that he thinks he has a viable Mars plan. I'm willing to wait and see what the Falcon Dragon Mars plan is from the guy who's building and launching the Falcons and the Dragons (if that is what he wants to use to get there). It is far more credible than these folks, or Zubrin, who come along and say they have a plan.
Do you have a link to that interview for us, I would like to see it.
I'm looking forward to seeing Red Dragon, however would like to see a better cargo lander ( greater useable landed mass ).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/18/2012 01:38 pm
How many actual dollars have any of you raised in donations or grants?

BTDT with school fairs, bake sales, etc.  Point well made.

In a few years, a billion will be more than enough.

To get to Mars?  I guess it depends on what the word "few" means. 

The Mars-One effort and the StratoLaunch effort seem misguided to me.  These guys act as if they're "serious" about their efforts, and they have collected some recognized names who confirm their "seriousness".  They have also bandied about three comma dollar numbers in an effort to persuade the innumerate of their "seriousity", I suppose.

As it turns out, their proposals and this thread share the medium of the internets, where reality is intended to be shaped by the poster.  Since Mars-One intends that money be transferred to their effort, they shape the medium with their presentation of martian colonization.  In my "little" world, I'm thinking that they really want to succeed, and that they would consider suggestions to make their proposal more likely to succeed.  Several of my earlier posts here attest to that.

But I could be wrong.

I don't know if RocketManUS is a part of the Mars-One effort, but I don't see any predictive value in the statistics he mentions. 

Way up the thread, an avatar claimed to be a part of the Mars-One team, and tentatively suggested that he would answer questions and address technical objections.  Unfortunately, he has chosen not to bother with that followup.  Obviously, they feel that they can control the success of their effort by controlling the conversation, and have limited their remarks to their own website.  Their proposal doesn't need to be peer reviewed; this forum is also seen as yet another internets blog, not worthy of their consideration.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 07/18/2012 04:48 pm
While I agree with you, that particular fact you cited seems to disagree with us.

I'm not following. Who is "us" in this context?

Quote
In a few years, a billion will be more than enough.

Seriously? What do you expect to happen within a few years to bring that about?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/18/2012 05:25 pm
I don't know if RocketManUS is a part of the Mars-One effort, but I don't see any predictive value in the statistics he mentions. 
No not part of the effort.
Trying to see if all or part of their concept can work.
If so how can it and for how much.
Also trying to add in the ability to have crew return if needed.
Would need an ascender and return trans hab with TEI stage and return capsule.

What we do need is the ability to land a SEV on Mars, inflatable habs, that is up to 15,000lb usable with a given volume and be able to remove it from the lander without to much effort.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/18/2012 11:18 pm
While I agree with you, that particular fact you cited seems to disagree with us.

I'm not following. Who is "us" in this context?

You and me. If you can raise $2.3B for a disease, you should be able to raise something similar for a Mars mission.. you just have to do it right.

Quote
Quote
In a few years, a billion will be more than enough.

Seriously? What do you expect to happen within a few years to bring that about?

Falcon Heavy, reusable Falcon 9, multiple commercial crew suppliers, multiple EVA spacesuit suppliers, possibly multiple lunar lander suppliers and some private space expedition precedent including a large number of flown suborbital customers with means looking for their next adventure. The industry is changing that quickly.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 07/19/2012 12:01 am
If you can raise $2.3B for a disease, you should be able to raise something similar for a Mars mission.. you just have to do it right.

I don't think that follows. Virtually everyone has a strong, emotional reaction to people suffering from a disease especially if they are children. Very few people have the same depth of feeling for a Mars mission. Those that do really have a hard time grasping that.

Quote
Falcon Heavy, reusable Falcon 9, multiple commercial crew suppliers, multiple EVA spacesuit suppliers, possibly multiple lunar lander suppliers and some private space expedition precedent including a large number of flown suborbital customers with means looking for their next adventure. The industry is changing that quickly.

This reminds me of the (unfortunately unjustified) enthusiasm that followed the winning of the X-prize. I think a far more realistic view is that most of those things won't happen and the ones that do will not have the impact enthusiasts desire.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 07/20/2012 01:53 am

This reminds me of the (unfortunately unjustified) enthusiasm that followed the winning of the X-prize. I think a far more realistic view is that most of those things won't happen and the ones that do will not have the impact enthusiasts desire.

There were several X-prizes.  The runner-up of the X-prize for lunar landers made the engine of the lander test bed that will be flying around Kennedy Space Centre in the next few weeks.  These things do produce results, it just takes a long time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: adrianwyard on 07/21/2012 07:50 pm
Minor technical thought:

Over in the Red Dragon thread I suggest adding a jettisonable larger heat-shield stage to Red Dragon which would allow a payload to be slung below where the heat-shield normally is. Some wheels/mobility system could be placed here so the capsule could relocate itself. It's a significant change, but seems preferable to trying to drag Dragon capsules together by rover.

Or, it could land ATHLETE/TRI-ATHLETE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5_s90eWTV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-NRmdFARc
 
Red Dragon post:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26269.msg931942#msg931942
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/21/2012 07:58 pm
At that point, you're basically no longer talking about a slightly modified Dragon. Best to do a clean-sheet redesign.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WilliamPardy on 07/21/2012 08:38 pm
Pardon the newbie intrusion, but what about long-term mental health? Think 2 years out, 5, 10, 20... Volunteers for a one-way mission would never breathe fresh air again, ever. Never have a cookout, toss a frisbie, go swimming, etc. They’d be living in cramped quarters with the same people, like a submarine tour that never ends. They’d get bored with the food, the routine chores, the dull view out the window. (ISS has a MUCH better view.)

And in the Mars One scenario they would have to keep their game faces on all the time for a reality TV show. Underneath their fake smiles they would question what exactly they have given their lives for, whether they are really colonizing Mars or just providing the entertainment value of a vicarious adventure fantasy for people on Earth. Would there be suicides? Murders?

It would be interesting to hear from Antarctica station veterans their feelings about the prospect of staying down there the rest of their lives. Maybe Mars One would want to select a crew of video game or card game addicts to try to mitigate boredom. Personally, if this mission happened and I were qualified, I wouldn't volunteer unless there were two-way trips and rotating crews.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/21/2012 08:55 pm
Pardon the newbie intrusion, but what about long-term mental health? Think 2 years out, 5, 10, 20... Volunteers for a one-way mission would never breathe fresh air again, ever. Never have a cookout, toss a frisbie, go swimming, etc. They’d be living in cramped quarters with the same people, like a submarine tour that never ends. They’d get bored with the food, the routine chores, the dull view out the window. (ISS has a MUCH better view.)

And in the Mars One scenario they would have to keep their game faces on all the time for a reality TV show. Underneath their fake smiles they would question what exactly they have given their lives for, whether they are really colonizing Mars or just providing the entertainment value of a vicarious adventure fantasy for people on Earth. Would there be suicides? Murders?

It would be interesting to hear from Antarctica station veterans their feelings about the prospect of staying down there the rest of their lives. Maybe Mars One would want to select a crew of video game or card game addicts to try to mitigate boredom. Personally, if this mission happened and I were qualified, I wouldn't volunteer unless there were two-way trips and rotating crews.
I sort of doubt boredom would be likely. There'd be a lot of work to do on a permanent base. Gardening, stuff to fix constantly, samples to take, machinery to build, etc. Not that I disagree that there'd be potential psychological issues, just that a permanent base/settlement would have A LOT of work to do.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WilliamPardy on 07/21/2012 09:10 pm
Pardon the newbie intrusion, but what about long-term mental health? Think 2 years out, 5, 10, 20... Volunteers for a one-way mission would never breathe fresh air again, ever. Never have a cookout, toss a frisbie, go swimming, etc. They’d be living in cramped quarters with the same people, like a submarine tour that never ends. They’d get bored with the food, the routine chores, the dull view out the window. (ISS has a MUCH better view.)

And in the Mars One scenario they would have to keep their game faces on all the time for a reality TV show. Underneath their fake smiles they would question what exactly they have given their lives for, whether they are really colonizing Mars or just providing the entertainment value of a vicarious adventure fantasy for people on Earth. Would there be suicides? Murders?

It would be interesting to hear from Antarctica station veterans their feelings about the prospect of staying down there the rest of their lives. Maybe Mars One would want to select a crew of video game or card game addicts to try to mitigate boredom. Personally, if this mission happened and I were qualified, I wouldn't volunteer unless there were two-way trips and rotating crews.
I sort of doubt boredom would be likely. There'd be a lot of work to do on a permanent base. Gardening, stuff to fix constantly, samples to take, machinery to build, etc. Not that I disagree that there'd be potential psychological issues, just that a permanent base/settlement would have A LOT of work to do.

Thanks. That gives me an idea. If your workers are bored with their jobs, abolish weekends. Routine work never gets boring.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: joek on 07/21/2012 09:36 pm
Thanks. That gives me an idea. If your workers are bored with their jobs, abolish weekends. Routine work never gets boring.

Well put.  Seriously, mental health is a concern for extended missions, even with periodic  rotations and knowing at some point in the not-too-distant-future you're coming home--even for the selected few with the Right Stuff, be it the ISS, Antartica, or military deployments.  When it comes to proposed multi-year or forever missions way-out-there, the short answer is we really don't know.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/22/2012 02:50 am
Pardon the newbie intrusion, but what about long-term mental health? Think 2 years out, 5, 10, 20... Volunteers for a one-way mission would never breathe fresh air again, ever. Never have a cookout, toss a frisbie, go swimming, etc. They’d be living in cramped quarters with the same people, like a submarine tour that never ends. They’d get bored with the food, the routine chores, the dull view out the window. (ISS has a MUCH better view.)

And in the Mars One scenario they would have to keep their game faces on all the time for a reality TV show. Underneath their fake smiles they would question what exactly they have given their lives for, whether they are really colonizing Mars or just providing the entertainment value of a vicarious adventure fantasy for people on Earth. Would there be suicides? Murders?

It would be interesting to hear from Antarctica station veterans their feelings about the prospect of staying down there the rest of their lives. Maybe Mars One would want to select a crew of video game or card game addicts to try to mitigate boredom. Personally, if this mission happened and I were qualified, I wouldn't volunteer unless there were two-way trips and rotating crews.
I sort of doubt boredom would be likely. There'd be a lot of work to do on a permanent base. Gardening, stuff to fix constantly, samples to take, machinery to build, etc. Not that I disagree that there'd be potential psychological issues, just that a permanent base/settlement would have A LOT of work to do.

Thanks. That gives me an idea. If your workers are bored with their jobs, abolish weekends. Routine work never gets boring.

Good question.
Keep in mind that there are some people that like isolation.

How well do sub crews handle being out at sea for six plus months at a time? I know it's not the same thing however it's a place to start. How about an Eskimos life back in the 1800's?

I would expect the size of the base to grow and other bases to be started also. As well as outposts. Would they not make larger structures?
At some point there would need to be equipment sent to mine and process ore to make wall, pipe, wire, ect. Without that there could not be a true colony.

At what point might they have have planned for the first baby to be born to the colony? With kids born to them , that will make it there home. Think of all the people that came over to the U.S. before we had the telegraph or even mail being sent back to the old country. At least these people could send messages and video back to Earth ( with a time delay ). Grandparents will be able to see their grand kids and the grand kids will be able to see and speak to their grandparents be video.

If there is to be just one group of 4 people in 2023 and not 6 groups of 4 then is will be far more difficult for the first 4 of the new colony. If this concept does move forward then I do hope others will back several other starter bases for 2023 target date. Some of the hardware will most likely change by 2023 and there definitely be a need for a plan for the colony to grow and ultimately survive on it's own ( at what point and number of population I don't know ).

I would like to see other proposals to Mars landers and a possible starter colony base.   
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/22/2012 02:36 pm
... what about long-term mental health? Think 2 years out, 5, 10, 20...

It is generally agreed that there would be any number of people who would volunteer for the mission, perhaps even pledging that they had the mental health for the effort.  One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist nor a psychoanalyst to quickly realize the very many problems with a one-way trip.

You're also right about the problems associated with looking forward to a lifetime of routine work, particularly so, if the communication channel with Earth is disrupted because of, say, low TV ratings.  I gotta go out in the garden today and weed for an hour or so.  Plus, I need to do some tractor repairs.  If it's a sunny day, I might take my shirt off.  If that garden were my only means of nutrition, I'd be spending a lot more time in it.  Shirted or not, my work there cannot be expected to get high TV ratings.  A one way trip for four people only would get hi ratings on the day of landing, low ratings for an indeterminate number of years, and high ratings again upon filming a disaster of some sort.

There is a plus side, however. 

If a manned trip to Mars can be successfully accomplished, then another manned trip to Mars could also be accomplished, assuming a sufficiently wealthy and peaceful Earth.

Since orbital characteristics are such that a mission can only be set out about every two years, then the psychological "barrier" is only two years, which would be much easier to deal with.  Theoretically, there would be another four people headed out.  Again, wealth and peace maintaining, four years later, there may be a capacity to send eight or sixteen people.

Such a growth path could make for a very interesting TV show.  It would be a colony, and not an emigration, but still would be pretty darn interesting.  Especially if they sold tickets to ride.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 07/23/2012 03:43 am
Just give them an iPhone with angry birds.  ;)

Only half kidding.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 07/23/2012 08:57 am
Checked in on the store and saw a slashdot bit where Suit definitively answers the Hard Questions with rigorous BOE.  ;)

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/07/13/1517207/bas-lansdorp-answers-your-questions-about-going-to-mars
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/23/2012 05:51 pm
Checked in on the store and saw a slashdot bit where Suit definitively answers the Hard Questions with rigorous BOE.  ;)

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/07/13/1517207/bas-lansdorp-answers-your-questions-about-going-to-mars

Executive summary:

There's not enough information on that envelope for an investor.

I took a peek at the page you linked.  I just answered a few of the questions with my take:

Very interesting back and forth on the various questions.  Good to see Mr. Lansdorp answering some of them.  His answers leave some things unaddressed, however.

RE: Participant Psychosis?

Shackleton's pithy, brutally honest advertisement for volunteers does indeed support the view that there will be no shortage of volunteers for this mission.  However, it is not about the sheer number of volunteers, it is about their qualifications, and indeed the selection process will have to be very thorough, as Mr. Lansdorp states.  There is a long, costly path needed to select those few program participants.  If it is thought that they "will have pursued careers that will increase the odds of being selected for this kind of mission", already the group of potential team members has been made very small.

The HuffPo article is long on general  commentary about inspiration and challenge, but short on the specifics of finding qualified applicants, and adds little to our understanding beyond Mr. Lansdorp's general assertions.

RE: What are the entertainment options like?

In theory, the nascent base will get larger every two years; still the spatial limitations on the colonists, room to swing one's arms, so to speak, will be severe for many years.  This ties into the psychological issues mentioned above, and will present a difficult challenge in keeping the crews mentally healthy.  The various indoor activities planned for Mars; reading, writing, painting, physical workouts, TV, and the internet, will be quite different from their Earthly equivalents due to extreme space limitations and lack of variety.

RE: Pioneers

It is quite understandable that the business plan not be subject to public scrutiny, but in general terms, it doesn't seem that selling scientific knowledge or reality TV shows will cover the costs of the mission.  If the knowledge is sold to the highest bidder, it doesn't seem likely that it will be as accessible to the public as is the scientific knowledge made available by NASA and ESA, for example.

The TV show might very well develop a devoted audience.  For example, the construction progress could be very interesting.  If, however, the TV show focuses more on personal drama, then one has to question the nature of the participant selection process referred to above.

RE: Environmental Questions

If, before the Mars-One team should land, life is discovered on Mars, then the COPSPAR requirements are almost certain to change.  Many scientists believe that it would be more important to preserve and study a second genesis ecosystem before risking contamination by humans.

RE: Space for growing food?

The questioner suggests a first order approximation of garden size as 2.3 acres (9308 m~2)  Mr. Lansdorp's answer, "in total there will be about 50 m2 available for plant growth", cannot work, without being first demonstrated here on Earth, complete with peer review.

The calculation that they omit is this:  How much solar energy does it take to create a calorie?  How much additional solar energy does it take to set up a PV array to generate electricity for the LED's for that garden?

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

Very unsatisfying and uninformative answers from Mr. Lansdorp.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 07/23/2012 06:15 pm
It is quite understandable that the business plan not be subject to public scrutiny, but in general terms, it doesn't seem that selling scientific knowledge or reality TV shows will cover the costs of the mission. 

This is problematical from another angle as well. Would anyone (government, organization, person) agree to buy scientific data from Mars One knowing that if the arrangement terminates for any reason (diminishing returns over time, budget crunch, new priorities, etc) they might be condemning people to death? Would any broadcaster agree to run a reality show knowing that cancellation for low ratings might condemn people to death?

I think these concerns are serious enough that governments might go so far as to prevent the scheme unless there were provisions for terminating the scheme without certain loss of life, i.e. return to earth. This, of course, would negate the cost savings of the one way architecture.

I think the issue of possible emotional blackmail will have to addressed to a lot of people's satisfaction before the project is allowed to proceed to the point of sending people to Mars. Provided it gets to that point, of course.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 07/23/2012 10:29 pm
[quote author=JohnFornaro link=topic=29053.msg932391#msg932391


RE: Space for growing food?

The questioner suggests a first order approximation of garden size as 2.3 acres (9308 m~2)  Mr. Lansdorp's answer, "in total there will be about 50 m2 available for plant growth", cannot work, without being first demonstrated here on Earth, complete with peer review.

The calculation that they omit is this:  How much solar energy does it take to create a calorie?  How much additional solar energy does it take to set up a PV array to generate electricity for the LED's for that garden?

[/quote]

On Earth 50m2 is the minimum suggested for food production using high intensity hydroponics.  This would be from the CLESS work.

If we assume this is powered by sunlight, and on Mars we have 38% terestrial levels, then we should assume 150m2 per person.

This gives us the amount of power to sustain one person foodwise as well, ~500 kwh per day.

Growing your own food does go a long way towards the low amount of habitable volume issue, even with 2.5 m of headroom in the greenhouse that's an extra 375 m3 of volume per person, say a round 400 m3 with ancillaries like transfer tunnels.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/23/2012 10:53 pm
I still say that producing food chemically is a good source of macronutrients, with supplemental micronutrients and extra roughage provided by a smaller garden. It'd take up less space and would take less power.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 07/24/2012 02:34 am
I still say that producing food chemically is a good source of macronutrients, with supplemental micronutrients and extra roughage provided by a smaller garden. It'd take up less space and would take less power.

Would this be analogous to the nutritious slop dispenser in The Matrix?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/24/2012 02:36 am
Quote from: Dalhousie
On Earth 50m2 is the minimum suggested for food production using high intensity hydroponics.  This would be from the CLESS work.

Mr. Lansdorp stated that 50 m~2 garden will supply food for four individuals, in the weak martian sunlight, enhanced by solar powered LED's, I suppose to Earthly levels of lighting.

I don't acceopt this 50m~2 (+/-) statistic, even tho variants of the statistic are found here and there on the internets:

http://www.off-grid.net/2007/11/16/self-sufficient-veg-whats-achievable/

Quote
Once you have about 500 square feet -- 20 feet by 25 feet -- (50 square metres) per person you have enough space to grow about 90% of vegetables for one person all year round except maincrop potatoes and winter brassicas which take quite a lot of space. Double that and you’ve room for the maincrop potatoes and winter brassicas.

http://gardenrant.com/2007/10/mission-total.html

Quote
According to Dr. Amen, a family of four can feed themselves on a quarter-acre lot, or a 30×30-foot plot...

http://www.aselfsufficientlife.com/how-big-should-the-vegetable-garden-be.html

Quote
I think that sixty square metres in total would be very close to being able to support a Family of four in all of the basic Vegetables all year around.


At this level of intensity, there can be no mistakes in the gardening; no pests or diseases; and no margin for error.

I will say that I suppose it could be done. Here on Earth.  I remain very skeptical of this claim for the martian colonists.

I don't know about Chris' claim about the chemical production of food.  I suppose that the blue food of "2001" is technically possible these days, but I'm still skeptical.

I wouldn't mind reading up on the CLESS work.  This page didn't seem correct, somehow:

http://www.google.com/search?q=CLESS&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9AAOUOGsL6ro6wG0uYHwAg&ved=0CFoQsAQ&biw=875&bih=516
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/24/2012 05:48 am
Checked in on the store and saw a slashdot bit where Suit definitively answers the Hard Questions with rigorous BOE.  ;)

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/07/13/1517207/bas-lansdorp-answers-your-questions-about-going-to-mars
After reading that page, the Mars One team will need better thinking.

The first crew will need food send from Earth for the first two years just in case for any reason they can't grow food ( or enough ).

If for any reason the first crew needed to head back to Earth ( like no more funding ), they will need a return system in place.

Could they buy SEV's?
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=24909.0

They need a long term plan. If they did get people, organizations, and companies to sponsor young people for college for being a possible candidate, then those that did not get picked could end up with high paying jobs with there better education and end up financially helping the Mars project. Who knows , in their life time the tech might get a round trip down to 60 days and a much much lower cost. They might just be able to visit the people they helped get there.

A lander, Habs, greens house's , rovers, power systems, communications, return system ( if needed ), automated ISRU, ect. Companies around the world will need to find other uses for these techs if not used for a Mars colony for there business case.

I don't think their tv show will generate as much as they hope for. But adding in product placement would add more revenue. Just sending a crew of 4 every 2 years will not make a colony. More like a 1,000 people sent by 2033 if they start by 2023 ( first landing ). They would be better of with having a planned crew return and not a colony.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/24/2012 12:36 pm
Quote from: Hernalt
Would this be analogous to the nutritious slop dispenser in The Matrix?

Exactly.  The reference to the blue food in "2001" is simply an older reference.  The "food" in those two movies is thought to taste however the eater wishes it to, and thus, with a willful suspension of belief, and a wave of the director's wand/hand, the problem of dietary variety is solved.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/24/2012 04:58 pm
Quote from: Hernalt
Would this be analogous to the nutritious slop dispenser in The Matrix?

Exactly.  The reference to the blue food in "2001" is simply an older reference.  The "food" in those two movies is thought to taste however the eater wishes it to, and thus, with a willful suspension of belief, and a wave of the director's wand/hand, the problem of dietary variety is solved.
Have you ever tried to grow ALL of your calories? I am a gardener, but being responsible for all of one's calories take an inordinate amount of time, and the VAST majority of people in our country rely on mass farming (organic or conventional) with enormous fields cultivated and harvested with enormous machines. Dietary variety is addressed with a small garden.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/24/2012 07:42 pm
Quote from: Hernalt
...the nutritious slop dispenser..

... the blue food ...

Have you ever tried to grow ALL of your calories? I am a gardener, but being responsible for all of one's calories take an inordinate amount of time, and the VAST majority of people in our country rely on mass farming ... Dietary variety is addressed with a small garden.

Well yeah.  I've gotta 50'x70' garden.  325 m~2.  At the moment, we're awash in tomatoes, have a steady supply of tomatillos, jalapenos, radishes and a few other things.  Corn is coming in.  Punkins growin'.  The garden theorists say I can easily feed a family of four with what I got.  They assume time for perfecting the vegetable mix, tending, canning, freezing, weeding, insect repelling, and on and on.  I don't see it happening.

I've been down this road before.  We'll be sick of tomatoes by the end of September, but they will be welcome again in spaghetti sauce in the middle of winter.  Variety is a big issue.  Plus, the steaks I planted never came up, and thus the garden provides no meat.

Point is, I don't have to worry about a thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmo at umpteen degrees below zero, weak sunlight, cramped quarters, stale air, yada yada.  From an intuitive standpoint, fifty square meters of hydroponically grown food doesn't seem sufficient.

There's no margin of error, too little variety, and who knows what about the taste of that food grown in that place, at that gravity, with that light. 

Pragmatically, they can't seem to grow plants on ISS as well as they did on Skylab.  Nobody is doing any experimentation on off-planet agriculture, nor is anybody scheduled to do that experimentation either.  Plus, there is no Mars-gee facility in which to carry out the necessary experimentation, under simulated light conditions.

The Mars-One statements on this are "forward looking".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 07/24/2012 07:54 pm
Agreed.

That's why I think that we're going to realistically be relying on calorie-dense food, then a little later chemically derived calories, possibly using those chemically-produced calories to feed fungus (etc) for greater variety, supplementing it all with a small garden and an extensive spice rack...

It's hard to grow all your own calories. And if you do, maybe your best bet is potatoes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/24/2012 10:02 pm
Agreed.

That's why I think that we're going to realistically be relying on calorie-dense food, then a little later chemically derived calories, possibly using those chemically-produced calories to feed fungus (etc) for greater variety, supplementing it all with a small garden and an extensive spice rack...

It's hard to grow all your own calories. And if you do, maybe your best bet is potatoes.
Potatoes are a great food. Will need a little others in the mix.

Could they use reflected light from the surface as the green house is to be covered with dirt? Use multiple reflective surfaces to control the amount of light? Could the pass the light throw water to filter out any bad rays?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 07/24/2012 10:46 pm
Potatoes are a great food. Will need a little others in the mix.

Could they use reflected light from the surface as the green house is to be covered with dirt? Use multiple reflective surfaces to control the amount of light? Could the pass the light throw water to filter out any bad rays?

Or provide lighting from battery powered LEDs.  Solar panels being used to recharge to batteries.  Heating may also be needed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FinalFrontier on 07/24/2012 11:10 pm
Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that they are serious about doing this. Will certainly be very interesting to see how this goes.


As for "never coming back" if some of the other commercial interests as for mars, or NASA's interest for Mars hold true, it might be a few years but ultimately we will be going there with vehicles capable of returning.

Could, I suppose, consider picking up people who wish to leave then, although the vehicle in question would have to be able to support the extra people so your propulsion system would need to be pretty good (SEP/VASIMIR/NTR/ECT).


Seems a bit far-fetched to me that they would all never be coming back, unless of course there is mission failure or the various plans for BEO flight in this country fall through.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 07/25/2012 01:59 am
Quote from: Dalhousie
On Earth 50m2 is the minimum suggested for food production using high intensity hydroponics.  This would be from the CLESS work.

Mr. Lansdorp stated that 50 m~2 garden will supply food for four individuals, in the weak martian sunlight, enhanced by solar powered LED's, I suppose to Earthly levels of lighting.

Lighting is probably not that important as many food plants don't need as much light as they receive. A wide range of food plants can be successfully grown in Iceland, for example, provided they have enough warmth.  The LEDs ar probably more useful to ensure your plants don't die of in dusat storms.

I don't acceopt this 50m~2 (+/-) statistic, even tho variants of the statistic are found here and there on the internets:

http://www.off-grid.net/2007/11/16/self-sufficient-veg-whats-achievable/

Quote
Once you have about 500 square feet -- 20 feet by 25 feet -- (50 square metres) per person you have enough space to grow about 90% of vegetables for one person all year round except maincrop potatoes and winter brassicas which take quite a lot of space. Double that and you’ve room for the maincrop potatoes and winter brassicas.

http://gardenrant.com/2007/10/mission-total.html

Quote
According to Dr. Amen, a family of four can feed themselves on a quarter-acre lot, or a 30×30-foot plot...

http://www.aselfsufficientlife.com/how-big-should-the-vegetable-garden-be.html

Quote
I think that sixty square metres in total would be very close to being able to support a Family of four in all of the basic Vegetables all year around.


At this level of intensity, there can be no mistakes in the gardening; no pests or diseases; and no margin for error.[/quote]

This is an important point, I think.  You want margins - so perhaps twice as much area as the minimum.  You want to cope with technical problems, issues with nutrients, perhaps some plants and some cropping cycles not doing as well as others.  This is a grow food or die scenario, with no asssurance that food can be grown.  You would need at least two years of food to hand, I suggest, as a margin.

I will say that I suppose it could be done. Here on Earth.  I remain very skeptical of this claim for the martian colonists.

Quote
I don't know about Chris' claim about the chemical production of food.  I suppose that the blue food of "2001" is technically possible these days, but I'm still skeptical.

Me too.

Quote
I wouldn't mind reading up on the CLESS work.  This page didn't seem correct, somehow:

http://www.google.com/search?q=CLESS&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9AAOUOGsL6ro6wG0uYHwAg&ved=0CFoQsAQ&biw=875&bih=516

The books by the people who took part in Bisophere 2 are most instructive (not the ill-informed web sites).

You might want to read up on the very successful Russian Bios experiments at the Krasnoyarsk facility too.  Also the ESA MELiSSA set up.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: colbourne on 07/25/2012 09:59 am
I think you would take enough food from Earth to satisfy the crew. Any food grown on site would be a luxury and good for morale but not essential , at least in the early days of the mission.
I think there would enough to keep the crew busy without the thought of starving if the crops fail.

I hope NASA , Spacex and any other powerful space organisations can work with Mars One to create a viable mission in the next 15 years.
As I see it , if the mission does not take place in my life time , from my point of view it is never going to happen. I expect many other people have this same thought.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: e of pi on 07/25/2012 01:24 pm
I think you would take enough food from Earth to satisfy the crew. Any food grown on site would be a luxury and good for morale but not essential , at least in the early days of the mission.
I think there would enough to keep the crew busy without the thought of starving if the crops fail.
When the mission duration is "until further notice" bringing all your food from Earth isn't an option.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/25/2012 02:48 pm
Just a pragmatic observation.  You lost a nested quote mark somewhere in your reposting, making your response somewhat more difficult to parse.  After re-reading it, you could use the "Modify Message" feature to fix it.  Happens to me all the time.  Three times on this post!

Quote from: Dalhousie
Lighting is probably not that important as many food plants don't need as much light as they receive.

I'm on a grammatical kick today.  Borderline nonsense.  Lighting is of crucial importance for plant growth. 

However, if you mean to suggest that the spectra which plants prefer is a subset of white light provided by the Sun, then I'd point out that Mr. Lansorp has suggested that he would be using LED's with "optimal" spectral characteristics.

From a snarkastic standpoint, to the kickstarter masses, the word "optimal" can be counted on to override critical thinking about how that optimum can be reached.  That is, how would such a theoretical spectral optimum be generated by such a weak solar flux, made even weaker by converting it to electricity for the customized LED's.

I don't see the mass trade of launching the PV panels, electronics, water, hydroponic containers, yada yada, as providing the efficiency edge making the food production more likely to succeed.  They'd be better off with starter dirt, fertilizer, water, and concentrating mirrors. And an acre of pressurized geodesic (my fave) structure.

I'm trading, in this BOE, "more likely to succeed", with "lowest theoretical mass handwavable into existance within the short announced timeline".

Of course, Biosphere 3 would be the most logical course of action in a well funded, what I would call serious, attempt at a one way martian trip.  Designing and building the facility will take several years, and the research to be done there, validating closed cycle life support systems, will take several more years.  Possibly the most important info they could accumulate would be about the failure points of a closed cycle system.  Then they could at least engineer around these limitations. 

Mars-One does not announce this approach, and probably does not consider this approach either.  Biosphere 3 would set back their timescale by at least five years, I'd say.

Quote from: Dalhousie
The books by the people who took part in Bisophere 2 are most instructive (not the ill-informed web sites).

I've attached a picture of CLESS.  Number one or two on the googol search I posted.  Just FYI.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 07/25/2012 04:16 pm
I think these concerns are serious enough that governments might go so far as to prevent the scheme unless there were provisions for terminating the scheme without certain loss of life, i.e. return to earth. This, of course, would negate the cost savings of the one way architecture.
You might be right of course. 
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg913094#msg913094
If you'd like to make a libertarian argument that the government should not get involved in our private transaction, I expect I'll be receptive to it.
If I am king and call myself the government, is it moral for me to keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger? 
Is it my moral obligation to also outlaw skydiving?  Driving?  Those are worse because they place others at risk too.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 07/25/2012 06:41 pm
If I am king and call myself the government, is it moral for me to keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger? 
Is it my moral obligation to also outlaw skydiving?  Driving?  Those are worse because they place others at risk too.

Sorry, that battle has already been lost, and it was lost a long time ago. Virtually all governments, including the US federal and state governments, have already passed and currently enforce laws that "keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger". Try riding a motorcycle in California while not wearing a helmet.

It is just monumentally foolish to place completely overhauling political and legal systems that have developed over hundreds of years as a necessary condition for desired space activities.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 07/25/2012 09:30 pm
"Blindness, Bone Loss, and Space Farts: Astronaut Medical Oddities"
http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/medicine-psychology-space/?pid=4350&viewall=true

Had a neat bit on Martian dust having iron oxide.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 07/25/2012 10:19 pm
There are plenty of US States and entire Countries where helmets are optional.  Though you are right about the trend toward increased restrictions as a general trend.  Maybe they'll demand helmets.  ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/26/2012 01:37 pm
...is it moral for me to keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger?...

... Virtually all governments, including the US federal and state governments, have already passed and currently enforce laws that "keep people from engaging in activities which place only themselves in possible danger". Try riding a motorcycle in California while not wearing a helmet.

It is just monumentally foolish to place completely overhauling political and legal systems that have developed over hundreds of years as a necessary condition for desired space activities.

There are plenty of US States and entire Countries where helmets are optional.  Though you are right about the trend toward increased restrictions as a general trend.  Maybe they'll demand helmets.

Unfortunately you're totally missing the point:  governments typically legislate to keep people from even harming only themselves.  For a weird example, sucicide is generally held as illegal.  (The joke being that the punishment is the death penalty.)  That some states have helmet laws and others do not illustrates that specific laws vary in different localities.  It has nothing to do with the "morality" of the governments' actions.

It's safe to assume that the proposal intends for there to be no harm to the participants.  The proposers have demonstrated an ability to garnish some publicity, but they have not demonstrated that they have a successful plan in hand. 

As it stands today, their proposal cannot work, based on their public statements.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/26/2012 02:04 pm
Now imagine you're The Mars Society and you're trying to get the next round of funding for MDRS or Flashline.. despite years of efforts, they are no doubt being compared to Mars One right now. There's probably more than one sponsor asking why they don't do a reality tv show to raise funding.


I missed this comment earlier, and it is a good one.

There may also be other sponsors, quite scientifically astute ones, who also see the serious inadequacies in the Mars-One proposal, as it stands at the moment.  They may ask the Mars Society to what extent does it officially support such an impracticable proposal.

Start with Elon Musk. He just said in an interview that he thinks he has a viable Mars plan. I'm willing to wait and see what the Falcon Dragon Mars plan is from the guy who's building and launching the Falcons and the Dragons...

I don't know the specifics of Mr. Musk's plan, but I do agree with you in general.  He's got a great track record so far and much credibility.

If you can raise $2.3B for a disease, you should be able to raise something similar for a Mars mission...

Angel investors, and other investors as well, typically want a pain killer, not a vitamin pill.  In this analogy, a cure for a disease is a pain killer.  A Mars mission is a vitamin pill.  One will solve a pressing current problem.  The other, taken regularly, may provide long term health benefits, but won't solve the pressing current problem at all.

Which Jim Davis picked up on:

Virtually everyone has a strong, emotional reaction to people suffering from a disease especially if they are children. Very few people have the same depth of feeling for a Mars mission. Those that do really have a hard time grasping that.

The recent ISS hearings are interesting, in that it was discussed that they have studied the salmonella virus, which gets more virulent in zero gee.  But Sally Ride just died of cancer, and the policy makers didn't consider the two issues in their deliberations.  Zero gee cancer research at the ISS would get more corporate funding sponsorship, than a far fetched Mars mission done for the sake of TV ratings, I'd say.

Of course, it depends on what the phrase "you just have to do it right" means.  There's no predictive value to the phrase in and of itself, without hearing about the details of what it means to raise funding and "do it right".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/26/2012 09:20 pm
A Mars day is about 39 min and 35.244 seconds longer than here on Earth.
The test base that they plan on setting up in the dessert will have to be based on Mars time.

How will crew handle the longer day? They could start an experiment in a warehouse with artificial light to see how to best handle the longer day.
Also how will plants react to the longer day? They are planning on artificial light to grow plants. Will they need to adjust the lights on and off to Earth time or will a longer light period be better for the crops?

I figure the team(s) selected in 2013 should be for the desert test site and later select teams for the Mars colony. This would give them team(s) to work though possible problem before and after the Mars crew has left for Mars. This would make it easier to find qualified people for the desert site. At least they can have a life here on Earth out side of the desert base and later help with selecting the first Mars crew. The desert team will have to eat vegetarian for a few years just to see how they handle not being able to eat meats. At some point I believe they would send fish and chickens to Mars ( possible 4 to 6 years after the first crew arrived ).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 07/27/2012 12:45 am
Just a pragmatic observation.  You lost a nested quote mark somewhere in your reposting, making your response somewhat more difficult to parse.  After re-reading it, you could use the "Modify Message" feature to fix it.  Happens to me all the time.  Three times on this post!.

Probaby something to do with the pathetically small box we get to write text in.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Lighting is probably not that important as many food plants don't need as much light as they receive.

I'm on a grammatical kick today.  Borderline nonsense.  Lighting is of crucial importance for plant growth. 

However, if you mean to suggest that the spectra which plants prefer is a subset of white light provided by the Sun, then I'd point out that Mr. Lansorp has suggested that he would be using LED's with "optimal" spectral characteristics.[/quote]

Not borderline nonsense, but facts.  Different plants have different light level requirements, too much light can cause damage to some species, and result in shut down of photosynthesis.

Quote
I don't see the mass trade of launching the PV panels, electronics, water, hydroponic containers, yada yada, as providing the efficiency edge making the food production more likely to succeed.  They'd be better off with starter dirt, fertilizer, water, and concentrating mirrors. And an acre of pressurized geodesic (my fave) structure.

All true, but on the other hand concentrator mirrors are not exactly light weight, imported soil is bulky, and the problem with trying to grow directly in martian soils is the issues of soil pH, potential absence of key nutrients, presence of toxic materials.  Growing food on Mars is a research project, not an essential item from the first mission.

Just a pragmatic observation.  You lost a nested quote mark somewhere in your reposting, making your response somewhat more difficult to parse.  After re-reading it, you could use the "Modify Message" feature to fix it.  Happens to me all the time.  Three times on this post!.

Probaby something to do with the pathetically small box we get to write text in.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Lighting is probably not that important as many food plants don't need as much light as they receive.

I'm on a grammatical kick today.  Borderline nonsense.  Lighting is of crucial importance for plant growth. 

However, if you mean to suggest that the spectra which plants prefer is a subset of white light provided by the Sun, then I'd point out that Mr. Lansorp has suggested that he would be using LED's with "optimal" spectral characteristics.[/quote]

Not borderline nonsense, but facts.  Different plants have different light level requirements, too much light can cause damage to some species, and even cause shut down of photosynthesis.

Quote
I don't see the mass trade of launching the PV panels, electronics, water, hydroponic containers, yada yada, as providing the efficiency edge making the food production more likely to succeed.  They'd be better off with starter dirt, fertilizer, water, and concentrating mirrors. And an acre of pressurized geodesic (my fave) structure.

All true, but on the other hand concentrator mirrors are not exactly light weight, imported soil is bulky, and the problem with trying to grow directly in marian soils is the issues of soil chemistry, potential absence


I'm trading, in this BOE, "more likely to succeed", with "lowest theoretical mass handwavable into existance within the short announced timeline".

Of course, Biosphere 3 would be the most logical course of action in a well funded, what I would call serious, attempt at a one way martian trip.  Designing and building the facility will take several years, and the research to be done there, validating closed cycle life support systems, will take several more years.  Possibly the most important info they could accumulate would be about the failure points of a closed cycle system.  Then they could at least engineer around these limitations. 

Mars-One does not announce this approach, and probably does not consider this approach either.  Biosphere 3 would set back their timescale by at least five years, I'd say.

Quote from: Dalhousie
The books by the people who took part in Bisophere 2 are most instructive (not the ill-informed web sites).

I've attached a picture of CLESS.  Number one or two on the googol search I posted.  Just FYI.

Quote
Of course, Biosphere 3 would be the most logical course of action in a well funded, what I would call serious, attempt at a one way martian trip.  Designing and building the facility will take several years, and the research to be done there, validating closed cycle life support systems, will take several more years.  Possibly the most important info they could accumulate would be about the failure points of a closed cycle system.  Then they could at least engineer around these limitations. 

Something like the Bios experiments, specifically tailored to the needs of the mission, would be essential, to test the system.

Quote
Mars-One does not announce this approach, and probably does not consider this approach either.  Biosphere 3 would set back their timescale by at least five years, I'd say.

At least!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 07/27/2012 12:53 am
A Mars day is about 39 min and 35.244 seconds longer than here on Earth.
The test base that they plan on setting up in the dessert will have to be based on Mars time.

How will crew handle the longer day? They could start an experiment in a warehouse with artificial light to see how to best handle the longer day.
Also how will plants react to the longer day? They are planning on artificial light to grow plants. Will they need to adjust the lights on and off to Earth time or will a longer light period be better for the crops?

Probably quite well.  The circadian rhythm in humans is naturally quite variable, seems to set lighting cues.   The length of dalight on Earth varies significantly with the seasons, especially at higher latitudes.

Some people I know when at FMARS in the Arctic have run on Mars time for at least a month, and did not report any problems.

Plants don't need to sleep and can function under continous light if neccessary.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 07/27/2012 02:14 am
A Mars day is about 39 min and 35.244 seconds longer than here on Earth.
The test base that they plan on setting up in the dessert will have to be based on Mars time.

How will crew handle the longer day? They could start an experiment in a warehouse with artificial light to see how to best handle the longer day.
Also how will plants react to the longer day? They are planning on artificial light to grow plants. Will they need to adjust the lights on and off to Earth time or will a longer light period be better for the crops?

Probably quite well.  The circadian rhythm in humans is naturally quite variable, seems to set lighting cues.   The length of dalight on Earth varies significantly with the seasons, especially at higher latitudes.

Some people I know when at FMARS in the Arctic have run on Mars time for at least a month, and did not report any problems.

Plants don't need to sleep and can function under continous light if neccessary.
http://www.gardeners.com/Gardening-Under-Lights/5080,default,pg.html
Just found this site. Read down the page on how much light different types of plants need and the part were it says the do need rest time ( less light or darkness ).

For people it will be interesting to see how well they would do after six month on Mars time. Would they keep a regular sleep time or not. This is one of the things we can find out if they set a group of people up in a habitat here on Earth in a warehouse to control the light and not have to deal with weather. If they made that a tv show it could give them an idea on what kind of audience they could get before they build the one in the desert.

For a return for crew
At some point they might find something worth sending back to Earth. The same craft that could lift the crew up to a return vehicle in orbit could be used as a sample return craft. So someone else could fund the return capsule.

Has Mars One contacted any other Mars group to work with them?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/27/2012 01:42 pm
Quote from: Dalhousie
Probaby something to do with the pathetically small box we get to write text in.

I've not yet been accused of staying within the box.

Reply with quote.  Cursor to the "box".  Ctrl-A, select all.  Ctrl-C, copy.  Open Notepad.  Crtl-V, paste.  Edit.  Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V back to the "box".  Return to topic.  Modify message as required after proofreading.

Or not.

Quote from: Dalhousie
Different plants have different light level requirements, too much light can cause damage to some species, and result in shut down of photosynthesis.


Of course they do.  And most of those that don't need a lot of light are not nutritious.  You know that.  You need a lot of light to grow food.  The plant converts the energy of the light to restructure molecular bonds into a nutritious ear of corn, say.  You know that too.

At issue here is the idea that simply because an exception exists, that somehow that which is the norm loses some validity.  For example, I'd bet that people who are long term smokers have developed a tolerance to carbon dioxide.  Thus, for this reason, cigarette smokers may be better suited for a one way trip to a planet with a high CO2 component.

It will be pointed out that mushrooms grow in the dark and survive on el poopo del toro.  Of course they do.  This means that there could be a place for mushrooms in the diet and ecosystem, but not that the diet is met by mushrooms, nor that the ecosystem is made complete by mushrooms.

I'm on this "predictive value" kick these days.  There is always some kind of exception.  Where is the predictive value in the mere existance of the exception?

Quote from: Dalhousie
...concentrator mirrors are not exactly light weight, imported soil is bulky, and the problem with trying to grow directly in martian soils is the issues of soil pH, potential absence of key nutrients, presence of toxic materials.  Growing food on Mars is a research project, not an essential item from the first mission.

I'll create a new term:  KickStarter Thinking.  KST.  Maybe a mite harsh, but hey:  It's the intertubes.  There's many facets to KT.  Lack of predictive value of the exception is one.  Offered solution A has the masss problem X, even tho preferred solution B has virtually the same problem.

Concentrator mirrors are not exactly light weight.  Neither are PV panels.  Both require tracking mechanisms which will mass out at about the same value over a fairly wide range of masses needing to track the Sun.  A tracking mechanism will require a certain minimum mass.  Since a reflective system likely promises more gross light transmission efficiency than a PV panel, electronics, and LED system, it is not likely that the tracking mechanism for either system would vary much by mass.

If PV panels could be developed using films, then so could concentrator panels.  It happens that Kapton, as one example, is a tough, highly reflective film.  Without a specific example of a fully developed film based PV panel weighing as much as a film based reflector, both designed to provide the same amount of preferred solar spectra to the plant, a full mass trade of the two competing structures cannot be made.

Imported starter soil is certainly bulky.  Cetainly is cheap to provide, and would automatically have a full complement of plant nutrients from the very get go.  Maybe, calorie for calorie, and variety for variety, and yield for yield, and hardiness for hardiness, not including water, a hydroponic garden could be created which would mass out the same as starter soil.

Pretty much anybody could grow a garden here on Earth, with soil and soil alone.  There are no design costs.  That martian hydroponic system has not yet been designed.  So there's a time component to the trade.  But compare the mass of the containers, the pumping system and electronics, the fertilizer mix and associated structure with the mass of the starter soil.  How does that comparison mass out?

There is the issue of toxic martian soil, which a hydroponic system could eliminate, if it were compared only to a martian garden with the imported soil set directly on the marsolith.  It is not thought that a hydroponic system would sit directly on the martian soil.  In both cases, depending on the area of the plant enclosure, there will be a separation of the two plant systems.

A hydroponic system will never answer the question of amending martian soil to suit earthly varieties, and a soil based system has that potential.  For the forseeable future the  hydroponic system will only grow by importing system and structure from Earth, but the soil based system need only import structure, assuming solution to the toxicity question.

It may be that the toxicity question of martian soil cannot be readily solved.  But that is a question which Mars-One doesn't even ask.  Their KT analysis has already picked hydroponics, and they seek only answers to the development of that system, and have written out of their narrative the possibility that other, better garden solutions might exist.

Quote
Growing food on Mars is a research project, not an essential item from the first mission.

Unfortunately, this is KST at its worst.  Totally abandoning some stated goals of the mission, permanence and self sufficiency, in order to win a debate point.

IOW, we're going to send people up there without them having the abililty to grow the food they need to survive.  We will gladly promise to send up the massive two year supply of pre-packaged food with the first victims colonists.  We will pretend to promise that more food will be delivered after that time.  But in order to attract clicks and dollars, we will make a big deal about hydroponic gardens and how we have thought of everything.  The sheople will gladly suspend disbelief for the sake of the TV show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/28/2012 01:17 am
Quote from: Dalhousie
Probaby something to do with the pathetically small box we get to write text in.

I've not yet to be accused of staying within the box.

Reply with quote.  Cursor to the "box".  Ctrl-A, select all.  Ctrl-C, copy.  Open Notepad.  Crtl-V, paste.  Edit.  Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V back to the "box".  Return to topic.  Modify message as required after proofreading.

Or not.

uhh... use Firefox?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/28/2012 01:15 pm
Quote
... use Firefox?

Or not. 

The time is spent in the composing of the response.  Nested quotes make it easier for other readers. Typing the instructions, which have been valid instructions since about 1990 (Win2.0) takes longer than performing the instructions.  After several decades of practice, the performance is second nature.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nathan on 07/28/2012 02:15 pm
Regarding food - the should choose an aQuaculture system to grow fish and plants together. The waste from the fish feeds the plants. Only nutrients for the fish need be sourced. Possibly an algae system that feeds of organic waste could be added that feeds the fish. This would improve density of food and dietary variety.
Issue are keeping fish alive onthe way out and obtaining sufficient water for them to swim in one te system is deployed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 07/28/2012 02:33 pm
Would the fish be affected by the reduced gravity?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Mader Levap on 07/29/2012 07:39 pm
I am surprised.  So long (21 pages already) discussion for obvious fantasy? It would be understandable for non-technical forum, but here?

If I would place bets, this is just viral marketing for reality show, sure... but of course happening entirely on Earth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/29/2012 11:49 pm
I am surprised.  So long (21 pages already) discussion for obvious fantasy?

Wouldn't be quite so fantastic if the proponents would participate in the discussion here.  As it stands, they prefer not to, and thus, they are free to keep promoting the  fantastic aspects of their proposal, secure that those aspects will not detract from their fund raising, as far as their intended audience is concerned.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 08/05/2012 04:52 pm
Would the fish be affected by the reduced gravity?
Flying fish might have a more exciting go of it.  If you mean from the perspective of gill efficiency, I doubt it.  But if there is a problem, they could just hang out a little deeper in the water column.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/15/2012 04:05 am
Would the fish be affected by the reduced gravity?
Flying fish might have a more exciting go of it.  If you mean from the perspective of till efficiency, I doubt it.  But if there is a problem, they could just hang out a little deeper in the water column.
That would increase pressure not the pull of gravity.

Catfish have a swim bladder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimbladder
would the lower Mars gravity have an effect on the rate of descent on an object or fish in water? Salt water has a greater buoyancy than fresh water. Would the less gravity make the water have a greater buoyancy?

For plants and trees.
With less gravity how will the branches with fruit on them look compared to the plants on Earth, less or equal droop? How about the size of the fruit?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: douglas100 on 08/15/2012 11:21 am
Would the less gravity make the water have a greater buoyancy?

No, the buoyancy would stay the same if you changed the gravity, everything else being equal. (Zero gravity would be a limiting case.)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/17/2012 08:55 pm
With the unknown about how lower gravity compared to Earth's gravity will be on human, plants, and animals.

How about a LEO station to simulate Mars gravity. Lower cost than a Lunar base and with tech we already have. No need for the HLV, rovers , ect. Station could be used for other things after the experiment was over ( space tourism, ect. ). Could make a good addition to their possible tv show.

So if and when commercial crew comes online then someone could possible make this type of station to support up to 12 crew at a time.

See how well crew handles lower gravity over 6 months, 18 months , 36 months.

See how plants grow and if they are still good for food.

Breed fish and possible chickens also.

Would also be a way to test out life support systems as well.

Crew would not have to grow all their own food. Would have a way to get back to Earth quickly if they needed to compared to from the moon. Would be able to simulate Mars gravity , better than trying things out in the moons even lower gravity. 

And yes I know there needs to be fund for it. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/18/2012 01:10 pm
With the unknown about how lower gravity compared to Earth's gravity will be on human, plants, and animals.

Which I maintain can only be determined by making the attempt.

As to the rest of your post, pretty much spot on.  The only solution is a ring station.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/18/2012 10:21 pm
With the unknown about how lower gravity compared to Earth's gravity will be on human, plants, and animals.

Which I maintain can only be determined by making the attempt.

As to the rest of your post, pretty much spot on.  The only solution is a ring station.

At about two rotations per minute that would give us a radius of about 275 feet for Mars gravity.

A ring would be to great a circumference. Unless it was made up of the boom for the solar panels and the crew modules.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nathan on 08/18/2012 10:37 pm
I am surprised.  So long (21 pages already) discussion for obvious fantasy? It would be understandable for non-technical forum, but here?

If I would place bets, this is just viral marketing for reality show, sure... but of course happening entirely on Earth.
I think you are right.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/19/2012 01:18 am
Mars One has auditioned to speak at TED2013 in February 2013.

http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/281-mars-one-has-auditioned-to-speak-at-ted2013


If they get their show , then they might want to start off with 2 half hour programs a week. Letting people know what they are planning, have already done, and start off with a crew of 4 in a mock-up base for three month stays at a time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/23/2012 03:00 pm
I have read through this thread, quite interesting.

Just one comment. Forget about artificial lighting for the greenhouse. Even if they have a Fusion Reactor and a few Megawatt to spare, the lighting fixtures would be prohibitive. Ask anyone who runs a marine tank with corals about his lighting to run it.

It is not needed anyway. The average sunlight on mars has app. 42% of the intensity on earth, not considering less absorption by the thin atmosphere. If any augmentation would be needed, which I doubt, a reflective pastic sheet will do with very little weight for the transport.

How long do dust storms last? Some time with less light will not harm the plants, only if it lasts several weeks it may cause problems and only during certain phases of their developement.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/24/2012 02:32 am
I have read through this thread, quite interesting.

Just one comment. Forget about artificial lighting for the greenhouse. Even if they have a Fusion Reactor and a few Megawatt to spare, the lighting fixtures would be prohibitive. Ask anyone who runs a marine tank with corals about his lighting to run it.

It is not needed anyway. The average sunlight on mars has app. 42% of the intensity on earth, not considering less absorption by the thin atmosphere. If any augmentation would be needed, which I doubt, a reflective pastic sheet will do with very little weight for the transport.

How long do dust storms last? Some time with less light will not harm the plants, only if it lasts several weeks it may cause problems and only during certain phases of their developement.


What is the radiation difference on the surface of Mars compared to Earth at sea level and 5,000ft above? How will this effect plant growth?

Green house will need to be pressurized and kept warm too.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/24/2012 06:53 am
Quote
What is the radiation difference on the surface of Mars compared to Earth at sea level and 5,000ft above? How will this effect plant growth?

I don't know how much the earth atmosphere absorbs but you have a little more than the 42% calculated from the distances of earth and mars from the sun. UV will be higher on altitude and even more high on mars, as the atmosphere absorbs much of it on earth sea level. The UV will need to be filtered to protect the plants but as much the materials of the greenhouse.

Quote
Green house will need to be pressurized and kept warm too.

I have not done any math except for the pressures but I am sure in principle my idea will work.

About keeping warm it should be quite easy. I see a big dome of plastic sheet, coated on the outside with an UV filter and long infrared reflecting on the inside for a greenhouse effect. The mars atmosphere is so thin compared to earth that such a dome does not need strong materials and is very light. The thin martian air will also not draw much of the warmth inside unlike earths atmosphere that has a large cooling capacity. If the plastic sheet has 1mm, one m² will have a mass of 1kg, 1000m² 1mt. Maybe a second shell inside would be needed for better insulation. But for the second shell the plastic could be much thinner and lighter as it will have no wind load. The dome/domes can be held up with minimal inside air pressure.

So all the habitats and greenhouse could be inside and don't need any heating. Over time the ground below would become warm and keep temperatures stable during night and even over some days of sand storm.

It would look cool like in the old SF pictures. ;D

But this dome will not provide pressure. Air pressure will make large structures impossible. The forces become huge. So pressure needs to be kept as low as possible for a greenhouse inside that dome. For a greenhouse you may go for the pressure at the top of MtEverest, 314 hPa . At this pressure people can work using a simple oxygen mask and survive for a while without. Unfortunately even this pressure is much too high to allow big structures and you need heavy fibre enforced plastic sheets to withstand the pressure.

Research will need to be performed what minimum pressure plants need and how big structures with that pressure can be. At low pressure people will need full pressure suits which makes work very hard.

So maybe MtEverest pressure for a vegetable garden allowing manual labour. Lowest possible pressure for the crops that provide most of the calories. Maybe worked remotely controlled with machines.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/24/2012 09:39 am
I have read through this thread, quite interesting.

Just one comment. Forget about artificial lighting for the greenhouse. Even if they have a Fusion Reactor and a few Megawatt to spare, the lighting fixtures would be prohibitive. Ask anyone who runs a marine tank with corals about his lighting to run it.

It is not needed anyway. The average sunlight on mars has app. 42% of the intensity on earth, not considering less absorption by the thin atmosphere. If any augmentation would be needed, which I doubt, a reflective pastic sheet will do with very little weight for the transport.

How long do dust storms last? Some time with less light will not harm the plants, only if it lasts several weeks it may cause problems and only during certain phases of their developement.



Dont ask someone who runs a marine tank.. ask these guys
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/Marijuana-Growing-Guide.htm ;)

I dunno. Growing on the surface is intuitive but I keep seeing proposals that rule it out. (edit: might be getting confused with lunar proposals, oops.) You wouldn't want to actually live there due to the radiation of course. Dont know if that is a factor for plants. I guess the intense cold is also a problem, leakage that has to be replaced, and perhaps wear from dust?

Maybe there is a compromise that minimizes the surface area that has to be exposed to vacuum but still exploits sunlight directly. Im thinking some sort of reflector or possibly a pipe carrying algae that can absorb much more concentrated sunlight from mirrors.

In the long term.. how many megawatts can we really need for our daily calories? there must be some efficient way!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/24/2012 12:19 pm

Dont ask someone who runs a marine tank.. ask these guys
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/Marijuana-Growing-Guide.htm ;)

 ;D
I mentioned the marine tank for a good reason. It is the only thing I know of that actually needs the full sunlight strength. That is because the water filters out a lot.
The plants you brought in probably need only quite dim lighting, much less than the sunlight on mars.

I
Quote
dunno. Growing on the surface is intuitive but I keep seeing proposals that rule it out. (edit: might be getting confused with lunar proposals, oops.) You wouldn't want to actually live there due to the radiation of course. Dont know if that is a factor for plants. I guess the intense cold is also a problem, leakage that has to be replaced, and perhaps wear from dust?

Maybe there is a compromise that minimizes the surface area that has to be exposed to vacuum but still exploits sunlight directly. Im thinking some sort of reflector or possibly a pipe carrying algae that can absorb much more concentrated sunlight from mirrors.

In the long term.. how many megawatts can we really need for our daily calories? there must be some efficient way!

I never mentioned growing plants on the open mars surface. There are many reasons why that is not possible. A major obstacle would be the water. There are areas where water might be liquid temporarily but it would evaporate quickly into the atmosphere, giving plants no chance.

Even if you go to the extreme and grow plants in natural mars soil and natural mars air pressure, you still need to cover the site to keep the water from evaporating.

I was just making the point that natural sunlight woud be sufficient and don't bother with lighting.

And mentioning Megawatt was maybe slightly exaggerated. If I recall correctly the Mars One people mentioned a 40m² greenhouse. With very efficient lighting you may need slightly less than 100kW to get lighting approaching the intensity on earth's equator.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/24/2012 12:51 pm
Should I mention that I don't believe Mars One is viable? It should not be necessary on this forum, it should be understood. ;)

But regarding radiation. I don't think the risk is that big. It is probably higher than acceptable on earth. But really how big is it?

I just saw an amazing documentary on Chernoby. There are healthy populations of mammals there under conditions of 1000 times the normal background radiation on earth. Two species tested were mice and horses. The wild horses that were put into the area were selected unhealthy specimens because the scientists putting them there thought they are sending them into certain death. But now there is a healthy thriving population.

Migratory birds that arrive in that area exhausted and with a low immune system fare much worse though. They show mutations and are less healthy.

No, I don't recomment to send people into Chernobyl to live there and eat the local produce. But people would survive there.

Inflatable habitats on the surface would be of materials that naturally reduce the radiation a lot. Additional protection may be necessary during solar storms. Of course before it is actually tried on people, consistent measurements by Curiosity from its trip to mars and surface measurements. Plants will certainly not be seriously affected. And in Chernobyl life takes radioactive particles in with their food unlike only the external radiation on mars.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/25/2012 07:18 am
haha.. no I didnt mean exposed on the surface either. :)

When I talked about the cold, I just meant that something thin probably wouldnt be a great heat insulator so the energy you save on lighting might go into heating.

I also like the idea of exploiting light directly, but here are my reasons why you should probably at least reflect it into a small window rather than relying on a dome.

Humans need tons of shielding per square meter to stop cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are just really hard to stop. Admittedly I don't know about plants. It does seem reasonable we can find something highly resistant but also nutritious.

Ignoring radiation, you need a material that..
lets light though.
Keeps warmth in during night,
Keeps pressure in,
Does not degrade after years of exposure to sun and dust storms.
And of course you need a lot of it, or you need to be able to manufacture it on mars.

If you build deep underground (or my favorite: under ice) you get all of this for free except sunlight. Additionally you get radiation protection (which can only be provided this way).

This is why rather than a dome I think you should solve as much as you can by building underground and restricting the need for this material with high requirements. You dont need to go all the way to grow-lights powered by solar cells. Perhaps the simplest compromise would be to build into one canyon wall and put reflectors on the opposite wall. (These might also degrade, but reflectors that do not need to withstand pressure are very cheap and light)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/25/2012 09:50 am
haha.. no I didnt mean exposed on the surface either. :)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. We agree then on this point.

Quote
When I talked about the cold, I just meant that something thin probably wouldnt be a great heat insulator so the energy you save on lighting might go into heating.

The insulation requirements differ strongly between Mars and Earth.  You lose a lot of heat on earth due to the dense atmosphere's conduction of heat. The Mars atmosphere is so thin it does not do that very much. A second inner dome could reduce heat conduction further if necessary. As the inner dome would not receive any stress from wind it can be made from a very thin very light layer.

You have to deal mainly with radiating heat, long infrared. You can do that using an infrared reflecting coating. For the outer shell of "my dome"  :) a thin coating stopping the infrared will be very effective. The dome won't last forever but I believe a fair number of years depending on how effective the UV coating is. The UV and infrared coatings would also be applied to the greenhouse dome. These kind of coatings are already in use on earth and won't be difficult to make. I don't believe dust storms will degrade the material too much as the solar arrays on Spirit and Opportunity still perform well after a long time.

Quote
I also like the idea of exploiting light directly, but here are my reasons why you should probably at least reflect it into a small window rather than relying on a dome.

Humans need tons of shielding per square meter to stop cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are just really hard to stop. Admittedly I don't know about plants. It does seem reasonable we can find something highly resistant but also nutritious.

Ignoring radiation, you need a material that..
lets light though.
Keeps warmth in during night,
Keeps pressure in,
Does not degrade after years of exposure to sun and dust storms.
And of course you need a lot of it, or you need to be able to manufacture it on mars.

I am not so sure we really need that much of radiation shielding. Also a plastic layer that can withstand the inside air pressure will also provide substantial shielding. I agree though that extra shielding cannot do any harm. And I agree that making an outer shell for this purpose is difficult and if a better solution can be found, I will gladly accept it.

I am positive though that the plants don't need shielding. That Chernobyl documentary I alredy mentioned, was amazing. Many plants thrive on radiation 1000 times earth normal and Chernobyl is much worse than Mars because there is not just hard radiation, the plants actually incorporate radioactive materials in their tissue.

Quote
If you build deep underground (or my favorite: under ice) you get all of this for free except sunlight. Additionally you get radiation protection (which can only be provided this way).

I see your point for building underground. Not so much for radiation shielding but anything that solves the pressure problem will be a great advantage. If surrounding material can stand the pressure building becomes so much easier.

I still believe the first habitats will be inflatable because the setup is much easier. But for expansion things may well go the way you described.


Quote
This is why rather than a dome I think you should solve as much as you can by building underground and restricting the need for this material with high requirements. You dont need to go all the way to grow-lights powered by solar cells. Perhaps the simplest compromise would be to build into one canyon wall and put reflectors on the opposite wall. (These might also degrade, but reflectors that do not need to withstand pressure are very cheap and light)

This design may well be a good solution for greenhouses growing vegetable and fruit. Reflecting surfaces will be very low weight and can probably be one of the first items produced on mars. You will absolutely need sunlight for plant growth. Producing electricity and using light fixtures will be prohibitive in complexity and cost.

Parallel to greenhouses I envision that growing algae will provide staple food, raw material for an emerging chemical industry and even foodstock for animals.

I believe growing algae under an unpressurized dome for temperature control in pressurized reactors will be the most efficient method. Designing reactors for agae growth won't be very difficult, as the single structure is not very big and can handle the pressure, for example in simple PE-pipes. Pressure becomes a major issue only in large structures.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: jtrame on 08/25/2012 01:12 pm
With the unknown about how lower gravity compared to Earth's gravity will be on human, plants, and animals.

Which I maintain can only be determined by making the attempt.

As to the rest of your post, pretty much spot on.  The only solution is a ring station.

At about two rotations per minute that would give us a radius of about 275 feet for Mars gravity.

A ring would be to great a circumference. Unless it was made up of the boom for the solar panels and the crew modules.

So basically the whole structure is 2 football fields in length.  A boom made up of deployable trusses, populated with solar panels & supply modules, with a habitat on one end, and a science station on the other?  Maybe a 2 man transportation module traveling on a track between the two ends.  First it's a LEO station.  Later on it becomes the basis for a transport ship.

Not specifically Mars One, just stuff that needs to be done for any long term attempt at a Mars colony.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/25/2012 01:59 pm
Quote from: Kelvin
Dont ask someone who runs a marine tank.. ask these guys...

Hah!  Excellent link!

The mars atmosphere is so thin compared to earth that such a dome does not need strong materials and is very light. ... But this dome will not provide pressure. Air pressure will make large structures impossible. ... So maybe MtEverest pressure for a vegetable garden allowing manual labour.

It should be understood that "surface" here, means on the surface of the planet, protected by a dome or some other structure.  I am a fan of using natural sunlight, concentrated by a mirror assembly.  It would be passive and less massive.  Mt. Everest pressures are too low, but the idea of using less than sea level Earth atmo is a good one, and I believe that initial strategy will be followed for a shirtsleeve environment.  The pressures over a three or so acre "garden" will be substantial.  It's not so much the pounds per square foot as it is the total pressure of the structure, which must be well anchored to a slab or to the martian bedrock, to keep it from poofing up. 

The theoretical minimum acreage proposed by the Mars-One folks is too small to work.  As with much of their proposal, they extrapolate from cherry picked earthly facts; include much that is handwaved; and conclude with a presentation of certain success.

Growing on the surface is intuitive but I keep seeing proposals that rule it out.

Me too.

Parallel to greenhouses I envision that growing algae will provide staple food, raw material for an emerging chemical industry and even foodstock for animals.

I wonder if aquaculture could also be considered.

Should I mention that I don't believe Mars One is viable?

It's been mentioned.  Additional mentionings appreciated.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 08/25/2012 03:47 pm
The total force from pressure in a dome will be very high, but there exist construction techniques to mitigate the problem.

First, why must the dome be anchored only around the edges? It could be anchored by cables at many points.

Second, why must the greenhouse dome be a dome at all? Greenhouses on earth tend to be long, relatively narrow structures. Such structures on Mars, anchored at the edges and intermitently down the center could cover large acreage and still maintain pressure integrity.

Thirdly, don't overlook the problem of pressure blowout through the soil. If it is expected to hold pressure, the soil must also hold the pressure, noteably around the edges but also all across the surface. Atmosphere, like water, will seek its own level of pressure and it will go where ever there is any miniscule openings.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/25/2012 04:09 pm
The total force from pressure in a dome will be very high, but there exist construction techniques to mitigate the problem.

Absolutely. A one acre dome is impossible.

Quote
First, why must the dome be anchored only around the edges? It could be anchored by cables at many points.

Second, why must the greenhouse dome be a dome at all? Greenhouses on earth tend to be long, relatively narrow structures. Such structures on Mars, anchored at the edges and intermitently down the center could cover large acreage and still maintain pressure integrity.

Thirdly, don't overlook the problem of pressure blowout through the soil. If it is expected to hold pressure, the soil must also hold the pressure, noteably around the edges but also all across the surface. Atmosphere, like water, will seek its own level of pressure and it will go where ever there is any miniscule openings.

The longstretched version will probably be the easiest, especially to begin with brought from earth. I agree about the leakage problem as well. The greenhouse needs to be closed in from all sides and the lower part filled with local dirt. It can easily be lighted by mirror sheets too.

Material some transparent plastic, reenforced by Kevlar.

Only that outer dome for heat retention can be a dome as it will not need to withstand pressure beyond its own weight.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/26/2012 01:47 pm
0) The total force from pressure in a dome will be very high, but there exist construction techniques to mitigate the problem.

1) First, why must the dome be anchored only around the edges? It could be anchored by cables at many points.

2) Second, why must the greenhouse dome be a dome at all? Greenhouses on earth tend to be long, relatively narrow structures. Such structures on Mars, anchored at the edges and intermitently down the center could cover large acreage and still maintain pressure integrity.

3) Thirdly, don't overlook the problem of pressure blowout through the soil. If it is expected to hold pressure, the soil must also hold the pressure, noteably around the edges but also all across the surface. Atmosphere, like water, will seek its own level of pressure and it will go where ever there is any miniscule openings.

0)  Which is generally true.

1)  The cables, if that solution would be used, would be anchored around the edges for the most part.  I could see cables in the interior, holding the top to the bottom, but I think that gravity will tend to hold the mass of the dome and its atmo down.  Blowout problems would be in the structure.

What would be nice to read would be a paper discussing the various forces on a geodesic dome in that environment.  It's a general observation, not a personal request.

2)  Just from a viewpoint of argumentation, it's not clear why cables at the edges are objected to in thing one, but recommended in thing two.  But anyhow, I see that you have already considered cables in the interior; tension resistance of air pressure.

3)  Just to be clear, I have not presented a complete solution.  The perimeter of the structure would have to be airtight.  The foundation would have to have a certain width and depth to withstand the pressures you mention.  That turns out to be a structural engineering problem in which I have some (which is not to say all) experience, and could solve, given a financial incentive.

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

In general, at some point, if colonization is enacted, the martian soil will have to be amended so as to support Earthly plants.  One of my suggestions would be to literally land some tons of Earth soil.  My experience includes Mid-Atlantic forest soils, which can be loaded with nutrients and biological diversity.  Start planting in this soil, gradually introducing martian soil, and let the plants and worms and bacteria do the work. In my mind, this could use a thread of its own.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/26/2012 03:08 pm

1)  The cables, if that solution would be used, would be anchored around the edges for the most part.  I could see cables in the interior, holding the top to the bottom, but I think that gravity will tend to hold the mass of the dome and its atmo down.  Blowout problems would be in the structure.

The vertical component of the force of air pressure is quite substantial. Gravity will do nothing to cancel that out.

I have done a calculation for one acre.

Total force for 1 acre over 120.000.000 N on Himalaya pressure, double that for human needs, triple for sea level pressure. That would be a pull of over half a million N for each meter circumference of a one acre dome. That means you have to go a lot smaller for any available material to withstand the forces.

It is not intuitive how massive the force of air pressure is. Calculate it by yourself considering that pressure on sea level equals a 10m column of water. And that much on every square meter of any construction built on mars and pressurized.


Edit: To make it more graphic, earth sea level pressure would, considering the low gravity of Mars, lift a dome of 1,5m cast iron from its foundation.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/26/2012 11:49 pm

1)  The cables, if that solution would be used, would be anchored around the edges for the most part.  I could see cables in the interior, holding the top to the bottom, but I think that gravity will tend to hold the mass of the dome and its atmo down.  Blowout problems would be in the structure.

The vertical component of the force of air pressure is quite substantial. Gravity will do nothing to cancel that out.

I didn't word this the best way. 

Consider a flat bottomed, air tight geodesic dome, inflated to Earth atmo.  It will sit on the surface of the planet.  That's what I was getting at.  The outward pressure, as you calculate, is pretty tremendous.  This is what needs to be accomodated.  Probably the structure would be nearly entirely self contained, but I haven't analyzed it sufficiently to have a good handle on the total amounts.

Quote
I have done a calculation for one acre.

Total force for 1 acre over 120.000.000 N on Himalaya pressure, double that for human needs, triple for sea level pressure.

I don't quite follow your reasoning.  First, due to my math inabilities, don't mix acres and newtons.  A one acre dome, has how much pressure per square foot?  Which reduces to how much force per linear foot of circumferance?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 08/27/2012 01:50 am

1)  The cables, if that solution would be used, would be anchored around the edges for the most part.  I could see cables in the interior, holding the top to the bottom, but I think that gravity will tend to hold the mass of the dome and its atmo down.  Blowout problems would be in the structure.

The vertical component of the force of air pressure is quite substantial. Gravity will do nothing to cancel that out.

I didn't word this the best way. 

Consider a flat bottomed, air tight geodesic dome, inflated to Earth atmo.  It will sit on the surface of the planet.  That's what I was getting at.  The outward pressure, as you calculate, is pretty tremendous.  This is what needs to be accomodated.  Probably the structure would be nearly entirely self contained, but I haven't analyzed it sufficiently to have a good handle on the total amounts.

Quote
I have done a calculation for one acre.

Total force for 1 acre over 120.000.000 N on Himalaya pressure, double that for human needs, triple for sea level pressure.

I don't quite follow your reasoning.  First, due to my math inabilities, don't mix acres and newtons.  A one acre dome, has how much pressure per square foot?  Which reduces to how much force per linear foot of circumferance?

One acre = 43,560 sq ft, = 4046.856 sq m. Atmospheric pressure = 101,235.01 N/sq m = 2116.22 lbs/sq ft.
The total lifting force of the enclosed atmosphere = 410,047,767 N, or 92,182,405 Lbs.
Circumference of the dome = 225.509 m, or 739.8588 ft.
Dividing total lifting force by the circumference gives 1,818,321.28 N/m, or 124,594.59 lb/ft.

Edit: We've been through this before on another thread. The dome could be held down if you put a lot of water depth on top of it. Then gravity would work to restrain the forces. But remember, the force is the same as it would be on earth, but the weight of water is not. Or you could make a heavy dome out of Mars iron, that would give the strength needed, and smaller windows would not need to withstand so much total force. I think we should consider finding a deep cave and sealing it against air leaks to live in, initially. I don't know what to do for the greenhouses, except to make them small.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/27/2012 05:59 am
I don't know what to do for the greenhouses, except to make them small.

Thanks for the translation of the values. :) I am really only familiar with metrics.

For the greenhouses going small and going low pressure are the only options. I am not a biologist but think we can let crops grow and develop the necessary bacteria, funghi, and other ground live to develop humus at 10%, maybe even 5% of earth pressure. But even then forces on large structures are enormous and we would be limited with the possible size.

But that requires working in full martian pressure suits and/or automated machines or machines with pressure cabins for the operator.

For most of the calories needs and oxygen production growing algae in a bio reactor will probably be easier. They can provide all required nutrients, materials for a chemical industry and lifestock feed, if we ever get to that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/27/2012 06:04 am
Here is a link on radiation shielding:
http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/designer/needs.html#SHIELDING
Quote
A 4.5 meter thick layer of lunar soil may be able to provide adequate protection
. No need to worry about dome shielding. It won't be relevant.

That being said, the problems of radiation are often exaggerated. Turns out cosmic rays are probably not a problems for a 2 year mission and they may not be a problem for growing vegetables. Solar flares are different, more lethal but luckily more possible to shield from.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Mogster on 08/28/2012 10:43 am
I really don't think light for the greenhouses will be a problem on Mars. In a freshwater aquarium you can get good plant growth with a couple of 20w standard fluorescent daylight tubes, you can reduce the day length to eight hours or less, they still grow.

There's few clouds on Mars, nothing to obstruct your weakened sunlight.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 08/28/2012 11:43 am
I really don't think light for the greenhouses will be a problem on Mars. In a freshwater aquarium you can get good plant growth with a couple of 20w standard fluorescent daylight tubes, you can reduce the day length to eight hours or less, they still grow.

There's few clouds on Mars, nothing to obstruct your weakened sunlight.

Sand storms block sun light and last a long time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/28/2012 12:03 pm
Sand storms block sun light and last a long time.

How long? Plants on earth have to live through extended cloudy conditions, too.

The main obstacle I see is the cover of the greenhouse. How much of the sunlight passes through, when the cover is strong enough to withstand internal pressure? This is why mirror sheets may become necessary. We do not only want the plants to survive, but to give a maximum yield per covered space.


Edit: I have checked and in worst case dust storms can last quite long, several weeks. But it still should not pose serious problems with the plants. Of course they would not grow well during that time, but serious damage can be avoided by reducing the temperature, so they would not develop sick growth during the dark time.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 08/28/2012 08:13 pm
They could set the greenhouse up to use both artificial and reflected light.

Each greenhouse up to  10 feet tall inside and up to 20 feet wide, Length could be as long as they wanted them to be. How would this configuration hold up to the inside air pressure? Second question , how would it hold up if it was buried with enough Mars dirt for radiation protection.

Rows of each of these with tanks of water ( and as water storage ) in between them to pass reflected light in to them throw the side walls.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/29/2012 07:50 am
They could set the greenhouse up to use both artificial and reflected light.

Each greenhouse up to  10 feet tall inside and up to 20 feet wide, Length could be as long as they wanted them to be. How would this configuration hold up to the inside air pressure? Second question , how would it hold up if it was buried with enough Mars dirt for radiation protection.

Rows of each of these with tanks of water ( and as water storage ) in between them to pass reflected light in to them throw the side walls.

You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge fusion power plants for cheap electricity.

Even assuming very efficient solar panels and very efficient lighting you still need 10m² of solar panels for one m² of only mars level artificial lighting. And those fail during dust storms. Reflecting plastic sheets can be very thin and light, maybe 0,05 to 0,1 mm thick and perform much better. They would not stand up to wind on earth but will do fine in the thin martian air.

My best guess would be that the measure you propose would be feasible with Kevlar reenforced plastic sheets and Mt.Everest level pressure. The reflecting sheets would be outside the greenhouse as you want to use every bit of the expensive inside.

Radiation is none of my worries at all for the plants. I already mentioned that amazing documentary on Chernobyl, I saw recently on TV. The plants grow healthy on 1000 times normal earth level radiation. And they even take in radioactive particles from the soil which is much worse than radiation alone.

Even populations of mice and horses do well under these conditions.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/29/2012 01:50 pm
You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge fusion power plants for cheap electricity.

That's patently false.

You could have huge solar PV arrays, huge solar reflective arrays, or huge nuclear fission power plants.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/29/2012 02:09 pm
You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge fusion power plants for cheap electricity.

That's patently false.

You could have huge solar PV arrays, huge solar reflective arrays, or huge nuclear fission power plants.

You are short-quoting me. I mentioned the possibility of reflective arrays. I said, that solar PV arrays will do no good in a sand storm.

OK, there could be nuclear fission reactors too, but you will probably not get the fuel for them on mars.

And just to clarify the dimensions we are talking about. You will need app. 1kW/m² of electric power for some reasonable lighting of a greenhouse, that exceeds natural lighting on mars. For one acre that will be 4MW.

You can do that, I admit. But why on Earth (Mars) would you do that if simple reflective sheets will do the same at a very small fraction of the effort?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/29/2012 02:18 pm
You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge fusion power plants for cheap electricity.

That's patently false.

You could have huge solar PV arrays, huge solar reflective arrays, or huge nuclear fission power plants.

You are short-quoting me. I mentioned the possibility of reflective arrays. I said, that solar PV arrays will do no good in a sand storm.

OK, there could be nuclear fission reactors too, but you will probably not get the fuel for them on mars.

...

You can do that, I admit. But why on Earth (Mars) would you do that if simple reflective sheets will do the same at a very small fraction of the effort?

Actually you are short quoting, or short summarizing, yourself.  Plus you hold as truth, in that statement at least, that fusion power is possible, since it's the only option you present.  It isn't.  Maybe in twenty years, who knows? 

We could both agree on this:

Quote
You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge solar PV arrays or huge nuclear fission power plants.

I'm in favor of the reflective, passive solar solution, since they are likely to be less massive and less complex than either of the artificial lighting solutions.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/29/2012 03:38 pm
We could both agree on this:

Quote
You cannot have artificial lighting for the plants until you have huge solar PV arrays or huge nuclear fission power plants.

I'm in favor of the reflective, passive solar solution, since they are likely to be less massive and less complex than either of the artificial lighting solutions.

Yes, we can.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 08/29/2012 06:35 pm
Reflective surfaces can be made from many materials including metals.  So aluminium sheets, for example, produced on Mars are a possibility.  The first ones will have to come from Earth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 08/29/2012 06:45 pm
LEDs can approach 80% efficiency. The most efficient non-concentrating photocell is around 35% efficient, and let's say power conversion is 95% efficient, giving you around 27% total efficiency...

HOWEVER, photosynthesis only uses, say, about one third of the visible spectrum... much of the visible spectrum (for instance, green, which makes up a lot of visible light) is reflected or otherwise not used efficiently for photosynthesis. Thus, a highly efficient LED light system, combined with an efficient power conversion and photovoltaic array, can give you about the same photosynthesis per square meter as straight sunlight, but with the flexibility of allowing you to put the big solar array farm far away, with just a power cable bringing in the energy. The photosynthesis can occur inside a suitable pressure vessel, without needing high transparency like you would in a natural-light greenhouse. Also, if you discover geothermal energy on Mars or if you have another source of energy (wind, fission, radioactive decay heat, etc), you can use that energy as well.

And sure, there are dust-storms, but that affects natural light as well. Also, clouds occur on Earth, yet we can still grow plants just fine.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/29/2012 09:05 pm
LEDs can approach 80% efficiency. The most efficient non-concentrating photocell is around 35% efficient, and let's say power conversion is 95% efficient, giving you around 27% total efficiency...

HOWEVER, photosynthesis only uses, say, about one third of the visible spectrum... much of the visible spectrum (for instance, green, which makes up a lot of visible light) is reflected or otherwise not used efficiently for photosynthesis. Thus, a highly efficient LED light system, combined with an efficient power conversion and photovoltaic array, can give you about the same photosynthesis per square meter as straight sunlight, but with the flexibility of allowing you to put the big solar array farm far away, with just a power cable bringing in the energy. The photosynthesis can occur inside a suitable pressure vessel, without needing high transparency like you would in a natural-light greenhouse. Also, if you discover geothermal energy on Mars or if you have another source of energy (wind, fission, radioactive decay heat, etc), you can use that energy as well.

You make a valid and valuable point for producing light adapted to the needs of plants. This would reduce power requirements for artificial lighting.

Using available light instead of first converting it to electrical power and then back to light will still not be cost efficient IMO.

You mention locally produced pressure resistant vessels, probably from metal. Once that production capability is available on mars you can also produce rings of metal that take the pressure and space them so that relatively simple locally produced plastic sheets can take the pressure and allow light to enter directly.

About efficiency of solar cells. Technology and production facilities on mars will have to go a long way, before highly efficient solar cells can be produced. I suppose that thin sheets of plastic can be made on mars relatively easy and early. They can be used to produce printed solar cells with only the active material produced on earth and shipped to mars. That will give you Megawatts of output with kg amounts of material shipped from earth. I have used this kind of cells with efficiency values just over 10% for my calculation rather than high efficiency cells. The m² values don't really matter. System costs do and will be much lower using lower efficiency locally produced cells.

Local production of plastic sheets with a reflective coating will also be quite easy.

Quote
And sure, there are dust-storms, but that affects natural light as well. Also, clouds occur on Earth, yet we can still grow plants just fine.

I agree. Drop of light would affect both direct and indirect lighting but plants will be able to cope. Reducing the temperature will help them during that time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 08/29/2012 09:17 pm
When producing solar arrays on Mars mirrors can be used as concentrators.  The shiny material for the mirrors can be mined and refined locally.  The stands and backing for the solar cell panels can also be made as ISRU items.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 08/29/2012 10:09 pm
I hadn't realized that we already were on locally-produced structures... I think that's a little cart-before-the-horse.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/29/2012 11:13 pm
I hadn't realized that we already were on locally-produced structures... I think that's a little cart-before-the-horse.

I think we should always consider the cart before the horse.. That way we wouldnt be faced with a massive horse eating all our hay and no money for even an itty-bitty cart. ;)

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 08/29/2012 11:52 pm
I hadn't realized that we already were on locally-produced structures... I think that's a little cart-before-the-horse.

I think we should always consider the cart before the horse.. That way we wouldnt be faced with a massive horse eating all our hay and no money for even an itty-bitty cart. ;)


Granted. :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/30/2012 06:20 am
I hadn't realized that we already were on locally-produced structures... I think that's a little cart-before-the-horse.

I assumed you were speaking of locally produced structures. It seems odd for me to assume you are talking Megawatt of Solar power flown in from earth. Especially high grade solar arrays that need to be fixed on well aimed stands for efficiency as opposed to simple very light weight printed plastic sheet arrays which you may simply lay out on the ground without need of installation at least on locations near the equator and initially.

I also assumed when you were speaking of a not transparent pressure vessel that you were talking of locally produced. On earth you can produce a Kevlar reenforced transparent pressure vessel which is difficult to produce on mars without an extensive infrastructure.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/30/2012 06:24 am
When producing solar arrays on Mars mirrors can be used as concentrators.  The shiny material for the mirrors can be mined and refined locally.  The stands and backing for the solar cell panels can also be made as ISRU items.

Using mirrors to enhance efficiency of solar cells is good only on fixtures that track the sun on its path. Rarely used even on Earth because of complexity. I don't see them likely on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/30/2012 07:11 am
Re megawatt of solar power from earth,

Maybe we can come up with a more quantitative number.. what is the efficiency with which we could expect to convert a calorie of electricity into a calorie of human food, and how many calories per person per day etc.

Or perhaps it would be better to stick to watts. A average guy uses say 2000 calories/day.. a calorie is about 4kilojoules. 4-8 million joules.. um.. so 50-100 watts? Lets say we need a 100 watts in terms of food per person. We need to multiply that by our efficiency at converting a joule of electricity into a joule of food energy. Any takers?

(I still do like the idea of using light directly.. could fibre optics be more convenient than solar cells or reflectors if we wish to take the light under ground?)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/30/2012 07:32 am
(I still do like the idea of using light directly.. could fibre optics be more convenient than solar cells or reflectors if we wish to take the light under ground?)

I do as well. I really don't see any viable alternative to that. Not initially and most likely not later. We would need to test out on earth, at what level of pressure plants can grow in soil including the required bacteria and ground life. If you can go down to less than 100mbar the structures become much easier to build.

Fibre optics? Not really, try to imagine fibre optics to lighten acres of greenhouses. Maybe to lighten underground shelters for human habitation with much lower light density.

Smaller windows and mirror systems would be more likely for greenhouses. Unfortunately they would need complex active sun tracking mirrors so not suitable for early systems.

All options considered we will need extensive researach on earth to find optimum solutions. It would be money well spent, if we are talking about more than a 4-6 man expedition.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/30/2012 09:16 am
Here is a link mentioning fibre optics for grow lights.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/growing-crops-without-sun-or-soil.html
Oh.. and here is another that actually mentions some numbers.
http://www.asi.org/adb/06/07/02/01/09/01/fiber-optic-lighting.html

I think the advantage of the fibre optics in that first example was distributing the light throughout a volume of dense foliage. That could be particularly important for mars where we want to minimize volume and surface area while not baking our garden.

Things that seem far too complex for efficient farming on earth could be competitive on mars, especially initially. Initially everything we send will cost something like its weight in gold so the difference between a hundred frames for mirrors or a hundred frames with tiny motors isn't great, nor would the cost of illuminating a volume with an intricate net of fibreoptics. Even if it is acres and acres it is only a fraction of the cost of getting it there.

To carry the argument much further we need to find numbers. Intuition can fool you. Yeah, to continue this argument someone will have to build the thing. :)

(edit)
I just realized I hadn't really been taking into account that a leaky greenhouse may even be desirable on mars where you may be deliberately passing martian C02 through the system. I had sort of been stuck in a moon mindset where anything you do loses almost irreplaceable volatiles. Nor have I established how low pressure we can go so my intuition is probably way off in any case.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 08/30/2012 09:27 am
To carry the argument much further we need to find numbers. Intuition can fool you.

Agree.

I looked into the first link. It may be very efficient as it maximises use of volume, not just one level.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/30/2012 01:58 pm
I hadn't realized that we already were on locally-produced structures... I think that's a little cart-before-the-horse.

I assumed you were speaking of locally produced structures. It seems odd for me to assume you are talking Megawatt of Solar power flown in from earth. Especially high grade solar arrays that need to be fixed on well aimed stands for efficiency as opposed to simple very light weight printed plastic sheet arrays which you may simply lay out on the ground without need of installation at least on locations near the equator and initially.

I also assumed when you were speaking of a not transparent pressure vessel that you were talking of locally produced. On earth you can produce a Kevlar reenforced transparent pressure vessel which is difficult to produce on mars without an extensive infrastructure.


There are not going to be any locally produced structures until people first, get up there; second, get established; third, launch the production machinery from Earth; fourth, start producing local structures.  During steps one, two and three, those people will need to eat, and establish the first gardens.

To me, ignoring the first three steps and just speculating on what comes after the fourth one is not the best use of time.

Point is, those first structures and reflective mirror arrays or PV arrays will have to be launched from Earth.

Lets say we need a 100 watts in terms of food per person.

Let's not.  Granting your numbers for the nonce, you are counting only the corn, and have not accounted for the cob, or the rest of the plant.  The energy needed will have to grow the entire plant, off of which you get one or two cobs.  The principle holds for potatoes and other foods.  You can't pick just the most "efficient" plant, since food variety would be assumed, without evidence to the contrary, to be of equal importance to the photon conversion efficiency of growing that food.

Initially everything we send will cost something like its weight in gold so the difference between a hundred frames for mirrors or a hundred frames with tiny motors isn't great, nor would the cost of illuminating a volume with an intricate net of fibreoptics. Even if it is acres and acres it is only a fraction of the cost of getting it there.

Gotta fight ya on this one too.

Who, pray tell, will fix those tiny motors, or clean out the sand from the mechanism after a week long sandstorm?  Plus, you can't say that about the "fraction of the cost", without a mass comparison to back up your assertion.  Obviously you know this in general:

Quote
To carry the argument much further we need to find numbers.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChuckC on 08/30/2012 02:18 pm
Probably the best way to look at this would be with skeptivcal optimism.

That is to be skeptical about it but optimistic that may be they will pull it off. In some ways the basic concept as to how to fund it actually makes sense. Making it a one way trip does reduce the funding since you don’t need to send return fuel.

The best choices for crew would be married heterosexual coups. This both eliminates some of the natural tension of an unmarried crew and it would help set up the best conditions for a second generation. Lets face it the worst possible end to this would be to watch these people die one by one particularly of old age till there is no one left. If you send married heterosexual coups their kids could keep the colony going and growing.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/30/2012 02:51 pm
The best choices for crew would be married heterosexual coups.

Coups by married heterosexual couples happen all the time.  Heck, in 2008 the Obamas took the White House.  Now the Romneys are trying to take it away from them...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 08/31/2012 01:45 am
Ho John Fornaro:

I don't think reliability or dust would be a problem. The thing would be bagged. If one in a hundred failed, so what?

Re 100 watt per person. You seem to be implying I assumed 100watts from the power source or that the ratio was trivial. That is the opposite of what I said.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/31/2012 05:45 am
I boldly dare to bring this thread back on topic.

http://spaceindustrynews.com/mars-one-receives-first-funding-for-2023-manned-mission-to-mars/1472/

Seems they've gotten some sponsors. It's a ragtag bunch. Wonder what comes next.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Atlan on 08/31/2012 01:26 pm
For a non-engineer as myself most of the elements of this mission seem at least possible to function. But i simply cant imagine how the rover could look like. Is it even possible to pull a dragon with 2,5 t cargo around with a solar powered rover? How big the rover has to be for that and how to land it? Will the dragons be on wheels? Or will the rover be more like ATHLETE?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 08/31/2012 03:21 pm
I think subterenes will be of huge utility for settlers.  Mainly for the pressure containment concerns listed.  Has nothing to do with Mars 1 though.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 08/31/2012 03:53 pm
The best choices for crew would be married heterosexual coups.

Coups by married heterosexual couples happen all the time.  Heck, in 2008 the Obamas took the White House.  Now the Romneys are trying to take it away from them...
This is supposed to draw interest from viewers.  Send 2 men and 4 or 6 women.  Everyone good looking.  That might help them to afford a resupply...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/31/2012 04:41 pm
Ho John Fornaro:

I don't think reliability or dust would be a problem. The thing would be bagged. If one in a hundred failed, so what?

Re 100 watt per person. You seem to be implying I assumed 100watts from the power source or that the ratio was trivial. That is the opposite of what I said.

Kelvin: Not really intending to imply anything.  I'm trying to draw conclusions, and maybe you didn't present enough info to do so.

Your tentative figure, 100 W/person, I took to mean the wattage equivalent of the calories per person per day.  Is that correct?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 08/31/2012 05:21 pm
I really don't think light for the greenhouses will be a problem on Mars. In a freshwater aquarium you can get good plant growth with a couple of 20w standard fluorescent daylight tubes, you can reduce the day length to eight hours or less, they still grow.

There's few clouds on Mars, nothing to obstruct your weakened sunlight.

Sand storms block sun light and last a long time.

Maybe the first thing they should land on Mars probably should be a small reactor.
Second option if the landers are methane powered is reuse their fuel tanks as storage for ISRU produced methane and lox to power fuel cells.
This also would allow sending a MAV so you'll have to option to leave Mars if things don't work out.

As for food for the first colonists land several tons of dehydrated food before hand.
Pack every bit of free space in the undeployed habs with it.

I still think a Bigelow module mounted on some sorta low cost EDL system would make the best living modules.
They would be more expensive then Dragon capsules but the extra cost would more then offset by their lower cost per cubic meter.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 09/01/2012 04:45 am
Your tentative figure, 100 W/person, I took to mean the wattage equivalent of the calories per person per day.  Is that correct?

Yes. :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 09/01/2012 02:14 pm
Good.  That's what I thought.  Using two foods for the example, corn and potatoes, you can then start an estimate for how many watts does it take to get that 100 watts of corn or potato food per person per day.

In the case of corn, you have to expend a lot of watts to grow the corn plant.  If you tentatively assume that the energy needed for growing food and for growing the plant itself is the same, you can compare the mass of the plant to the mass of the food. In the case of the corn in my garden, and just guessing, the plant weighs about a hundred times more than the kernels of corn that are edible.  For a potato, the plant:food ratio is much better.

For the sake of nutritional variety, just say for the moment that you have to have these two plants for a "complete" diet.  You can already see where I'm headed with this line of questioning: How many watts do you need per person per day, just for the growing of food?  A lot.

It's a complicated model.  The plants need varying amounts of light (wattage) as they grow.  You need to accomodate the wattage for the freezers, or whatever canning process will be used for food storage, since plants have harvesting cycles.  And, what started this sidetrack to the discussion, you need to factor in all the wattage losses along the way, depending on whether you go solar reflective, PV panels, or fission reactor.  Not to mention launch mass to create that first garden.

Note that I don't guess what this wattage number would end up being.  I just point out that 100W/person/day, is not enough.

So Kelvin; going back to your first statement:

Lets say we need a 100 watts in terms of food per person. We need to multiply that by our efficiency at converting a joule of electricity into a joule of food energy. Any takers?

That's why I said:

Let's not.  Granting your numbers [the 100W number only] for the nonce, you are counting only the corn, and have not accounted for the cob, or the rest of the plant.  The energy needed will have to grow the entire plant, off of which you get one or two cobs.  The principle holds for potatoes and other foods.  You can't pick just the most "efficient" plant, since food variety would be assumed, without evidence to the contrary, to be of equal importance to the photon conversion efficiency of growing that food.

Agreed?

Should this get a new thread?  Mars-One hasn't given any credible public presentation that they have considered a garden just yet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 09/01/2012 03:43 pm
100 watthour = 85.984 522 786 Calorie [nutritional]

So 100 wattday would be a 2064 Calorie a day diet, if you could eat the watts.

You could actually look at it another way, by comparing field crops on earth to Calories produced. I don't want to do the work to get it right, but one acre of corn receives about 4000 kwh (~4000 m^2 at 1 kw/m^2)sunlight per hour of sun shine. Discounting the energy needed to produce fertilizer, assuming 6 hour (very short) sunshine days and an 8 week (very short) growing season. Multiply that out and get

4000 kWhr * 6 hr/day * 7 days/week * 8 weeks/growing season = 1.3 GWhr

to produce 150 bushels of corn.

Hope you like feed corn. I'd rather eat potatoes myself.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: randomly on 09/01/2012 03:54 pm
Sunlight conversion efficiency of chlorophyll is somewhere between 0.5%-1.0% depending on the chlorophyll variant and conditions. Absorption peaks are fairly narrow so if you are generating the light and can pick your emission wavelengths you should be able to do considerably better.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 09/01/2012 08:59 pm

4000 kWhr * 6 hr/day * 7 days/week * 8 weeks/growing season = 1.3 GWhr

to produce 150 bushels of corn.

Hope you like feed corn. I'd rather eat potatoes myself.

You did the calculation, that led me to quote the need of MW. You can say 4000 m² x 1kW sunlight coming in will need 4 MW. Actually much more because of conversion losses but you may be able to partly compensate that by using lighting tailored for the needs of the plants.

The weight of the potatoes would be higher, but only because they contain a lot more water than corn. Doing the calculations for different crops and how many calories that actually is will give the best performers. But we will always be in the same ballpark I am sure. Corn should be a very good performer, as it is frequently used for energy production.

We may ad Rapeseed to the mix for oil. Rapeseed is also used as energy plant so probably quite efficient.

But I really believe the basis will be algae instead, probably genetically engineered.

Sunlight conversion efficiency of chlorophyll is somewhere between 0.5%-1.0% depending on the chlorophyll variant and conditions. Absorption peaks are fairly narrow so if you are generating the light and can pick your emission wavelengths you should be able to do considerably better.

That may help, it will get plant efficiency up. But I still believe using sunlight directly will be more efficient. Bioreactors growing algae will not have the same problems with pressure as greenhouses so will make it easier to use sunlight directly.

Ask the Japanese for Chlorella recipes. ;D

That planthouse in shelves is interesting, but only for some kinds of vegetables, good for variety but not for calorie production.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 09/01/2012 11:20 pm


Quote
You did the calculation, that led me to quote the need of MW. You can say 4000 m² x 1kW sunlight coming in will need 4 MW. Actually much more because of conversion losses but you may be able to partly compensate that by using lighting tailored for the needs of the plants.

Not really. I used actual Earth based values for sunlight and crop yield. Yes, lighting tailored for the needs of the plants might provide more efficient plant growth, but it would take power needed to generate that light. I think we could efficiently utilize the available sun light but of course specialty crops might be grown in a controlled environment. Opium poppys for medicinal use, for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2002/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_US/st99_1_033_033.pdf

Just for information, 150 bushels of corn, when converted to ethanol yields about 8.4 mega Calories. On a 2000 Calorie/day diet, that is more than 4000 person-days of food energy. Rice, wheat and sorghum provide more nutritional energy than corn, though, not that I’m against a little ethanol after a hard day. Then consider too the opportunities for food crops genetically modified for the Mars environment.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 09/02/2012 03:07 am
Should this get a new thread?  Mars-One hasn't given any credible public presentation that they have considered a garden just yet.

Yeah, probably should. I dont want to start it because I might not have much more to add.

The discussion above is what I meant and has produced two approaches for putting bounds on the energy requirements:

* Energy to grow an acre of corn using sunlight (we can do at least this well)
* Fundamental efficiency of photosynthesis - possibly improvable with selective wavelengths (we can do at most this well)

(a wacky alternative could be if we could power life other than by photosynthesis, e.g. if it turned out more efficient to create a sugar or alcohol through non-biological means and fed this to some bacteria.. I have no idea if any such mechanism exists so Im not pushing it)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 09/02/2012 07:38 am
Transferred this post to the new thread.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29820.0
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 09/02/2012 09:48 am
Looks like Aero has started a Mars ISRU for food thread here
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29820.0

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 09/02/2012 10:00 am
Looks like Aero has started a Mars ISRU for food thread here
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29820.0

Thanks.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: DaveH62 on 09/05/2012 04:02 am
Would orbital solar arrays be an option? Not having to land mass would save a lot of energy. Are we close to being able to transmit from orbit, and would it be easier around Mars?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: DaveH62 on 09/05/2012 04:04 am
Would orbital solar arrays be an option? Not having to land mass would save a lot of energy. Are we close to being able to transmit from orbit, and would it be easier around Mars?
Edit: I think passive systems for food growth are most promising, but supplemental energy for manufacturing and comfort will be critical.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: aero on 09/07/2012 03:24 am
They've got to have power. Just opening and closing the airlocks will take power and solar power has worked on Mars for the rovers. How compact and light weight can solar be made for launch to a fixed Mars base location?

I'm thinking that a solar power plant near the Mars equator could be laid out flat on the ground if the images from the MSL can be considered valid for the selected location. If that would work then delivery of a packaged power station could use exactly the same technique used for the MSL. If the power station used rolled up solar panels, then all the colonists would need to do would be to unroll it and plug it in. (Maybe kick a few rocks out of the way and move some sand.) The cost of the station should not be nearly as much as the MSL, but how much would the rocket ride cost, and the solar power plant? How much power could it generate, limited in size to the same mass as the Curiosity rover?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 09/07/2012 02:26 pm
Areostationary orbit is just 17000km above the surface of Mars, compared to 36000km for geostationary orbit. That means your receiver array can be just 17^2/36^2=22% the area of the equivalent one on Earth.

Even so, I think regular surface solar probably wins, here, in sheer simplicity (and expandability).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 09/10/2012 03:37 pm
As with Mars Direct the Mars One scenerio trys to directly avoid any use of or need for "infrastructure" which I think is a mistake.

Orbiting power arrays actually make a lot of sense IF you can duel purpose them to start off with. Have them built in Earth orbit and have them drag themselves and useful payload to Mars for pre-positioning.
See:
POWOW: POWer WithOut Wires
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20000074095

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20000074093

http://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_20020030127

http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/2008-EnergizingTheFutureOfSpaceExploration.pdf

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20020030127_2002034907.pdf

Note that using lasers instead of microwaves greatly decreases the required ground side down-link :)

Randy

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 09/12/2012 01:14 am
Solar power from orbit.

Send a trans hab from Earth using SEP. Once in the right Mars orbit send the power down ( from the SEP's solar panels ) to a receiver station for the bases use.

The SEP powered hab could be used as a return craft if crew need to return to Earth. Would need to bring extra propellant for the return trip and would still need an ascent craft form the surface for crew.

I do agree they will need surface power also, more than on type. Also more than on means of storing the power for night and power outs from the source(s). The type of batteries that they would use should be of the type that can be refurbished.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 09/18/2012 08:58 pm
With the unknown about if we can live off world and if there would be enough money to send more crew to Mars after the first crew.

When there is the ability to send crew back to Earth.

Send First 4 crew to Mars.
With enough food for the two year stay.
Experiment with growing food ( other things to take place too ).
If all goes well in the first and second year send more equipment for a colony and multiple sets of 4 crews.

Mars One will need like other to work with other teams ( private and government ) to see the reality of the first human on Mars.

What would the reasonable dry mass be for an ascender for LMO and for HMO be? How much fuel will they need ( Using CH4/LOX )? What would the take off thrust need to be? ISRU fuel to be used.

Could be used for a sample return mission while testing out the system.

Edit:
About .13% O2 is in the Mars air.
It is possible to separate the N2 from the O2 ( 90% O2 ). N2 is also needed by the crew.
It looks as if this process would also remove CO2, other methods are available to remove CO2.
http://www.airproducts.ca/aquaculture/VSA_howItWorks.htm

Without a greenhouse or the need of a back up system this looks like a possible way to get the needed O2 from the Mars air for crew.

Any other possible methods?

CO2 can be removed by compressing the air till the CO2 becomes a liquid.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 10/09/2012 05:50 am
Would China be a possible source for funding and hardware? private or government

How do their plans for Mars fit in?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 11/12/2012 12:04 am
Mars One are intending to use a 5m diameter variant of Dragon with ~25m2 of volume. Their first launch of this capsule is planned for January 2016 (arriving Mars October 2016) with a cargo of 2,500 kg of "supplies".

So I emailed them on Friday:

Quote
Greetings Mars-One,

January 2016 is only three years one month and a couple of weeks away.

Can SpaceX really have the 5m Dragon variant ready to go by then?

It seems unlikely; they have a reputation for late delivery of new developments.

In case not, what's the contingency?

...

Regards,

Arb


Their reply yesterday (Sunday) is interesting and informative:

Quote
Dear Arb,

Thanks you for your email.

We have proposed to our contacts at SpaceX to delay the mission by two years, but they insist that they can launch the first one in 2016.

Two contingency solutions could be to send a 3.8m Dragon or to delay by two years. Of course we take the occurrence of either contingency into account in our financial planning.

Don't forget that they already have a working capsule and they already have the rockets to slow the capsule down and land on Mars, for the escape system of the Dragon capsule.

Regards,

Mars One
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: spectre9 on 11/12/2012 12:20 am
So has Mars One made a down payment on 5m Dragon or is this something that SpaceX is already working on?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 11/12/2012 04:08 am
Latest news bit listed on their site.
10/18/2012, "Mars One plans human settlement on the Red Planet by 2023"
http://www.sen.com/feature/mars-one-plans-for-human-settlement-on-mars.html

How are they building the tunnels for the (garden?) inflatables?
Concrete 3D printing?
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0hHsMvqHQo)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 11/12/2012 07:52 am
Mars One are intending to use a 5m diameter variant of Dragon with ~25m2 of volume. Their first launch of this capsule is planned for January 2016 (arriving Mars October 2016) with a cargo of 2,500 kg of "supplies".

As I said on page two of this thread:
Quote
Supplies, tools, tabs [sic, I meant habs], rovers, power supply, spares, mars suits, etc. will mass more than 40 tonnes (probably much more). The one thing that is needed to gain even a modicum of credibility is a manifest with mass estimate.

40 tonnes or more is going to be difficult to fit into 8 Red Dragons!

8 of these 5m Dragons would land 20 tonnes payload, which is still not enough for a base.

Even if SpaceX can have a 5m Dragon ready by January 2016 it seems a stretch for useful payload to be ready in time.

I just don't see how their published plans fit together. They still have not published anything other than generalities. To gain credibility they need to publish mass estimates for the initial base and at least an outline of how it will be constructed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 11/12/2012 08:07 pm
To gain credibility they need to publish mass estimates for the initial base and at least an outline of how it will be constructed.

No they don't.  It's a private effort.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: butters on 11/12/2012 08:22 pm
Wait, so SpaceX is developing a 5m Red Dragon, and it will be flight-ready in 2016?!? That doesn't seem very likely to me...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 11/12/2012 09:03 pm
To gain credibility they need to publish mass estimates for the initial base and at least an outline of how it will be constructed.

No they don't.  It's a private effort.


They are openly advertising for sponsors on their website, sponsors are usually concerned that what they are sponsoring is credible - not just in a private briefing but to the wider public.

When people say
Quote
Going darker, this is a huge SCAM!
they the value of your sponsorship is worthless.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: neilh on 11/12/2012 11:39 pm
How many engineers does Mars One have?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 11/13/2012 12:09 am
To gain credibility they need to publish mass estimates for the initial base and at least an outline of how it will be constructed.

No they don't.  It's a private effort.


They are openly advertising for sponsors on their website, sponsors are usually concerned that what they are sponsoring is credible - not just in a private briefing but to the wider public.

Mike, I hear that. People ally themselves with other groups of people.  Often they have many of the same beliefs, and support one another's aims.  All fine and dandy, in principle.  Part of a business bootstrapping is selling investors on the sizzle, that is, the idea of a new company.

Mars-One has done a certain amount of that already; consider their list of sponsors to date.

So one question which could be answered is: are they a for-profit corporation, or are they a non-for-profit foundation?  IDK, but it bears on the speculation here, and what they may or may not advertise.  Including mass estimates.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Lars_J on 11/13/2012 04:12 am
I'm thinking that SpaceX (if they cared) would be mighty surprised by what Mars One is claiming.

A 5m diameter Dragon? I believe it when I hear of it directly from SpaceX. Not before. And the 2016 date just cements this even further into the "making it up/wishful thinking" territory. They'll be lucky to have an operational Crew Dragon by then, so serious work on such a vehicle would have to have started by now. It's fantasy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 11/13/2012 04:16 am
I'm thinking that SpaceX (if they cared) would be mighty surprised by what Mars One is claiming.

A 5m diameter Dragon? I believe it when I hear of it directly from SpaceX. Not before. And the 2016 date just cements this even further into the "making it up/wishful thinking" territory. They'll be lucky to have an operational Crew Dragon by then, so serious work on such a vehicle would have to have started by now. It's fantasy.

The Falcon Heavy will need something to lift.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 11/13/2012 04:27 am
I doubt FH would be required for a 5 meter dragon to orbit since V1.0 f9 can get the 3.6 m dragon to ISS.  Mars however...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 11/14/2012 09:55 pm
So one question which could be answered is: are they a for-profit corporation, or are they a non-for-profit foundation?  IDK, but it bears on the speculation here, and what they may or may not advertise.  Including mass estimates.

Mars One became a not for profit foundation (''Stichting'' under Dutch law) in early October 2012.

Reference: http://marsonefans.com/showthread.php/596-Can-this-project-be-trusted?p=3643&viewfull=1#post3643 (http://marsonefans.com/showthread.php/596-Can-this-project-be-trusted?p=3643&viewfull=1#post3643).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 11/14/2012 11:35 pm
New Mars One email update today
(http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=24d8ce153d9cbd2546aca36de&id=6ccf48ab14&e=edcfb2cd24 (http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=24d8ce153d9cbd2546aca36de&id=6ccf48ab14&e=edcfb2cd24)):
Quote
What’s keeping us busy?

The last month, Mars One has been busy with the following:

Preparations for the Conceptual Design Studies: In close cooperation with our Advisors and the supplier companies mentioned on our website, we are preparing statements of work for the Conceptual Designs Studies which will be awarded to our Suppliers.

Preparation for the Astronaut Selection Program: We are preparing the requirement and the legal documents needed for the selection process. We are also designing the process that will help us to find the best individuals and compose the best groups of astronauts from the many applications anticipated from around the world.

Completion of the business plan: We’re preparing to send the business plan to potential investors who have indicated they are interested in Mars One.
Media attention in Europe (emphasis on the Netherlands): due to a large article in a Dutch newspaper, Mars One was featured in several national TV programs, radio shows and quite a few newspapers and websites.
   
Three New Advisors

Three new advisers recently joined the Mars One advisory committee:
Dr. John D. Rummel (USA) in the field of Planetary Protection
Dr. John W. Traphagan (USA), a cultural anthropologist
Dr. James R. Kass (Canada), expert in astronaut training and the psychology of long-duration isolation.

On our website you can find an overview of the Mars One advisors and ambassadors.
   
New Silver Sponsor

We’re pleased to announce a new Silver Sponsor: Aleph Objects, Inc.
Aleph Objects (USA) develops and manufactures a product line of rapid prototyping 3D printers.

A full web sub-site will be posted soon, providing details as to how 3D printers might play an important role in life on Mars.

Interested in becoming a corporate sponsor? Please contact us at [email protected].
   
Mars One Children’s T-shirts

Looking for a original children's gift for the upcoming holiday season? We have added Mars One Children's T-shirts to our merchandise collection.

Did you already check out our Facebook photo album with pictures of Mars One supporters with their Mars One items? If you'd like to add a picture to the album, please send it to [email protected]. Thanks for all your support!

The key takeaway: Paid for conceptual design studies

I've ordered T-shirts for my children for Christmas :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 11/19/2012 09:42 pm
The Uncharted Territories of Mars: Is Science Enough?

A July 2012 Huffington Post article that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. It has some interesting thoughts on differences between astronaut profiles for current space missions and Mars One:

Quote
Currently, candidates chosen for space missions fit the profile of "...adults who take directions and follow rules like an exceptionally well-behaved child..." Upon reflection, one begins to realize that the Mars One voyage is more than just a mission, but a journey to the unknown. While current missions have a specific set of training and preparation that lend themselves to a period of time that has both a beginning and an end point, this is not the case for Mars One. The mission of this crew will not end once the journey is over: rather it begins when they have landed. And while they can train as best they can before they take off, the journey itself is the true training ground. Once they land, they will be faced with environments and situations that we, in reality, have no concrete idea of.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norbert-kraft/mars-travel_b_1646458.html (http://"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norbert-kraft/mars-travel_b_1646458.html")
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rugoz on 11/25/2012 02:13 pm
The business model sounds quite interesting actually, on condition that they can keep up the hype for long enough and the earnings from selling broadcasting rights are sufficient for financing multiple mars missions, which I seriously doubt.

But what if viewership is below expectations and the company goes bankrupt? No supply flights anymore? Government to the rescue?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 11/25/2012 08:29 pm
The business model sounds quite interesting actually, on condition that they can keep up the hype for long enough and the earnings from selling broadcasting rights are sufficient for financing multiple mars missions, which I seriously doubt.

But what if viewership is below expectations and the company goes bankrupt? No supply flights anymore? Government to the rescue?
They will need another party to develop an ascender off the Mars surface and a way to reuse the in space vehicle. Also a means for the crew to land back on Earth.

1 ) first crew on Mars
     A ) set up base
     B ) test it out
     C ) test green house and growing methods
     D ) see how well crew can live on Mars

2a ) If all goes well crew stays on Mars and waits for added colonist to join them.

If they can not for now live on Mars then they return to Earth.

2b ) Second crew arrives to take over and does some exploring and advances off world means for future colonist to live on Mars.

Mars- One main thing for us to look at is their deep space vehicle.
That to me should be the primary investment as it is what can be use for Mars exploration and colonist type missions ( hedge our bet either way ).

So if they are looking for investors that only have a small amount per year or per month then I believe they should be looking at the deep space vehicle for that type of investor ( $20 to $100 range ).

The tv show would be for the larger investor, they regular investors for tv shows. And use the tv show to attract the smaller investors as well as larger investors. Plus all the other benefits of having the tv show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rugoz on 11/25/2012 09:38 pm
Quote
The will need another party to develop an ascender off the Mars surface and a way to reuse the in space vehicle. Also a means for the crew to land back on Earth.

And this other party is gonna be who?

I must admit though, as much as I hate reality tv, the marketing possibilites are certainly there. For example tv shows: Gardening on mars, cooking on mars, do-it-yourself on mars...etc.  ;)

So will mars one broadcast in HDTV?  ;D
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 11/25/2012 09:51 pm
Quote
The will need another party to develop an ascender off the Mars surface and a way to reuse the in space vehicle. Also a means for the crew to land back on Earth.

And this other party is gonna be who?

I must admit though, as much as I hate reality tv, the marketing possibilites are certainly there. For example tv shows: Gardening on mars, cooking on mars, do-it-yourself on mars...etc.  ;)

So will mars one broadcast in HDTV?  ;D
HDTV would make the most sense.

Other party is who ever is interested in a crew to Mars. If all they have to do is add in the return capability it would lower their capital investment needs. They would need to test the system out first. That would give us a sample return. Those interested in a sample return mission could invest in the return capability. The tv show if done right could help this out. Without the return capability I don't see how they could be able to send anyone to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rugoz on 11/25/2012 10:40 pm
Quote
HDTV would make the most sense.

Well if its technically feasible...

Quote
Other party is who ever is interested in a crew to Mars.

Governments could be junior partners  ;D

I really like the business idea, selling the excitement. Totally haven't thought about that before, was always convinced that space tourism is the only way to do commercial spaceflight. A media company pulling off a mars colony, I'm gonna crap my pants, capitalism at its worst ;)

Of course a lot depends on whether spacex can provide the red dragon and falcon heavy at low cost. Apart from thalesalenia for the living module, who is potentially doing the mars transit vehicle, also spacex?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 11/25/2012 11:38 pm
Quote
HDTV would make the most sense.

Well if its technically feasible...

Quote
Other party is who ever is interested in a crew to Mars.

Governments could be junior partners  ;D

I really like the business idea, selling the excitement. Totally haven't thought about that before, was always convinced that space tourism is the only way to do commercial spaceflight. A media company pulling off a mars colony, I'm gonna crap my pants, capitalism at its worst ;)

Of course a lot depends on whether spacex can provide the red dragon and falcon heavy at low cost. Apart from thalesalenia for the living module, who is potentially doing the mars transit vehicle, also spacex?

HDTV is not a problem.

Launches could be done by Atlas V, Delta IV, and Ariane 5. It could just cost a little more in launch cost.

There are U.S. space companies that can make the deep space vehicle and the EDS.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 11/26/2012 01:23 am
The key takeaway: Paid for conceptual design studies
I don't think so:
Quote
In close cooperation with our Advisors and the supplier companies mentioned on our website, we are preparing statements of work for the Conceptual Designs Studies which will be awarded to our Suppliers.
In other words, they are defining what the conceptual studies would cover. That means they haven't actually signed contracts yet, and gives no indication that they have secured funding for them.

Stepping back a bit:
They claim to be launching something in January 2016 and are talking about starting conceptual design studies soon. In other words, they have 3 years to raise funding, secure a launch and design and build everything. It's safe to assume none of their suppliers are going to start doing serious work until hundreds of millions of dollars in funding have been secured.

They claim SpaceX has assured them that a 5 meter Dragon and F9H can be available for the 2016 window, but even if SpaceX believes that, there must be substantial lead time that only starts when real money is on the table.

In reality, this is an absurdly compressed timeline even if they start today. As a point of reference, Mars Pathfinder went from selection to flight in roughly 3 years. Selection by NASA most likely represents a significantly later stage of development compared where Mars One is at, since the conceptual design has to be pretty complete before even submitting the proposal.

My takeaway: ::)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rugoz on 11/28/2012 07:19 am
Well if they get the funding pushing everything back 2 years won't ruin the party  ;)

I see a fundamental flaw in their business plan though, they don't have a proper exit strategy as soon as the first colonists are on mars. Obviously stopping the supplies and letting the colonists die is a no-go for any investor who has a reputation to lose, so they'd have to resupply the colony until the colonists die of old age, i.e. possibly for 30+ years. Which investor is going to subscribe to that?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 12/04/2012 10:31 pm
I like the unrollable solar arrays. Good way to get a heck of a lot of solar power in a very lightweight and small package.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 12/04/2012 11:27 pm
Well if they get the funding pushing everything back 2 years won't ruin the party  ;)

I see a fundamental flaw in their business plan though, they don't have a proper exit strategy as soon as the first colonists are on mars. Obviously stopping the supplies and letting the colonists die is a no-go for any investor who has a reputation to lose, so they'd have to resupply the colony until the colonists die of old age, i.e. possibly for 30+ years. Which investor is going to subscribe to that?
That is why I suggest having a partner to develop an ascender and a way to use the MTV for the return home. If they do get their concept going far enough then their are several governments that have wanted to send crew to Mars. So it could at that time be in their interest to invest in the added equipment needed. Also they might want to fund the first crew as an exploration crew that would return. That would reduce risk and give us a better understanding if we can have a colony on Mars. They would first finish the Mars outpost, work on an experimental green house, and then add the exploration part in.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 12/08/2012 12:27 pm
So the escape velocity for Mars is just over twice the Moon's. Coming up with an ascender which could achieve that seems quite doable then, given the general improvements in technology since the Apolla era.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: grondilu on 01/09/2013 06:15 am
It seems that they are about to start the selection process for martian-colonists:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/mars-astronaut-requirements/
http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-selection/251-do-i-qualify-to-apply

This thing is insane, imho.   There are things in life that you can dream of and you think it would be cool if you could do them, but once you are contronted to the actual possibility, you just go:  "Naahh, I can't do that, it's silly".

If it succeeds, and by this I mean if they manage to find a crew both intelligent (being smart is part of the requirement for selection) and crazy enough to actually do it, it will be tragic.

Somehow it makes me think of the sad death of Frantz Reichelt jumping off the Eiffel tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBN3xfGrx_U

Notice how he hesitates before making the last step of his life.  His heart knew it was a bad idea.

I guess the mars-one crew will have the same kind of hesitation before entering the rocket that will be supposed to make them leave Earth for good.  Hopefully they'll make the right choice.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rugoz on 01/09/2013 10:08 am
Lol, I love that vid. Franz Reichelt is the man ;D. I wonder why nobody told him to use a dummy, for the lulz I guess  ;D.

Regarding mars one, looking forward to watch the austronaut selection process on tv. Gonna be fun  :).

Quote
So the escape velocity for Mars is just over twice the Moon's. Coming up with an ascender which could achieve that seems quite doable then, given the general improvements in technology since the Apolla era.

Problem is, once the "colonists" have lived on mars for a few years, their bones and muscles will have degenerated in such a way that its impossible for them to live on earth again. Similarly children who were born on mars will never be able to come to earth. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's my guess.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 01/09/2013 01:01 pm
Somehow it makes me think of the sad death of Frantz Reichelt jumping off the Eiffel tour:
After jumping, hindsight suggested to him that more testing before getting in the suit would have been a good idea.  But if someone wants to take the risk, it's their choice. 

Squirrel suits have come a long way since Frantz: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPnIJz8EvFU

Now I'm personally not comfortable with the risk of base jumping in a wing suit.  But I would go2mars if I didn't have formative-aged children, I had the money, and thought there was a 85-90% chance that I'd survive for a couple decades.  By the time I'm in my late fifties, and my kids are adults, I should theoretically be more accepting of personal risk than I am now. 

Though, looking around, it seems lowered testosterone levels that come with age make those in a better place to take risks less likely to carpe diem.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/09/2013 01:07 pm
Notice how he hesitates before making the last step of his life.  His heart knew it was a bad idea.

Please help me to stop kicking myself for not saving a newspaper clipping.

Some years ago, the WaPo had an article about suicides, particularly those who jump off bridges.  A key feature of the article was the Golden Gate bridge.  Apparently not everybody dies.  They interviewed a survivor, and his comment was, well, right up my alley.  My humerous alley.

So the guy had a lot of personal problems; job, money, girlfriend, yada yada.  He spent a good deal of time in the hospital, and had actually managed to turn his life around upon recovery.  When interviewed, he was asked, "What were you thinking?"  He answered that  right after he jumped off the bridge, he remembered thinking to himself:

"This has to be the worst idea I've ever had in my life."

Or something like that.

Please help me to stop kicking myself, and find that clipping for me.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: grondilu on 01/09/2013 05:24 pm
"This has to be the worst idea I've ever had in my life."

Wow.  What a great quote.  Somehow I almost nailed it then when I wrote that his heart knew it was a bad idea.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/09/2013 05:40 pm
Found it on the second search!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/02/AR2008030202119.html
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 01/09/2013 06:55 pm
Is anyone here going to submit an application?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 01/09/2013 07:06 pm
Even if these people sign full waiver forms, is that enough?

To me, it sounds like certain death. Suppose people die horribly over there, then won't the whole operation be shut down here on Earth, and barred from further activity?

Somehow, I think there would be liability. The family and relatives would tie you up in court with neverending lawsuits, and whether you were right or wrong, you'd still be bankrupted by the legal fees.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: apace on 01/09/2013 08:18 pm
As they never fly, there will be no problems with deaths and liability. It's pure tv reality format becoming a mars astronaut without flying.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 01/09/2013 08:43 pm
Even if these people sign full waiver forms, is that enough?
Yes.  See the squirrel suit stuff up this thread.  Freedom also allows you do to things that put yourself at serious risk.  Like join an army.  Or shingle houses.  Or smoke.  Or drive a car.  Or eat nitrite-infused fast food. 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 01/10/2013 01:19 am
What they are looking for in an applicant.
http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-selection/251-do-i-qualify-to-apply

As communities have bike, running races it could be fun to have them set up competitions with guidelines with what Mars-One is looking for.

People in the community could compete with one another for a community get together. The top winners could be judged to see how well they fit with what Mars-One is looking for. If they meet the minimum and want to apply then they could have a letter of recommendations from the local judges.

Judges, local people with qualification in different areas needed in different areas of what Mars-One is looking for.

Local businesses could offer prizes to participants with different ways to win prizes. National businesses could offer larger prizes to winners that could go to a state level competition after the local one.

Fun for participants and the community. Even if this does not go past looking for people to joint Mars-One the competition could be good fun.

There could be booths to educate the public on human space travel and Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 01/10/2013 02:22 am
Yes.  See the squirrel suit stuff up this thread.  Freedom also allows you do to things that put yourself at serious risk.  Like join an army.  Or shingle houses.  Or smoke.  Or drive a car.  Or eat nitrite-infused fast food. 

I'm not talking about their right to do it - sure, everybody has the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. However, lawyers believe in something called Deep Pockets Theory, where they will sue the nearest party with the most money. That means your launch business and whoever is organizing this Martian Jonestown thing will get sued along with the Kool-Aid company. And if you show it all on cable TV, then people from the viewing audience will sue for the mental trauma.

I just think that if you were shipping people off to Mars, and they then start dying in what looks to be a dubious enterprise, then some authority here on Earth is going to shut you down rather than letting you continue to ship people off to what seems like certain death.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: beancounter on 01/10/2013 04:13 am
Even if these people sign full waiver forms, is that enough?

To me, it sounds like certain death. Suppose people die horribly over there, then won't the whole operation be shut down here on Earth, and barred from further activity?

Somehow, I think there would be liability. The family and relatives would tie you up in court with neverending lawsuits, and whether you were right or wrong, you'd still be bankrupted by the legal fees.

So death's not certain, eh?  :)  But people die horribly everywhere.  Wars, disease, accident, random shootings, getting too old even.  Why not Mars?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/10/2013 02:11 pm
Is anyone here going to submit an application?

I reviewed their job app. Hey, I need the work.  In my assessmnent, their list of requirements is spot on.

I qualify in all of their requirements, but one: trust.  We'll see about the age, since they don't specify the upper end.

Quote from: Mars-One
You understand the purpose of actions may not be clear in the moment, but there is good reason -- you trust those who guide you.

Part of their "trust" definition would include trusting them to make the right decision, even if you presented a strong argument to the contrary regarding the mission.  There's no question but that during the training period the applicant would become very familiar with the methodology they propose to get to Mars with.  Their intelligence requirement would guarantee that the applicant would have the smarts to play a significant role in the mission design.

They don't say what the salary range is.  They can't go lower than $7.25/hour.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/10/2013 02:38 pm
I managed to get an interview fairly quickly.  Age and trust won't really be a problem.  I thought the interview went pretty well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHt6alnieVA
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: thydusk666 on 01/10/2013 03:40 pm
I would have expected them to post a maximum weight/person as main requirement. I guess it's way cheaper to send a 55kg vegan to Mars instead of a McFatty? That would cut the already monstrous budget by 2-3 folds..
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Confusador on 01/11/2013 07:40 am
We have a wall of monitors a work monitoring several news channels and whatnot, and a picture of Mars caught my eye on one of them.  Apparently Fox News is running a piece on Mars One.  At 2 in the morning, but still.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/19/2013 10:44 am
They don't say what the salary range is.  They can't go lower than $7.25/hour.

Being Netherlands based they can't go lower than €339.10 per week for a maximum 60 hour week. That's €5.65 or US$7.52/hour at today's exchange rate.

In practice the Dutch working week is usually 36, 38 or 40 hours. Assuming 40 it'd be €8.48 or US$11.29/hour.

Then again, as expat workers in the Arctic or on Mars...

Sources:
1) http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/minimumloon/vraag-en-antwoord/hoe-hoog-is-het-minimumloon.html
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country#Netherlands
3) http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Edit: Wrong hemisphere.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/30/2013 05:29 pm
Interesting space.com interview in which Bas Lansdorp answers questions about the Mars One business case:

http://www.space.com/19398-mars-one-martian-lansdorp-founder-interview.html (http://www.space.com/19398-mars-one-martian-lansdorp-founder-interview.html)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/30/2013 05:39 pm
Mars One Secures First Investments

http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/369-mars-one-secures-first-investments (http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/369-mars-one-secures-first-investments)

Quote
Mars One ... has received its first investments [which] will be used to finance the Conceptual Design Studies and the launch of the global Astronaut Selection Program.

...

In the first half of 2013, Mars One will award the Conceptual Design studies to industry suppliers. These are sophisticated engineering bids, technical plans which lay the foundation for the major components such as the transport vehicles, space suits, life support systems and living modules on Mars. These will substantiate the Mission plan with real-world engineering designs and data.

Mars One will also launch the Astronaut Selection Program... As Mars One is anticipating hundreds of thousands [of] applicants, the infrastructure required to professionally manage such a process is substantial...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/30/2013 07:21 pm
Quote
SPACE.com: What would you say to people skeptical that this business model can work?

Lansdorp: I would say: "Would you not watch humans walk on Mars?"

This is a meaningless dodge, intended to instill confidence in the average viewer, I suppose.

Whether one would or would not watch the TV show does not address the business skepticism.  Even so, I remain skeptical about the terrestrial "reality" TV shows. In spite of my skepticism, apparently these shows make money for several years in a row.

Quote
SPACE.com: Do you have any interest in going to Mars yourself?

Lansdorp: Yes, and 15 years ago I started my idea for Mars One because I wanted to go to Mars. But 15 years ago I was 20 years old. Now I have a wonderful girlfriend. I doubt she would ever leave Earth for Mars. But we’ll see?

I suppose those first four people will have to follow Steven Stills' advice and, "love the one you're with".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 03/12/2013 10:04 am

Mars Colony Project Signs Deal to Study Spacesuits, Life Support

http://www.space.com/20164-mars-colony-life-support-systems.html


Looks like they got the money to fund design studies.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/12/2013 10:38 am
My comment on the space.com article:

'I will contribute money to this project once two conditions are met:
1) I gain reasonable confidence the crew will survive landing. Successfully landing the required mass, using indicated propulsion technologies, on Mars, and transmitting video of healthy, purposeful human motion from the surface of Mars is of greater psychological importance than any assurance that they survive even one month, or even one week. They know what they're getting into. They know they are not expected to come back.
2) The Mars-One website enables listing contribution optionally by name and amount.'

There will be red shirts, or there will be Fermi. Red shirts live on in name and statue.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 03/12/2013 11:21 am
^

The landing of the first crew would be the 7th landing of a red dragon on mars (or 9th if you include the 2 rovers). Wouldn't worry about the landing, rather worry about how investors like the idea of being responsible for letting colonists die on mars once they're up there.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/12/2013 03:17 pm
Mars Colony Project Signs Deal to Study Spacesuits, Life Support

And the winner once again is ... Paragon, they are on a roll. GS, Tito, Mars1, they all are paying for the same thing, long term ECLSS development, neat!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/17/2013 12:14 pm
Mars One say they will open applications for the one-way trip imminently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22146456 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22146456)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 04/18/2013 07:54 pm
Space.com article with lots of details:

http://www.space.com/20680-mars-one-colony-astronaut-selection.html
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: grondilu on 04/18/2013 09:01 pm
Space.com article with lots of details:

http://www.space.com/20680-mars-one-colony-astronaut-selection.html

Quote
The Netherlands-based Mars One will begin accepting application videos sometime between now and July, charging a fee to weed out folks who aren't serious about their candidacy.

To me this project is insane, but already this astronaut selection process is going to be useful and interesting:  we're going to know how bad people want to walk on mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Altonity on 04/20/2013 08:07 am
Countdown to Astronaut selection - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJNGH4NZJ4U). I wonder how many applications they will get...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 04/21/2013 03:55 am
MarsOne has a $2/month tier. I'll commit to that after photographic evidence Lansdorp and Tito have spent 1 hour of face time in public, like on a panel. Mars is the lowest hanging fruit in engaging public enthusiasm for space exploration, evidenced by numbers of dollars and applicants. The other metric is mutual dependence on Paragon. (I don't fault the public for not comprehending lunar objectives, as it's a cinder-strewn truck stop. Active ingredients are active ingredients. In ISRU, you go for the active ingredient.)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 04/21/2013 10:57 am

I bet half of nasaspaceflight.com will apply, but people will be too embarrassed to admit it ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Galactic Penguin SST on 04/22/2013 04:50 pm
They are apparently holding a press briefing right now - claiming that they will fly a robotic rover precursor to Mars in 2016.....  ::) (and also $6 billion for landing 4 on Mars...  :-X)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: catdlr on 04/22/2013 04:53 pm
Mars One Astronaut Selection Program

Streamed live on Apr 22, 2013
Mars One will announce the start of its astronaut selection program at a press conference in New York on April 22nd at noon (EDT). The event will be moderated by Emily Lakdawalla, Senior Editor at the Planetary Society. The panel will include

- Bas Lansdorp, Co-Founder and CEO, Mars One
- Gerard 't Hooft, Nobel laureate and Ambassador of Mars One
- Norbert Kraft, Chief Medical Officer, Mars One
- Grant Anderson, Sr. VP Operations, Chief Engineer and Co-Founder, Paragon Space Development Corporation
- Bryan Versteeg, Mission Concept Artist, Mars One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJNGH4NZJ4U
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 04/22/2013 05:59 pm
Looks like the stream is already coming from mars.

But the application vid is kind of cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74pA5YH-ehY

One candidate, some australian guy. Question: Why do you think you're the ideal candidate?

Answer: Because I'm entirely bonkers, and I think that is needed for such a mission.

 ;D
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/22/2013 08:17 pm
Press release:

Quote
Mars One starts its search for the first humans on Mars
NEW YORK, Monday, 22nd April 2013 – Mars One is happy to announce the launch of its astronaut selection program today. The search has begun for the first humans to set foot on Mars and make it their home.
Mars One invites would-be Mars settlers from anywhere in the world to submit an online application via apply.mars-one.com.
This online application will be the first of the four rounds that together make the Mars One selection procedure. Round One will run for over five months and end on 31st August 2013. Applicants selected at the end of this round will include the first crew that will land on Mars in 2023. Mars One selection committees will hone the search for the first crew in three subsequent rounds and further training.
“We are very excited about launching the selection program. Round One is where we open the doors to Mars for everyone on Earth. This is an international mission and it is very important for the project that anyone anywhere can ask themselves: Do I want this? Am I ready for this? If the answer is yes then we want to hear from you,” said Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One.
In the last year Mars One received 10,000 messages from prospective applicants from over 100 countries. Mars One expects an unprecedented number of applications and even more internet users visiting the application website to support their favorite candidates.
Applicants are given the choice of publicly sharing and promoting their application page. While Mars One experts will choose which candidates progress to Round 2, everyone will have the opportunity to know the aspiring settlers and give them their vote of confidence.
Applicants will pay a small administration fee that varies across nations according to their per capita GDP. The variable fee makes the program equally accessible for applicants from all nations and also reduces the number of insincere entries.
“For this mission of permanent settlement we are more concerned with how well each astronaut lives and works with others and their ability to deal with a lifetime of challenges.”
“Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria,” said Norbert Kraft, Mars One’s Chief Medical Director and former NASA senior researcher.
“For this mission of permanent settlement we are more concerned with how well each astronaut lives and works with others and their ability to deal with a lifetime of challenges.”
Throughout the astronaut selection program, Mars One will select applicants who have good physical and mental health and show five key character traits: Resilience, Adaptability, Curiosity, Ability to trust others, and Creativity/Resourcefulness.
In the last stage when 24-40 candidates have been fully trained and qualified, the final decision of choosing the first settlers will be decided by an audience vote.
“In a 1000 years, everyone on Earth will still remember who the first humans on Mars were, just like Neil Armstrong has etched in our memories forever. This makes the selection of the first crew to a different planet a very important election; in my opinion more important than most elections. We hope the whole world will join Mars One in our democratic search of the envoys of mankind to Mars, ” Lansdorp said.

About Mars One
The Mars One Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that will send humans to Mars in 2023 to establish the first permanent settlement outside Earth. Before the first settlers land on Mars a self-sustaining habitat will be set up with help of rovers and more settlers will follow every two years. A realistic mission plan has been designed using only existing technology available through the private space industry. The first footprint on Mars will fascinate and inspire generations; it is this public interest that will help finance this human mission to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/22/2013 08:29 pm
One candidate, some australian guy. Question: Why do you think you're the ideal candidate?

Answer: Because I'm entirely bonkers, and I think that is needed for such a mission.

I think this question posted on Twitter gets more to the heart of it: can you avoid harming yourself and others if you realize your one-way trip to Mars was the worst mistake of your life?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Tass on 04/22/2013 09:22 pm
One candidate, some australian guy. Question: Why do you think you're the ideal candidate?

Answer: Because I'm entirely bonkers, and I think that is needed for such a mission.

I think this question posted on Twitter gets more to the heart of it: can you avoid harming yourself and others if you realize your one-way trip to Mars was the worst mistake of your life?

Indeed.

I fear this fear this project will be just successful enough to send one team of poor bastards there, before interest wanes and money runs out. Then people will watch them eventually die horribly, cementing in peoples minds that space settlement is a dead end.

This could gravely harm more serious settlement.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MATTBLAK on 04/22/2013 09:36 pm
I remain a major skeptic for this project. I see that the press conference was very poorly attended and just a small point - the name plates appeared to be hand-written which gives an immediately amateurish touch. I rather doubt that these fine folk have the financial and technical horsepower needed to pull it off.

Mores the pity... :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: malu5531 on 04/22/2013 09:40 pm
Looks like the stream is already coming from mars.

But the application vid is kind of cool:

Wow, amazing! :) I think this video might even be more inspiring than the "We are the explorers".

It's less dramatic, calmer, positive and more poetic, it felt original. If Mars One continue to improve in this direction maybe they'll actually make it!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: grondilu on 04/22/2013 10:03 pm
I fear this this project will be just successful enough to send one team of poor bastards there, before interest wanes and money runs out. Then people will watch them eventually die horribly, cementing in peoples minds that space settlement is a dead end.

Maybe that's a price to pay so people can stop being delusional about space and start really measuring the difficulty of space colonization.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 04/22/2013 10:09 pm
Habitat pics I found somewhere. No windows? I would go crazy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: AnalogMan on 04/22/2013 11:19 pm
P.S. Why doesn't it scale the pics?

You need to post the images as an attachment rather than embedding them in the main text.  If you are using the "quick reply" box, then hit the "preview" button to get the attachment entry boxes displayed.

Attached images will be shown as large thumbnails, and enlarge when clicked.

When images are attached a copy is saved on the forum website, whereas embedded images rely on a link to an external website which may cease to exist in the future.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: catdlr on 04/23/2013 02:49 am
How To Die On Mars - The Mars One Project Explained | Video

Published on Apr 22, 2013
Not-for-profit company Mars One is now accepting applications for the opportunity to be the first humans to set foot on Mars in 2023. One catch - its' a one way ticket to colonize the desolate, caustic, cold world. Project founders explain.

Credit: SPACE.com / Images: Mars One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmGXHJythi0
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 04/23/2013 10:14 am
But the application vid is kind of cool:

Felt sudden urge to apply at 1:35

They understand marketing  :D

edit:
Habitat pics I found somewhere:

The greenhouse section seems way too small to support even one person.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 04/23/2013 11:25 am
http://www.spacehabs.com/424528/mars-one/
Based on what I heard on a recent LPL conference call to Lane Peterson at South Pole Food Growth chamber, that CGI greenhouse could probably produce about 1000 calories per day, with little in the way of protein. The lighting seems wan. By that time it should be red and blue LEDs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 04/23/2013 12:54 pm
One candidate, some australian guy. Question: Why do you think you're the ideal candidate?

Answer: Because I'm entirely bonkers, and I think that is needed for such a mission.

NSoV.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 04/23/2013 01:22 pm
Habitat pics I found somewhere.

Well, it would be best if the image could be verified.  "Somewhere" ain't the best attribution.  I see that Bryan Versteeg is credited with the artwork.

Throwing my eyeball over that habitat illustration, I estimate that it's a two bedroom unit about 120' long.  Here it is next to an FH.

The illustration is not even wrong.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 04/23/2013 01:46 pm
^

Well the habitat essentially consists of an inflatable, floor tiles, boxes of all kind (foldable I guess), curtains (or whatever that is), some support structure. Nothing too voluminous on its own. Its like ikea ;). But yeah you need two of those and the parts must fit into 4 dragons or so.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: David GREENFIELD on 04/23/2013 05:30 pm
Are they really only planning to send four people?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Altonity on 04/23/2013 06:27 pm
Are they really only planning to send four people?

If everything goes as planned they will send four more people every two year.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 05/06/2013 05:31 pm
I remain a major skeptic for this project. I see that the press conference was very poorly attended and just a small point - the name plates appeared to be hand-written which gives an immediately amateurish touch. I rather doubt that these fine folk have the financial and technical horsepower needed to pull it off.

Mores the pity... :(

You're not the only one. One of MarsOne's representatives (Marieke Wagensveld - member of the MarsOne PR team) gave a presentation last saturday at the Aviodrome aerospace museum in the Netherlands.

Let's just say that I was less than impressed. I took some notes and will copy them in here. Notes are in random order. And I'll be excused in advance if most of those notes were known already:

- First four people to Mars will cost $ 6 billion.
- 2023: First four people on Mars, one way mission: no return to Earth
- The founders of the MarsOne initiative apparently brainstormed over this idea for the last 15 (!) years. But this idea is not new. NASA floated the very concept back in the early 1990's.
- 2011/2012: MarsOne project start.
- Mission plan: fly multiple (8) supply missions first between 2016 and 2022. This includes landers, 2 rovers, a habitat modules and an orbital communications satellite.
- The rovers must assemble the habitat modules into one large habitat (basically: dock the Dragon-derived landers ('pods') to each other).
- The habitat pods will eventually be buried under 5 meters of Mars sand to protect them - and the astronauts - from radiation.
- MarsOne has multiple advisors coming from both NASA and the aerospace industry.
- A lot of research will be needed to establish the technical feasibility of the MarsOne proposal (What!? They haven't done that yet?)
- To make the project financially viable an enormous media campaign needs to be initiated.
- The MarsOne project does not believe in government-funding. Clear goal is to let the market do all the money-making.
- Subsequent crew missions (after the first one) will cost US$ 4 billion each.
- Crew on Mars must 'live off the land' to the furthest extend possible.
- First crew: two male, two female
- First crews are discouraged from propagating (Yes, someone actually asked them that question) because the risks of such action is unknown.
- Travel time to Mars is 8 months.
- Crew selection process exists of several rounds. Round 1 had recently begun.
- Over 30,000 applications in the first week of round 1 alone.
- Purposes of MarsOne: create a mini-civilization (colonization) on Mars and do lot's of research.
- Media exposure for the project must generate a substantial amount of the money needed to make it happen. The money generated by the media exposure for the 2012 Olympic Games is used as an example.
- MarsOne seriously expects that media exposure will be able to raise the US$ 6 billion needed for the first mission.
- There will be no maximum age for astronaut applicants. At least, not in the first round of selection. There is a minimum age of 18 years.
- Identified risk: after a successfull first mission the public's attention might fade away, much like happened to Apollo after Apollo 11. Mars One acknowledges that could, in worst case scenario, leave the project unable to send re-supplies after the first four astronauts have landed on the Red Planet.
- Religion has no role in the MarsOne project (yes, someone actually asked them that question).


The above is as far as the content of the presentation is concerned. Below you'll find my personal impressions:
- The presentation was messy and ill-prepared. Bad thing for a PR officer.
- The entire project looks highly unrealisitic IMO.
- Very little technical details were given. Upon my asking the MarsOne representative had to admit that almost none of the details have been figured out; as indicated by the fact that a basic technical feasibility study has yet to be performed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/06/2013 07:41 pm
This Friday May 10th, at 2 - 3:30pm PDT, Bas Lansdorp is appearing on The Space Show (http://www.thespaceshow.com/newsletterfinal.htm). So a good opportunity to raise a number of the points on this thread and see if there's any substance behind Mars One.

I'll be interested to see if all the publicity they've had in recent months has made any difference to their fund raising.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 05/06/2013 09:06 pm
The things new to me:

Quote from: woods170
- The habitat pods will eventually be buried under 5 meters of Mars sand to protect them - and the astronauts - from radiation.

- A lot of research will be needed to establish the technical feasibility of the MarsOne proposal (What!? They haven't done that yet?)

- Mars One acknowledges that could, in worst case scenario, leave the project unable to send re-supplies after the first four astronauts have landed on the Red Planet.

- 5 meters? The inflatables AND the pods? Sounds like a lot of dirt to move...

- I think they said its doable with current technology, but not that research would not be needed to make it reality.

- That's the first time I heard them admit that, well, I guess life expectancy on mars will be short then.


Clearly the lack of money will bury this project, but we should be fair. Their public presentations may not be particularily good, but the team is small and the workload probably immense. And they certainly aren't totally incompetent in selling this folly, considering the publicity they got so far (which won't be enough but still).

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 05/07/2013 07:59 pm
So I took a look at the traffic stats of the mars-one site. After an initial peak they currently have a daily reach of 0.01%.

Nasaspaceflight.com has approx. 0.001% and nasa.gov  0.15%.

A site like cnn.com has around 1.5% daily reach.

Its not too bad, but I would say they need a factor 100-1000 more. Of course their site is currently just a list of application videos, not particularily attractive.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 05/07/2013 08:13 pm
- 5 meters? The inflatables AND the pods? Sounds like a lot of dirt to move...

Thousands of tonnes at least. I would estimate that it would take the movement of over 2000 tonnes to cover one of their habitat modules.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 05/07/2013 08:43 pm
http://www.spacehabs.com/424528/mars-one/
Based on what I heard on a recent LPL conference call to Lane Peterson at South Pole Food Growth chamber, that CGI greenhouse could probably produce about 1000 calories per day, with little in the way of protein. The lighting seems wan. By that time it should be red and blue LEDs.

Looks to me that they would be lucky to consistently get much above 500 calories per day. Mistakes in horticulture, spoiling, food waste, growing a variety of crops (not just the highest yielding) and other such effects will reduce the number of calories available to the crew.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 05/08/2013 10:02 am
No argument on Murphy contributing to the effort.  :-\

http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac/sites/ag.arizona.edu.ceac/files/08ICES-0187%20Res%20Pro%20SPFGC%20Giacomelli%2004-30-08.pdf
Resource and Production Model for the South Pole Food Growth Chamber
R. Lane Patterson, Gene A. Giacomelli The University of Arizona 2008
Predicts on last page: 516 calories produced per 57.2 m3 using ramped inputs (e.g. lots of salts) and elevated CO2, temp, humidity. Using that astronaut ~2m, I get a volume in the notional Mars One green house of ~ 3 m high x 9 m long x 5 m wide = 145 m3 if every space was filled, or, 1312 Calories. By the time egress is considered, less than 1000 Calories.

http://www.academia.edu/2194711/Bio-Regenerative_Life_Support_System_Development_for_Lunar_Mars_Habitats
Bio-Regenerative Life Support System Development forLunar/Mars Habitats
Giacomelli Patterson UA 2012
Claims that a fully operating cylindrical LGH Lunar Greenhouse modules would produce 1000 calories per day plus 1 adult's oxygen.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 05/08/2013 08:54 pm
I wonder if they will have an animation show to generate funding?
Making it from the SciFi point of view with concepts from reality could generate added funding and interest.

They could have this up and going before even sending cargo to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/12/2013 02:50 pm
This Friday May 10th, at 2 - 3:30pm PDT, Bas Lansdorp is appearing on The Space Show (http://www.thespaceshow.com/newsletterfinal.htm). So a good opportunity to raise a number of the points on this thread and see if there's any substance behind Mars One.

I'll be interested to see if all the publicity they've had in recent months has made any difference to their fund raising.

The show is archived at: http://archive.thespaceshow.com/shows/2006-BWB-2013-05-10.mp3 (http://archive.thespaceshow.com/shows/2006-BWB-2013-05-10.mp3)

Interesting show. Obviously not a whole lot of detail yet but they seem to be making some progress. For example, team size has doubled from 5 last Summer to 10 now and they've raised millions of dollars more in funding (about $3M from application fees alone of people wanting to go to Mars).

Most challenging deadline is first cargo mission to Mars in 2016! (Although if they miss that date they're ok with slipping two years to 2018 ...)

I haven't changed my mind about their chances of success but I can see that they are serious about doing it and are approaching it in a serious manner.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: dcporter on 05/13/2013 02:05 am
I haven't changed my mind about their chances of success but I can see that they are serious about doing it and are approaching it in a serious manner.

Well said!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 05/13/2013 03:33 am
http://www.spacehabs.com/424528/mars-one/
Based on what I heard on a recent LPL conference call to Lane Peterson at South Pole Food Growth chamber, that CGI greenhouse could probably produce about 1000 calories per day, with little in the way of protein. The lighting seems wan. By that time it should be red and blue LEDs.

Looks to me that they would be lucky to consistently get much above 500 calories per day. Mistakes in horticulture, spoiling, food waste, growing a variety of crops (not just the highest yielding) and other such effects will reduce the number of calories available to the crew.

It looks to me they probably should land several tons of shelf stable food first and then a few tons every two years with every four people vs depend solely on what they produce on Mars.
Most of the protein likely would have to be sent from Earth.

This Friday May 10th, at 2 - 3:30pm PDT, Bas Lansdorp is appearing on The Space Show (http://www.thespaceshow.com/newsletterfinal.htm). So a good opportunity to raise a number of the points on this thread and see if there's any substance behind Mars One.

I'll be interested to see if all the publicity they've had in recent months has made any difference to their fund raising.

The show is archived at: http://archive.thespaceshow.com/shows/2006-BWB-2013-05-10.mp3 (http://archive.thespaceshow.com/shows/2006-BWB-2013-05-10.mp3)

Interesting show. Obviously not a whole lot of detail yet but they seem to be making some progress. For example, team size has doubled from 5 last Summer to 10 now and they've raised millions of dollars more in funding (about $3M from application fees alone of people wanting to go to Mars).


Most challenging deadline is first cargo mission to Mars in 2016! (Although if they miss that date they're ok with slipping two years to 2018 ...)

I haven't changed my mind about their chances of success but I can see that they are serious about doing it and are approaching it in a serious manner.

If they are serious then shouldn't they be testing their hardware in a polar environment maybe followed by Lunar surface testing?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 05/13/2013 03:40 am
If they are serious then shouldn't they be testing their hardware in a polar environment

They plan to, yes.

Quote
maybe followed by Lunar surface testing?

Maybe you Moon Firsters could go invade another thread?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 05/13/2013 04:51 am
If they are serious then shouldn't they be testing their hardware in a polar environment

They plan to, yes.

Quote
maybe followed by Lunar surface testing?

Maybe you Moon Firsters could go invade another thread?

I'm just being realistic here.
One needs to learn how to walk before they can run.

Before doing a Mars colony you better be very good at landing vehicles accurately and with a high degree of reliability.

The moon gives several opportunities a month to practice this.
Mars only every two years and two months unless you have a lot of delta V.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 05/13/2013 05:00 am
In terms of the shielding provided 5 m of regolith, basalt sand has a density of ~2.  Excavating it and using to bury structures reduces its density to about 1.7 (standard geotechnical bulking data) gives a shielding of 850 g/cm2 (plus the structures themselves which would be at least another 10 g/cm2), which is 86% of terrestrial sea level shielding.  That is quite a bit more than is probably required. 

Note that 5 m of sand would have a pressure 3.23 tonnes per m2 on the underlying structures
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 05/13/2013 05:06 am
In terms of the shielding provided 5 m of regolith, basalt sand has a density of ~2.  Excavating it and using to bury structures reduces its density to about 1.7 (standard geotechnical bulking data) gives a shielding of 850 g/cm2 (plus the structures themselves which would be at least another 10 g/cm2), which is 86% of terrestrial sea level shielding.  That is quite a bit more than is probably required. 

Note that 5 m of sand would have a pressure 3.23 tonnes per m2 on the underlying structures

That would still be far less then the internal atmospheric pressure inside the module pushing back.
At 1 ATM of pressure there would be about ten tonnes of force per meter even at skylab pressure it still would be over three tonnes.

The module should have little trouble supporting the weight.

The real problem would be burying the module without damaging it.

I guess the soil would have to first be bulldozed into piles and then some sorta screw conveyer be used to bury the modules.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/13/2013 07:33 am
If they are serious then shouldn't they be testing their hardware in a polar environment

They plan to, yes.

Testing the people in the polar environment too was about the only significant point made about trying to address psychological issues. I was interested to hear about (not surprisingly) people in the past being fine in simulated lab isolation but freaking out when truely isolated in Antarctic. So a few months in such an environment is essential but not sure it's enough to assess someone's ability to spend the rest of their life on Mars!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 05/13/2013 08:48 am
It looks to me they probably should land several tons of shelf stable food first and then a few tons every two years with every four people vs depend solely on what they produce on Mars.
Most of the protein likely would have to be sent from Earth.
If they are running on thin profits (let's be generous and assume they land a crew that survives long enough to construct a greenhouse) then the pressure is on to convert Martian CO2 etc to calories and O2. I'd be curious as to the time evolution of their emergency rations.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Garrett on 05/13/2013 12:52 pm
Quote
maybe followed by Lunar surface testing?
Maybe you Moon Firsters could go invade another thread?
I'm just being realistic here. One needs to learn how to walk before they can run.
Before doing a Mars colony you better be very good at landing vehicles accurately and with a high degree of reliability.
The moon gives several opportunities a month to practice this.
Mars only every two years and two months unless you have a lot of delta V.
Seriously? You honestly think that a Moon landing is a useful training ground for a Mars landing? Ever notice how JPL never used the Moon to practice entry, descent and landing of their rovers?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: neoforce on 05/13/2013 01:19 pm
Quote
maybe followed by Lunar surface testing?
Maybe you Moon Firsters could go invade another thread?
I'm just being realistic here. <stuff removed>
Seriously? <stuff removed>

Like was originally said, Moon first should NOT be here, unless the Mars One team specifically says they are either considering or not considering the moon as a stepping stone.

Please keep this thread on topic
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Nilof on 05/17/2013 03:57 pm
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that they want to avoid using anything nuclear. Setting up a colony on the moon with only solar power available would be prohibitively hard without nuclear power imho, since you'd have to survive the lunar night on stored power.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 05/17/2013 04:28 pm
It looks to me they probably should land several tons of shelf stable food first and then a few tons every two years with every four people vs depend solely on what they produce on Mars.
Most of the protein likely would have to be sent from Earth.
If they are running on thin profits (let's be generous and assume they land a crew that survives long enough to construct a greenhouse) then the pressure is on to convert Martian CO2 etc to calories and O2. I'd be curious as to the time evolution of their emergency rations.

The very first thing I would land would be a power plant of 100KW or more.
If solar this will also include a methane fuel plant.
Methane plus fuel cells could provide power during dust storms.

Next the green house if possible I'd deploy this in an automated fashion maybe attempt to grow some non crop plants before the first crew even arrives.

Next probably at the same time as the green house and power plant several landers packed with nothing but dehydrated food,tools,and other supplies.

This also would test Mars EDL accuracy of the descent vehicles.
If they cannot be landed within .5 to 1 km of each other the next stage with crew is postponed until such accuracy can be demonstration.

Integrating something like Athlete as the landing legs would reduce the need for very accurate landings.

Crew should be landed in a relatively fast rover with a few weeks of life support and a range of over 100km.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kiba on 05/17/2013 06:21 pm
Integrating something like Athlete as the landing legs would reduce the need for very accurate landings.


What's an Athlete?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: neilh on 05/17/2013 06:34 pm
Integrating something like Athlete as the landing legs would reduce the need for very accurate landings.


What's an Athlete?

http://athlete.jpl.nasa.gov/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kiba on 05/17/2013 07:04 pm
What about bringing a 3D solar sinter to Mars first and having the equipment use sunlight and sands to build Martian bricks? Although I am not quite sure how useful martian bricks will be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 05/17/2013 10:47 pm
kiba, you are going to have a lot of fun on this forum.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 05/17/2013 10:54 pm
What about bringing a 3D solar sinter to Mars first and having the equipment use sunlight and sands to build Martian bricks? Although I am not quite sure how useful martian bricks will be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8

It would be very useful though Mars might have all the stuff needed to make regular bricks.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34701/title/Curiosity-Finds-Clay-on-Mars/
But still if the product is mechanically strong enough it could make HV insulators etc.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Lar on 05/18/2013 12:17 am
What about bringing a 3D solar sinter to Mars first and having the equipment use sunlight and sands to build Martian bricks? Although I am not quite sure how useful martian bricks will be.


It would be very useful though Mars might have all the stuff needed to make regular bricks.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34701/title/Curiosity-Finds-Clay-on-Mars/
But still if the product is mechanically strong enough it could make HV insulators etc.


My first house was wired so long ago that it used bare wire and ceramic/glass insulators. Both things that COULD be ISRU with a sinterer and some sort of smelter for the wires. Sure, modern romex or plastic clad cable is nicer but why bring more cables than you have to?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 05/18/2013 09:40 am
With only half the sunlight  available would this system work ?

Mick.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 05/19/2013 08:16 am
http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/05/09/mars-one-has-78000-applicants-so-far-sort-of/
Mars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 05/19/2013 12:31 pm
http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/05/09/mars-one-has-78000-applicants-so-far-sort-of/
Mars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

Not to worry. The 78,000 figure will be quoted for the next half century as "proof" that thousands of people want to live on Mars but aren't being "allowed" to go.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 05/19/2013 02:45 pm
With only half the sunlight  available would this system work ?

Mick.

Yes it would work, you just need a bigger lens and to track the sun.  It is rain clouds that upset solar sintering in Britain.

Bricks can be used to pave roads.  If there is some sort of cement bricks can also be used to make walls for buildings.

You may enjoy this video from GreenPowerScience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drE54ctrHBY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drE54ctrHBY)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kiba on 05/19/2013 05:30 pm
Don't buildings have to be "air-tight" or waterproof?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 05/19/2013 06:16 pm
Don't buildings have to be "air-tight" or waterproof?

I do not know who you are replying to.

Sintered items can be airtight.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kicaj on 05/21/2013 11:42 am
Do you know anything about construction of Mars settlement replica?  this year we are supposed to watch on TV how possible future astronauts will prepare for living there.  Did MarsOne made anything about it??
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 06/15/2013 08:40 am
Mars One says that their rovers will tow the landers to the preferred site for the settlement.  A fully loaded Mars One Dragon will mass what ?  10 mt ?
To my way of thinking, that means that the rover must weigh more than 10 mt. Right ?

I see a problem here.  Anyone heard anything on this front ?  Please adjust my figures accordingly

Mick.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/15/2013 08:59 am
Mars One says that their rovers will tow the landers to the preferred site for the settlement.  A fully loaded Mars One Dragon will mass what ?  10 mt ?
To my way of thinking, that means that the rover must weigh more than 10 mt. Right ?

No. Why would you think that?



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/15/2013 02:50 pm
http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/05/09/mars-one-has-78000-applicants-so-far-sort-of/
Mars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

Not to worry. The 78,000 figure will be quoted for the next half century as "proof" that thousands of people want to live on Mars but aren't being "allowed" to go.

Took the words right out of my keyboard!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/15/2013 02:57 pm
Mars One says that their rovers will tow the landers to the preferred site for the settlement.  A fully loaded Mars One Dragon will mass what ?  10 mt ?
To my way of thinking, that means that the rover must weigh more than 10 mt. Right ?

I see a problem here.  Anyone heard anything on this front ?  Please adjust my figures accordingly

Mick.

Not shown in the literature is the wheeled cart which is under the Dragon capsules.  Or the wheeled crane/tractor which picks up the capsules and puts them on the cart.  Which then goes over the smooth, nearly level terrain, towing the carts behind, takes them off the carts and sets them down in a line, as per the illustration. And then goes back to the landing site.  Every two years.  Or the robots or people who are hooking up the capsules to one another.

But don't worry.  They've thought of everything.  How much can you pledge?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Falcon H on 06/15/2013 05:58 pm
I like the idea of a commercial mars mission, but they don't have any money, I want to believe, but I just don't see how it's possible. :( Also...shouldn't they be using inflatable modules ?  ???
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/15/2013 11:44 pm
I like the idea of a commercial mars mission, but they don't have any money

They've raised more money for a private Mars mission than anyone else ever has, they have a signed contract with Paragon and another expected to be signed this year with another company.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kkattula on 06/16/2013 12:11 am
I like the idea of a commercial mars mission, but they don't have any money, I want to believe, but I just don't see how it's possible. :( Also...shouldn't they be using inflatable modules ?  ???

Those 78,000 applicants paid application fees which averaged around $30, IIRC.
 
Their model is not "Raise the money, then build the program".
 
Their model seems to be: "Use the process of building the program to raise money".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/16/2013 12:20 am
I like the idea of a commercial mars mission, but they don't have any money, I want to believe, but I just don't see how it's possible. :( Also...shouldn't they be using inflatable modules ?  ???

Those 78,000 applicants paid application fees which averaged around $30, IIRC.

No.. I mean they've raised a few million from investors. Something no-one else has done in the many decades of dreamers talking of going to Mars.

Quote
Their model is not "Raise the money, then build the program".
 
Their model seems to be: "Use the process of building the program to raise money".

Yes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: joek on 06/16/2013 01:01 am
No.. I mean they've raised a few million from investors. Something no-one else has done in the many decades of dreamers talking of going to Mars.
That they have managed to raise a few $M is interesting, but by no means unique except maybe with regards to Mars/HSF.  Heck, many religious groups (among others) would put their numbers to shame.  Do they have a secret sauce?  Are they hucksters extraordinaire?  Maybe a sign of the times?  Or what?  In short, seems that they've "raised a few million" is not an a-priori endorsement of their efforts.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/16/2013 01:15 am
No.. I mean they've raised a few million from investors. Something no-one else has done in the many decades of dreamers talking of going to Mars.

That they have managed to raise a few $M is interesting, but by no means unique except maybe with regards to Mars/HSF.

That's all that is relevant here.

Back in the 90s there was a number of people who talked about making a tv show or a movie as a short term funding source for human spaceflight. They never even raised the seed money to fund the film crew, let alone the spaceflight.

Quote
Do they have a secret sauce?  Are they hucksters extraordinaire?  Maybe a sign of the times?  Or what?  In short, seems that they've "raised a few million" is not an a-priori endorsement of their efforts.

Their "secret sauce" is that they're actually serious and are willing to spend their own money. What more do you want?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 06/16/2013 06:13 am
Those 78,000 applicants paid application fees which averaged around $30, IIRC.

Right now there are 928 applicants with their videos on Mars One site, only those paid the free. The rest are just freely registered hang arounds.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 06/16/2013 07:22 am
I like the idea of a commercial mars mission, but they don't have any money

They've raised more money for a private Mars mission than anyone else ever has, they have a signed contract with Paragon and another expected to be signed this year with another company.

Unless you count Inspiration Mars.  And unless you count SpaceX.

Yes, SpaceX.  I see SpaceX as really fundamentally similar to Mars One.  Both are ultimately about a plan to colonize Mars.  Both look to raise money through commercial endeavors at the same time they are building their program to colonize the Red Planet.  Both are really about a long-term, open-ended colonization plan, not just a single flight.

The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan for both getting the additional money needed for colonization and developing the hardware needed to make it work.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 06/16/2013 10:17 am
They've raised more money for a private Mars mission than anyone else ever has, they have a signed contract with Paragon and another expected to be signed this year with another company.

Have you seen any hard numbers how much Mars One has received and spent?

The investors published in January were interesting, an open source software company and a creative agency. Latter made the applicant promo video, was that the "investment"?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 06/16/2013 11:09 am
They've raised more money for a private Mars mission than anyone else ever has, they have a signed contract with Paragon and another expected to be signed this year with another company.

Have you seen any hard numbers how much Mars One has received and spent?

The investors published in January were interesting, an open source software company and a creative agency. Latter made the applicant promo video, was that the "investment"?

http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/369-mars-one-secures-first-investments

"a few million [US dollars]"

Trifork BV from the Netherlands and Now&Partners from South Africa.

Also, you've just crossed the line into "indignant jerk on the Internet". Stop questioning the integrity of people who are doing.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kkattula on 06/16/2013 11:38 am
Those 78,000 applicants paid application fees which averaged around $30, IIRC.

Right now there are 928 applicants with their videos on Mars One site, only those paid the free. The rest are just freely registered hang arounds.

Note to self:  Cancel "Venus One" program launch

:)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 06/16/2013 11:40 am
Those 78,000 applicants paid application fees which averaged around $30, IIRC.

Right now there are 928 applicants with their videos on Mars One site, only those paid the free. The rest are just freely registered hang arounds.

All applicants have the option of making their application public, as in on the website for all to see, or private.  The same fee applies to either.

Mick.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kkattula on 06/16/2013 11:52 am
Yeah. I just tried to register and didn't get beyond creating a login before I was asked to pay.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 06/16/2013 01:15 pm
Yeah. I just tried to register and didn't get beyond creating a login before I was asked to pay.

Registration successful
Thank you for your registration!

A verification email has been sent to the registered email address. If you do not receive the verification email, please check your spam folder.

Click on the verification link included in the email to proceed with the online astronaut application. You will not be able to proceed with the online application until you verify the registered email address.


Wohoo now you and I are Mars applicants too ... sort of.

All applicants have the option of making their application public, as in on the website for all to see, or private.  The same fee applies to either.

True (edit: and thanks for the correction!) , but what would be the point in doing that (edit: choosing the private option) when applying to ultimate reality-TV event where your popularity plays important role (particularly in selection round 3) ?

http://mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/369-mars-one-secures-first-investments

"a few million [US dollars]"

Yes, I've read that, followed by "in the coming months". Previous paragraph says "has received its first investments". Temporally fluid investment?

Quote
Trifork BV from the Netherlands


That would be the software company, now fully owned by Danish Trifork, listed in NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen. I just wonder how stock holders appreciate the move.

Quote
and Now&Partners from South Africa.

And that would be the creative agency who made the promo video. http://www.nowandpartners.com/

Now&Partners was tasked with developing a film announcing the global call for applicants to Mars One's Astronaut Selection Program. Our goal was to establish a credible and inspirational tone of voice for the brand that would create global desire and belief for such an audacious mission.
The result is a two minute film that captures the spirit of human exploration by chronicling mankind's past achievements, whilst setting the scene for our future triumphs.

Scope of Work: Concept, scripting, production, execution.


Quote
Also, you've just crossed the line into "indignant jerk on the Internet".

(http://s15.postimg.org/c99ffmugr/wetcheerios.jpg)
Quote
Stop questioning the integrity of people who are doing.

Asking for hard numbers to prove claim made by another random person on internet is not questioning Mars One's integrity. Nor even yours. Let your fervor to dissipate a bit to see it. I do question their business plan though.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/16/2013 02:01 pm
I see SpaceX as really fundamentally similar to Mars One. ...
 

I was gonna say something about any yobo with a keyboard being "fundamentally similar", but then you said:

Quote
The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan ...

... and I found myself agreeing.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/16/2013 02:03 pm
Have you seen any hard numbers how much Mars One has received and spent?

Nobody will be seeing that.  It's proprietary information.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/16/2013 02:08 pm
Note to self:  Cancel "Venus One" program launch...

But... but... Your promo video was so cool.  And the narrator had such an inspirational tone of voice!  And I paid my ten bux.  Where's my selfie?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: joek on 06/16/2013 02:38 pm
Their "secret sauce" is that they're actually serious and are willing to spend their own money.
And the evidence for that assertion is ...?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 06/16/2013 03:11 pm
Quote from: ChrisWilson68
The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan for both getting the additional money needed for colonization and developing the hardware needed to make it work.

That made me laugh. I'm not saying the Mars One plan is realistic, but they say they need $1.5bn to bring one person to Mars one-way. Musk on the other hand talked about $500k for a round trip.

Which would you consider to be more realistic?  ::)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/16/2013 03:17 pm
Quote from: ChrisWilson68
The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan for both getting the additional money needed for colonization and developing the hardware needed to make it work.

That made me laugh. I'm not saying the Mars One plan is realistic, but they say they need $1.5bn to bring one person to Mars one-way. Musk on the other hand talked about $500k for a round trip.

Which would you consider to be more realistic?  ::)

Hey, I'm as biased as the next person.

From the "realistic" standpoint, SpaceX has got some pretty "realistic" rockets.  They're so "realistic" that the PRI guys plan on using them.

That $500k number was a brain fart.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 06/16/2013 03:36 pm
Nobody will be seeing that.  It's proprietary information.

Thought higher transparency is required now, being non-profit organization.

Where's my selfie?

It quit lasso practices and went looking for XO's planet.

That $500k number was a brain fart.

Merely Cerebral Toot?¿¡ Gryffindor.points += 2;
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/16/2013 03:43 pm
Nobody will be seeing that.  It's proprietary information.

Thought higher transparency is required now, being non-profit organization.

Not at all. Less transparency to the public is to be expected.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: happyflower on 06/17/2013 04:00 pm
To be fair Musk never said it will cost $500K right from the start. He said this is a number they are going for once people are going on a regular basis and rockets are "rapidly reusable". The final price, not the starting price.

Quote from: ChrisWilson68
The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan for both getting the additional money needed for colonization and developing the hardware needed to make it work.

That made me laugh. I'm not saying the Mars One plan is realistic, but they say they need $1.5bn to bring one person to Mars one-way. Musk on the other hand talked about $500k for a round trip.

Which would you consider to be more realistic?  ::)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/02/2013 03:00 pm
Quote from: Mars One
Peter Tetteroo, Director & Producer said: “The Mars One project is a groundbreaking concept of high journalistic value. Worldwide interest in the Mars One mission is a tell-tale of our society today and its hopes for itself."

There ya go.  Groundbreaking journalism
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 08/02/2013 04:01 pm
Mars One could raise one billion dollars if 338,983,051 of people pay the $2.95 to watch the new video!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 08/05/2013 04:56 am
Quote from: ChrisWilson68
The difference is that SpaceX has much more money and a much more realistic plan for both getting the additional money needed for colonization and developing the hardware needed to make it work.

That made me laugh. I'm not saying the Mars One plan is realistic, but they say they need $1.5bn to bring one person to Mars one-way. Musk on the other hand talked about $500k for a round trip.

Which would you consider to be more realistic?  ::)

You're comparing apples to oranges.

The $1.5 billion number from Mars One was for an early colonist, in their near-term planning.  Musk's $500k number is for decades in the future, when the number of colonists is in the tens of thousands.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 08/10/2013 05:37 pm
I've been thinking for a while that space exporation should be funded as entertainment.

That's a nice thought but it assumes that it is possible to make space exploration so entertaining that wide non-space geek audience would pay for it. Based on One Way Astronaut video Mars One has a long ways to go  :-\ German guy going on and on about how cool it is that he has ten years to say goodbye to his wife and kids and it is not at all selfish to leave them behind was not very entertaining, more like morbid. The young woman with paperclips as earrings and meth-pupils was entertaining.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 08/12/2013 01:34 pm
I've been thinking for a while that space exporation should be funded as entertainment.

Naaaahhhhh.   Tourism.

Quote
You get a hundred million people paying five or ten bucks a month for space shenanigans, and you can afford to put on quite a show.

Which is $6B-12B per year.  If you discount the develoment costs, you may be right.  Let's play with the numbers for a sec.

Pretending, for the sake of the analogy that there are 100M US taxpayers, and that NASA gets $18B/ year, we pay about $15/month for our reality show, which includes a robot here and there, a big piece of optical equipment in a clean room, and a carcass of the latest unmanned sub-orbital Mercury launch recreation.

You are basically correct, in that it's "quite a show".
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 08/12/2013 01:46 pm
Locking this thread for a while as a relief valve due to a series of stupid posts (since removed).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Borklund on 11/01/2013 08:14 am
New (?) info from Bas Lansdorp at the International Space Commerce 2013 Summit:

Choice quotes:
Quote
Mars One will send "a small craft that will demonstrate the technologies we need for our human colony" and is inviting partners to join the mission.

Quote
Full details will be revealed in December, by which point we may know who has made the initital shortlist to leave Earth forever.

As for the funding question, he (as always) cites the Olympics:
Quote
Asked whether his venture is financially realistic, Lansdorp cited the enormous revenues likely from what he hopes will be the TV event of the century.

"We estimate $6bn to get the first four people on Mars and $4bn for every further group that follows.

"It's a lot of money. But look at the broadcasting revenue from the Olympics in London - $4bn in three weeks.

"The world was watching. And I want the whole world to be involved in Mars One."

He denied the venture was simply a spectacle, predicting that the mission will bring benefits we cannot yet imagine.

Full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24749687
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 11/01/2013 11:54 am
New (?) info from Bas Lansdorp at the International Space Commerce 2013 Summit:

...

"The world was watching. And I want the whole world to be involved in Mars One."

He denied the venture was simply a spectacle, predicting that the mission will bring benefits we cannot yet imagine

Full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24749687

In some important ways other than as considered by the PR spin machine, that there is a lack of imagination of what those benefits could be, is rather a truthful statement.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Galactic Penguin SST on 11/09/2013 07:59 am
OK this is third-hand news so calm down, but NSF member mmeijeri is reporting (https://twitter.com/mmeijeri/status/399095167409344512) that he is hearing rumors that Carlos Slim, once the richest person in the world, will invest in Mars One. Hmm......  ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mmeijeri on 11/09/2013 08:07 am
Heheh, this is how rumours get started. A former banker commented on Twitter that he found the Mars One project very gutsy. I replied I thought it was overly ambitious, given the amount of mass you'd need to launch and the high costs of space launch. He said a very important announcement would be made in December and that he thought this was going to happen. I jokingly asked if they had a money printing press. He replied they did, sort of, and added Mars City might be named Slim City instead. That's all the "evidence" this rumour relies on... Would be awesome if it were true though...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: boinc on 11/09/2013 09:52 am
You know, this could be true. if you read the wiki article about him you will find out that he likes to donate money for great things.

"In 2007 Slim announced that the latter body had been provided with an asset base of $4 billion and that it would be establishing Carso Institutes for Health, Sports and Education."

"in 2011 he, along with the President of Mexico, Mexico City Mayor and Mexico City Archbishop, inaugurated the first phase of Plaza Mariana close to Basilica de Guadalupe.[31] The complex, whose construction was funded by Slim, includes an evangelization center, museum, columbarium, health center, market and parking lot.[32]

In May 2011, Slim was mentioned in Forbes' World's Biggest Givers after donating $4 billion to his foundation.[33]"
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MATTBLAK on 11/09/2013 09:58 am
I think Mars One and similar projects should do a prototype of their outpost on the lunar surface first. Then, if anything went 'pear shaped', the supply line to send help from Earth would be a heck of a lot shorter.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 11/09/2013 12:27 pm
I think Mars One and similar projects should do a prototype of their outpost on the lunar surface first. Then, if anything went 'pear shaped', the supply line to send help from Earth would be a heck of a lot shorter.

The supply line to the Alaskan tundra is even shorter. There is no reason whatsoever to do that on the moon.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MATTBLAK on 11/09/2013 09:13 pm
Or the Antarctic for that manner. These people want to set up a 'colony' on another world - that is their 'reason'  ::)

Mars may be a superior option in many ways - far more water, higher gravity and better radiation protection for surface dwellers - but the Moon is easier.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 11/09/2013 11:05 pm
If anyone has video or audio of Elon Musk speaking at Bakersfield, I'd like it please.

He apparently answered a question about Mars One. Allegedly he said he looks forward to supplying them with rockets and capsules, if that's what they want and can pay, but would rather send people to Mars in more roomy spaceships.

If I can get the video or audio I'll transcribe it and tell you exactly what he said :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: majormajor42 on 11/10/2013 09:09 pm
Well, that is the elephant in the room as far as I am concerned. Mars One has no hardware of their own. SpaceX, as far as we know, would be providing them with hardware. SpaceX has Mars ambitions of their own. Would Elon provide Mars One with what they need to put the first footprints on Mars? What is stopping Elon from going straight to Mr Slim and putting something together, without that additional Mars One layer, under the banner of SpaceX and Mr Slim?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 11/10/2013 09:18 pm
Would Elon provide Mars One with what they need to put the first footprints on Mars?

Asked and answered: Yes.

Are you calling Elon a liar?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 11/10/2013 09:22 pm
Well, that is the elephant in the room as far as I am concerned. Mars One has no hardware of their own. SpaceX, as far as we know, would be providing them with hardware. SpaceX has Mars ambitions of their own. Would Elon provide Mars One with what they need to put the first footprints on Mars? What is stopping Elon from going straight to Mr Slim and putting something together, without that additional Mars One layer, under the banner of SpaceX and Mr Slim?
He has said he wants to bring others there, and Mars One might be those others.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jcc on 11/11/2013 12:42 am
A Mars One sized mini colony would be an excellent precursor to the city sized colony that Elon envisions. In fact, without the bigger colonization effort ramping up behind Mars One, it really would be a suicide mission. They need a guarantee that all the supplies and equipment they need will be coming, and also they need useful work to do to not go crazy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: beancounter on 11/11/2013 04:31 am
Well, that is the elephant in the room as far as I am concerned. Mars One has no hardware of their own. SpaceX, as far as we know, would be providing them with hardware. SpaceX has Mars ambitions of their own. Would Elon provide Mars One with what they need to put the first footprints on Mars? What is stopping Elon from going straight to Mr Slim and putting something together, without that additional Mars One layer, under the banner of SpaceX and Mr Slim?
He has said he wants to bring others there, and Mars One might be those others.

Yes Elon has never said so far as I can recall, that he wants to be first, just that he wants to retire on Mars.  So if others are willing to go do the hard yakka first, why not let them.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 11/11/2013 06:16 am
I don't know if this is really the right thread for this, but Mars One is talking about growing food on Mars, so maybe...

What is the actual insolation during a severe Martian dust storm? Is it so low that crop plants would die if not provided with artificial light? I know that it can blanket the planet to the point that orbiters can't see anything, but you can't really see through dense cloud cover over Seattle or the rainy parts of Hawaii, and those areas are hardly devoid of plant life.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 11/11/2013 06:31 am
I don't know if this is really the right thread for this, but Mars One is talking about growing food on Mars, so maybe...

What is the actual insolation during a severe Martian dust storm? Is it so low that crop plants would die if not provided with artificial light? I know that it can blanket the planet to the point that orbiters can't see anything, but you can't really see through dense cloud cover over Seattle or the rainy parts of Hawaii, and those areas are hardly devoid of plant life.

Things like that have been discussed in this thread.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29820.0

Martian dust storms are not clouding that severe. Remember the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity need electricity to survive. They survived many duststorms. Imagine it like a slight haze. Even under a thin cloud cover on earth there will be a lot less light compared to a martian duststorm.

Plants are adaptable, they will survive, as long as you can keep them from freezing. Their productivity goes down, so less production in that period.

Dense clouds over Seattle will mean more than an order of magnitude less light than under a martian dust storm.



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Tass on 11/12/2013 07:10 pm
Well, that is the elephant in the room as far as I am concerned. Mars One has no hardware of their own. SpaceX, as far as we know, would be providing them with hardware. SpaceX has Mars ambitions of their own. Would Elon provide Mars One with what they need to put the first footprints on Mars? What is stopping Elon from going straight to Mr Slim and putting something together, without that additional Mars One layer, under the banner of SpaceX and Mr Slim?

I don't get the impression that Elon is in it for the fame. He actually believes in his mission. He won't care if someone else takes partial credit, as long as the job gets done.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Darren_Hensley on 11/12/2013 07:53 pm
I think Mars One and similar projects should do a prototype of their outpost on the lunar surface first. Then, if anything went 'pear shaped', the supply line to send help from Earth would be a heck of a lot shorter.

The supply line to the Alaskan tundra is even shorter. There is no reason whatsoever to do that on the moon.

Has anyone ever tried to launch and land a MARS spacecraft in the artic? NO!, Why? hmmm!

1. If you want to prototype, go to the Moon first, Failure is possible, but rescue is close.

2. If you want to do it, go to Mars First, Failure is possible, but rescue is very distant.

If you want to test, then achieve, then you use the scientific method, Moon then Mars. Failure is still possible but greatly reduced over methods 1 and 2.

Personally, I'm tired of prooving the concept with lab rats and cardboard, let's get on with prooving the equipment and people.

It's just my opinion.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Elmar Moelzer on 11/12/2013 08:11 pm
Personally, I think that people are starting at the wrong end of the solution. First step should be to get to LEO cheaply and reliably. We do not even have the technical means for that yet. SpaceX and a few others are working on improving on it, but really we still have a long way to go. Once we can go to LEO for cheap, we have options. I still think that even with cheap access to LEO a high thrust and high ISP propulsion system (like the fusion driven rocket) will be needed to really open up the solar system. But without at least cheap access to LEO, everything else is bound to result in abandoned projects and deserted colonies...
Because of this, I cant understand why NASA does not focus all of its energy on achieving this first step before anything else. Instead, we are building expensive giant rockets that don't do anything (if not the opposite) for this goal.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 11/16/2013 07:22 pm
The moon is useless for MarsOne.

They aren't taking their air and water with them. They plan to fabricate what they need from Martian resources.

The moon is so different (hard vacuum, loooong night, extreme temperature swings, different composition, very little gravity...) as to be useless for testing their technology.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 11/16/2013 08:53 pm
Personally, I'm tired of prooving the concept with lab rats and cardboard, let's get on with prooving the equipment and people.
Its always going to be done on earth first. Thats where all the thousands of engineers who actually do the work live. You don't go to the moon to figure out how to build a spacesuit for the moon. You have to be extremely confident it works before you go.

Im also tired of the 'lab rats and cardboard' impression of work done on all the equipment that could actually allow us to live there. I think that is because till now HSF has been dominated by the launcher, with little budget to the other areas, and that primarily designed to give the launcher something to do.

That is another reason I would want to see proof of effort being done on the comparatively easy and affordable part: exploration technology proven here on earth first. Otherwise it will be a repeat of the last 30 years or so in space: huge overstated dreams that collapse with money disappearing into the same aerospace companies with very little to show for it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: boinc on 12/03/2013 07:07 am
this could be it:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=42042

there has been a rumor before that a mexican billionare will provide the funding for mars one.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mlindner on 12/04/2013 05:31 am
Mars is easier to get to in terms of total deltaV. Mars' surface is easier to live on.

Rescue from Mars is much harder. Single-mission supply requirements are much higher. Interplanetary travel has increased radiation, but could conceivably be ignored, it's certainly less than LD50.

So if all your hardware works, Mars is better.

Edit: In the far future, I could easily imagine natural selection helping to increase radiation tolerances of future Martians.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 12/04/2013 02:31 pm
I am not sure about the delta-v if you use aerobraking directly coming in from earth instead of going through orbit. The difference is not very big.

It is certainly much easier to live on Mars than on the moon.

The moon is absolutely not a stepping stone to Mars or an opportunity to learn. The requirements are very different. Lessons learned on the moon are not applicable to Mars.

So if you want to go to Mars, go to Mars, not to the moon.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 12/04/2013 03:27 pm

Anyway, back to Mars One. Without getting support from governments, this will never work. The Mars One FAQ says it will cost $6B to get the first manned mission on Mars and $4B for each mission after that. That's real money people. Government money will be hard to get because it's a one way trip. Without a way for the crews to return to Earth, if funding is no longer available, then everybody dies. Mars One is not a plan for a self-sufficient colony.

Now maybe Mars One could be incorporated into an exploration program run by an international group of governments. It is still worth it for Mars One to do the the studies and planning. Their method of building a base before the crew arrives using several launches might be more viable than using a SLS to launch a massive lander, especially with the technological challenges of a massive lander.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/04/2013 10:48 pm
Thread trimmed. You know, it makes our job twice as hard when you all pick and poke at someone making stupid comments. You come across as bad as the person making the stupid comments.

Do not respond to stupid comments. Report to mod. Don't wait all day until it's 15 posts later. Do it immediately.

Now carry on. ON MARS ONE and that only.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/05/2013 12:08 am
Back to on-topic:

Mars One to Announce Plans for First Private Robotic Mission to Mars

AMERSFOORT, Netherlands – December 2, 2013 (Mars One PR) — Mars One will hold a press conference on December 10, 2013. An announcement will be made in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Systems Limited regarding the first private robotic mission to Mars. Mars One will also share new information on its public involvement activities leading up to this mission. The event will take place in Washington DC.

The venue for the conference is The National Press Club, 529 14th St NW, Washington, DC, USA. Presentations will start at 10:30 AM, followed by Q&A until 12:00 PM.

--

Gee I hope some money is changing hands this time.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/08/2013 10:41 pm
Lockheed Martin and SSTL selected for Mars One's first unmanned mission to Mars

On Tuesday the 10th of December Mars One will announce at a press conference in Washington DC that we contracted Lockheed Martin and SSTL for our first unmanned mission to Mars. The press conference will be followed by a Tweetup.

We're very excited about contracting Lockheed Martin and SSTL. Lockheed Martin has a distinct legacy of participating in nearly every NASA mission to Mars. SSTL has an impressive track record in small, affordable satellite missions.
Livestream Press conference

The press conference will take place from 10:30am – 12:00pm (EST) in the National Press Club in Washington DC and will be live streamed. Several hours before the conference starts, you'll find more information on the live stream on this page.
Tweetup

The press conference will be followed by a Tweetup and Q&A. It will start at 1:30 pm and will last until 2:30 pm (EST). We invite anyone interested to join the Tweetup live at the National Press Club in Washington DC, or online using the hashtag #AskMarsOne. You will be able to submit questions on that hashtag and the frequently asked ones will be answered by the Mars One, Lockheed Martin and SSTL panel.

If you're interested in joining the Tweetup live, please email us on [email protected] and let us know your Twitter handle.


http://www.mars-one.com/en/11-news/516-countdown
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: IRobot on 12/08/2013 11:01 pm
That seems to be for the 2016 "Demo & Comsat" mission on their Roadmap. So this should refer to the placement of a communications satellite in Mars orbit.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/10/2013 02:33 pm
So they've signed a MOU with SSTL and LM, but no sign of any money yet.

Oh wait. "Mars One is also launching an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign" Uh oh.

Got to be fair and supportive of them regardless, so I'll write an article.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Borklund on 12/10/2013 02:41 pm
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018

Welp, they don't even have the money to pay for the concept studies.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/10/2013 02:52 pm
To be fair, it's already over 4K, so there's clearly interest.

Lots of pressers arriving, so going to work an article as of now.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Borklund on 12/10/2013 03:09 pm
5.3K and ticking upwards fast.

So maybe they get the concept studies. What happens after that? Won't a satellite and a lander cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions to build, test and fly to Mars (and then operate)?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 12/10/2013 03:09 pm
I was finally getting a little confidence in them.... And then they decide to crowd fund it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 12/10/2013 03:18 pm
5.3K and ticking upwards fast.

So maybe they get the concept studies. What happens after that? Won't a satellite and a lander cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions to build, test and fly to Mars (and then operate)?

The crowd funding might be more to show that crowdfunding can work than that they have no money. It might also be to increase interest from potential investors.

I think they could pay off the studies by themselves.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/10/2013 03:36 pm
Yeah, the company releases are more angled at "study" and nothing else. It's certainly moving on the crowd funding, but a loooooong way to go until this is into the realm of realistic.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 12/10/2013 03:39 pm
Quote from: Borklund
So maybe they get the concept studies. What happens after that? Won't a satellite and a lander cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions to build, test and fly to Mars (and then operate)?

They contracted LM and SSTL for the concept studies, so they obviously had the money for that, but its only a few hundred thousands. The question is whether it will go over into the design phase in half a year.

Even if they pull off this unmanned mission, its still a far cry from a manned colony. They'd need a far bigger lander for that to start with.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: boinc on 12/10/2013 04:36 pm
That's it, after watching their video It's clear that this is all a hoax. The one guy looked like he was on drugs, they can't even afford a mission study and they are conducting a crowdfunding campaign which allows them to draw money even without reaching the funding goal. This in turn shows that they even lack the confidence to raise 400K$. 

I'm disappointed.

With troubles of the inspiration mars mission to raise money, it is clear that we will not see a manned mission to mars any time soon.  :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Lar on 12/10/2013 05:28 pm
That's it, after watching their video It's clear that this is all a hoax. The one guy looked like he was on drugs, they can't even afford a mission study and they are conducting a crowdfunding campaign which allows them to draw money even without reaching the funding goal. This in turn shows that they even lack the confidence to raise 400K$. 

I'm disappointed.

With troubles of the inspiration mars mission to raise money, it is clear that we will not see a manned mission to mars any time soon.  :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Don't despair... your tagline (below the avatar) has the answer... "SpaceX will take you there"

Planetary Resources did a crowdfunding thing and it's been claimed that it was more for publicity and gauging interest and generating mailing list names than for the actual money[1].  It was claimed they have deep pockets backers in the shadows for that. So they get a pass for crowdfunding in my book.

But without deep pockets backers in the shadows, Mars One is not going to happen. I think it more likely that SpaceX will have a different customer first, or that they will self fund the first expedition, than that Mars One is their first customer. No Bucks, no Buck Rodgers.

1 - not exactly true, the money will fund the ground stations that make the stuff the vehicle will do available...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 12/10/2013 05:47 pm
I was finally getting a little confidence in them.... And then they decide to crowd fund it.

Yep. Reaction for me went something like:

"Awesome, nice to see they're finally scaling back their plans. This might actually h--- oh for the LOVE OF GOD"


I guess, like has been stated, it can be said it's more to test the waters but they've clearly got a good amount of money from applicants so far, so asking for more is pushing it a bit. The fact you don't get your money back if the campaign fails also does not sit well with me.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/10/2013 06:39 pm
I'm going to hold back on an article, as some of the things I've asked about to add some meat to the article have been receiving some strange answers. Need to work on this some more.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 12/10/2013 07:40 pm
Quote from: NovaSilisko
"Awesome, nice to see they're finally scaling back their plans. This might actually h--- oh for the LOVE OF GOD"

Well the plans they presented today do not seem to be particularily ambitious, from a technical point of view. A Phoenix/InSight lander with two of their own experiments and a few others from universities, if I understood correctly.

Next step is a colony of ants ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 12/10/2013 08:13 pm
Quote from: NovaSilisko
"Awesome, nice to see they're finally scaling back their plans. This might actually h--- oh for the LOVE OF GOD"

Well the plans they presented today do not seem to be particularily ambitious, from a technical point of view. A Phoenix/InSight lander with two of their own experiments and a few others from universities, if I understood correctly.

Next step is a colony of ants ;)

Well it's certainly more feasible from a technical standpoint, it's just, as usual, the money that's the problem.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/10/2013 08:14 pm
Some people have no sense of perspective.

There seems to be a desire to see a master plan with everything worked out step by step and all the funding up front. Not even NASA can do that.

Even if all Mars One achieves is a few hundred thousand dollars going to vehicle studies, that's more than anyone else has ever achieved. The idea of Lockheed Martin being willing to send someone to stand up on stage with them was inconceivable to many here just a few months ago. They're building credibility while maintaining a quirky "human interest" angle. I think that's unprecedented.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 12/10/2013 09:21 pm
I think it's clear that MarsOne has enough $$ to convince LM and Surrey to do the concept studies.

They do have a reasonable business model. People snark about the reality TV show, but they are right that the moon landings crushed the Olympics in terms of TV audience, and TV audience has value.

The question is: can they get real investors behind it?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 12/10/2013 09:53 pm
I think it's clear that MarsOne has enough $$ to convince LM and Surrey to do the concept studies.
Considering the amount of coverage they got, it shouldn't be a surprise they were able to raise a few hundred k.
Quote
They do have a reasonable business model. People snark about the reality TV show, but they are right that the moon landings crushed the Olympics in terms of TV audience, and TV audience has value.
Two problems with this
1) Their cost estimates for the crewed missions are absurdly low. If you think a long term crewed colony will cost you less then 3x MSL, you are smoking some good incorrect.
2) Chicken and egg: They need most of the $$$ up front to pay for the design, development and launch. Yet without those in hand, they have very little credibility. Things like the Olympics and world cup are much safer bets.

Flying the lander mission could potentially help the credibility problem, except that it has the same problem. $400k is fairly ambitious for a crowd funding campaign, but would only be somewhere from 0.05%-0.1% of the total cost of the mission. Who is going to put up the other 99.9% in advance? A robotic lander does not have the same TV potential. MarsOne has offered no credible plan, or really anything beyond handwaving.

Jeff Foust reported https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/410447595845459968
Quote
Lansdorp said afterwards he expected the 2018 mission to cost less than NASA's InSight lander (costcapped at $425M + launch).
That seems pretty optimistic, considering it includes an orbiter and a lander, and they don't get to take advantage of all the NASA infrastructure that InSight has available.

And https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/410443636728659968
Quote
Lansdorp: don't disclose how much funds raised so far, but have received >$200K in donations to date.
So they aren't paying for the studies out of their own pocket, but they have not demonstrated the ability to raise the kind of money required for actual missions by any stretch. I wonder if the sign up fees are counted as "donations"?

Speaking of the sign ups, the games they've played with the number of people "signed up" for their mission has not helped their credibility problems in the slightest.

I'll also note they made their original announcement a bit less than two years ago. Today, they have slipped two years, achieving a slip ratio > 1:1
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Danderman on 12/10/2013 09:59 pm
It is probably the case that any date mentioned in the article can be expected to slip by a 1:1 ratio with actual time passing.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 12/10/2013 10:43 pm
https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/410481822615609344
Quote
3 ½ years for the development, build and test will be adequate, so we should start in fall 2014 #AskMarsOne
They have a year to raise some real money. Anyone have year by year costs for InSight handy?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 12/10/2013 10:48 pm
I don't understand the hate of crowd-funding. Do you expect this to happen for free? No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 12/10/2013 11:18 pm
I don't understand the hate of crowd-funding. Do you expect this to happen for free? No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
IMO, crowd funding is great if the project has a plausible chance of delivering.

Crowd funding 0.1% of the cost without a credible plan to get the remaining 99.9% suggests this isn't the case here. If MarsOne can really raise the $400-$800 million needed for this mission, why are they piddling around for $400k? If they can't raise that kind of money, or don't have a very solid plan to do so, then how can their crowd funding effort be in good faith?

Amusingly, MarsOne doesn't appear to even identify failing to raise hundreds of millions of dollars (outside of the campaign) as a risk in their "Risks and Challenges" section.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/10/2013 11:27 pm
IMO, crowd funding is great if the project has a plausible chance of delivering.

The crowd funding has a plausible chance of delivering the studies, and that's all they'd be crowd funding for, right now.

Quote from: hop
Crowd funding 0.1% of the cost without a credible plan to get the remaining 99.9% suggests this isn't the case here.

That's not what was suggested.

Quote from: hop
If MarsOne can really raise the $400-$800 million needed for this mission, why are they piddling around for $400k?

If they could raise the larger amount right now, they wouldn't be, but they never claimed they could.

Quote from: hop
If they can't raise that kind of money, or don't have a very solid plan to do so, then how can their crowd funding effort be in good faith?

Because they're not crowd funding money for the mission, they're crowd funding money for the studies.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 12:04 am
Here's the crowd funding video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icN29cdmw_s

at 1:55 they say "This campaign will pay for the technology studies of our first unmanned mission in 2018 which will demonstrate hardware for the human mission in 2025".

Although I imagine Lockheed Martin and SSTL wanted at least some money up front, that hasn't been disclosed.

Also, while I dislike Indiegogo for crowd funding, I'm not really surprised they went that way. I think their rewards are inappropriate, being that they won't actually be able to deliver them after completion of the portion of the project for which they're actually raising funding. That's a serious no-no on Kickstarter.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 12/11/2013 12:39 am
Yeah, the company releases are more angled at "study" and nothing else. It's certainly moving on the crowd funding, but a loooooong way to go until this is into the realm of realistic.

I think that really sums it up.  They're at the stage of doing studies, with funding levels in the 100's of thousands of dollars.  They're around 3 orders of magnitude in funding away from doing an unmanned mission to Mars and 5-6 orders of magnitude in funding away from establishing a human settlement on Mars.

They need to find a path to get these vastly greater funding levels.  Unfortunately, I don't see the studies leading to them getting that kind of funding.  I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see much reason to believe they'll get to the funding levels they need to do the human settlement.

Dennis Tito doesn't seem to be able to raise the funds for Inspiration Mars, and Tito has far better connections for raising money, while the IM mission requires far less funding than a permanent settlement on the surface.  If Tito can't raise the money for his mission, it's hard to see Mars One settling Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 12/11/2013 12:58 am
The crowd funding has a plausible chance of delivering the studies, and that's all they'd be crowd funding for, right now.
No, LockMart is supposedly already contracted to do the initial study. It highly unlikely they would have showed up if MarsOne hadn't already put money down. MarsOne stated that they already had ~200k of donations, which is coincidentally similar to the value of the initial study contract. (The number also tells us this is a *very* preliminary study)

Plus, the rewards for the crowd funding aren't outputs of the study, they are the outputs of the mission  (edit: mostly, a copy of the study is one of the low level rewards). The indigogo doesn't say "crowd fund our study for a mission we might fund later".  It says

"The Mars One foundation will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. This Indiegogo campaign will help us jumpstart the first major step in our project – a private Mars Lander and Satellite mission in 2018."

Quote
That's not what was suggested.
They were clear the crowd funding campaign isn't supposed to fund the whole mission (duh, it's 3 orders of magnitude to small), but that's not the point. They are claiming in their campaign that they are going to do the mission, not just the study.
Quote
If they could raise the larger amount right now, they wouldn't be, but they never claimed they could.
Right, but they have presented no credible plan to raise that amount. If this is actually going to happen, they need to raise several hundred million in the next year or so, and keep bringing that kind of money in until it launches. If they don't have a good idea of how to raise that kind of money, then claiming they are going to do the mission in their crowd funding campaign is misleading at best. As I noted above, they don't even mention this as a risk...
Quote
Quote from: hop
If they can't raise that kind of money, or don't have a very solid plan to do so, then how can their crowd funding effort be in good faith?
Because they're not crowd funding money for the mission, they're crowd funding money for the studies.
That's not what the campaign says, or what they said at the event as far as I can tell.

Edit:
From the press release http://www.mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/517-lockheed-martin-and-sstl-selected-for-mars-one-s-first-unmanned-mission-to-mars
Quote
Mars One has contracted Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to develop mission concept studies.
(my bold)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 01:03 am
I think that really sums it up.  They're at the stage of doing studies, with funding levels in the 100's of thousands of dollars.

Studies by the people who are actually going to make the vehicle..

Quote from: ChrisWilson68
Unfortunately, I don't see the studies leading to them getting that kind of funding.  I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see much reason to believe they'll get to the funding levels they need to do the human settlement.

Yes, they're doing the necessary prerequisites, but that's not necessarily sufficient. "I just don't see" is another way of saying you don't know how.. well, yeah, if ya did you would be doing it, wouldn't you?

Quote from: ChrisWilson68
Dennis Tito doesn't seem to be able to raise the funds for Inspiration Mars, and Tito has far better connections for raising money, while the IM mission requires far less funding than a permanent settlement on the surface.  If Tito can't raise the money for his mission, it's hard to see Mars One settling Mars.

That doesn't follow. Tito ran into the "why isn't NASA doing this?" problem. I don't think Mars One is ever going to run into that problem, as the answer is obvious: because it's nuts. Of course, if they ever give up their one-way-to-stay plan they'll have the same problem as Tito.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 01:08 am
From the press release http://www.mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/517-lockheed-martin-and-sstl-selected-for-mars-one-s-first-unmanned-mission-to-mars
Quote
Mars One has contracted Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to develop mission concept studies.
(my bold)

Yes, and? They've contracted LockMart and SSTL to start. If they don't get the crowd funding they'll have to stop work. This is typical for aerospace contracts. For example, the government only provides funds annually.

If they can't raise that kind of money, or don't have a very solid plan to do so, then how can their crowd funding effort be in good faith?

You've yet to present any evidence that they're lying or not acting in good faith. That was your claim, prove it.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 12/11/2013 01:20 am
I think it's clear that MarsOne has enough $$ to convince LM and Surrey to do the concept studies.

They do have a reasonable business model. People snark about the reality TV show, but they are right that the moon landings crushed the Olympics in terms of TV audience, and TV audience has value.

I don't think anyone doubts that they can get an enormous TV audience for the first human landing on Mars.  The question isn't so much what the peak viewership figures are, it's how long they last.

Say they get nearly everyone with a TV to watch the landing.  That's a few hours of coverage.  They might also get a good audience for the launch.  Another few hours.

So, we've got everyone on the planet watching for a total of perhaps 5 hours of coverage of those two events.  The 2012 Olympics averaged 31 million U.S. viewers in prime time, over 17 days, which is 51 hours of coverage.  So you'd need 310 million U.S. viewers for 5 hours to equal that -- which is approximately the entire U.S. population, including newborn babies.  And that doesn't even count the rest of the 5,535 hours of non-prime-time coverage there was in the U.S. of the 2012 Olympics (spread across many NBC cable channels).  So, it's impossible for the landing and launch by themselves to match the advertising revenue of the 2012 Olympics.

NBC hit around $1.2 billion in advertising revenue for the 2012 Olympics, which was a record.  The U.S. is typically a bit more than half the worldwide broadcast revenue for the Olympics, so that would give around $2.4 billion in advertising revenue for the 2012 Olympics.  So, best case, you're not going to make more than $2.4 billion from the landing and launch coverage.  That's at least an order of magnitude less than any realistic budget for colonization.

There is some additional money to be made from covering astronaut training, the journey to Mars, and the day-to-day life of the colonists on Mars.  Mars One hopes that will add up to a huge amount of revenue.  I have a hard time seeing that.  It's not as if NASA gets a lot of audience for ISS coverage.

The question is: can they get real investors behind it?

So far, they've had quite a bit of time to come up with investors, but they don't seem to have much to show for it.  That's not surprising to me.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 01:26 am
There is some additional money to be made from covering astronaut training, the journey to Mars, and the day-to-day life of the colonists on Mars.  Mars One hopes that will add up to a huge amount of revenue.  I have a hard time seeing that.  It's not as if NASA gets a lot of audience for ISS coverage.

1. What ISS coverage? It's not like there's any going on right now.
2. Did ya see how many hits Chris Hadfield's cover of "Space Oddity" has? (19.4 million as of a few minutes ago)
3. I'm a giant space nerd and you couldn't pay me to watch most of what is on NASA tv.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 12/11/2013 01:41 am
Yes, and? They've contracted LockMart and SSTL to start. If they don't get the crowd funding they'll have to stop work. This is typical for aerospace contracts. For example, the government only provides funds annually.
Not clear if this is the case here, it's a small study so they could have paid for most of it up front: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/410439734104973312
"Lansdorp: LM contract valued at a little over $250K, SSTL contract at 60K euros."

Quote
You've yet to present any evidence that they're lying or not acting in good faith. That was your claim, prove it.
Eh. I never claimed they were definitively acting in bad faith, I said I find it difficult to see how they can be acting in good faith if they don't have a solid plan to raise the money. They are selling "rewards" that requires an actual mission. If they don't have a realistic plan to actually fly the mission, then I would say they aren't offering the rewards in good faith. Flying the mission first and foremost requires the ability to pay for it.

The evidence they don't have such a plan seems pretty strong to me:
If they knew how to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, they'd be doing it.

The fact that they just slipped 2 years and are spending very small amounts of money on studies suggests quite strongly that they have not been successful in raising the kind of money required.

After their initial announcement, they had well over a year to raise money. They reportedly brought in "over $200k" (which could in theory be lots over, but if it was millions they'd probably be bragging about that) To fly their lander, they need to bring orders of magnitude more in the same timeframe. Yet there is no obvious reason to think their ability to attract funding has changed significantly.  A preliminary study from Lockheed isn't going to suddenly open the floodgates.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Paul Howard on 12/11/2013 01:45 am
So the guys who think they can make the billions from TV rights "cause the Olympics TV rights to 250 countries almost came up to a billion" are trying to get bucks from t-shirts?

Golden Spike MkII.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 12/11/2013 01:50 am
Quote from: ChrisWilson68
Unfortunately, I don't see the studies leading to them getting that kind of funding.  I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see much reason to believe they'll get to the funding levels they need to do the human settlement.

Yes, they're doing the necessary prerequisites, but that's not necessarily sufficient. "I just don't see" is another way of saying you don't know how.. well, yeah, if ya did you would be doing it, wouldn't you?

There are things I can see a plausible path to do that I can't personally do.  SpaceX making Falcon 9 fully reusable is plausible to me, even though I'm not in a position to personally make that happen.

The Mars One business plan seems highly implausible to me.  Just my opinion, of course, but I've explained my reasoning for finding it implausible.  You can judge for yourself whether you agree.

Quote from: ChrisWilson68
Dennis Tito doesn't seem to be able to raise the funds for Inspiration Mars, and Tito has far better connections for raising money, while the IM mission requires far less funding than a permanent settlement on the surface.  If Tito can't raise the money for his mission, it's hard to see Mars One settling Mars.

That doesn't follow. Tito ran into the "why isn't NASA doing this?" problem. I don't think Mars One is ever going to run into that problem, as the answer is obvious: because it's nuts. Of course, if they ever give up their one-way-to-stay plan they'll have the same problem as Tito.

It's true that Tito's plan differs from the Mars One plan in significant ways, so it is possible Mars One could get funding when Inspiration Mars could not.  But I still think there are enough similarities that Inspiration Mars not getting funding is strong circumstantial evidence Mars One won't.  It's not conclusive evidence, I just think it's a bad sign for Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 01:53 am
They are selling "rewards" that requires an actual mission. If they don't have a realistic plan to actually fly the mission, then I would say they aren't offering the rewards in good faith. Flying the mission first and foremost requires the ability to pay for it.

Yes, I agree with that. It's a rookie crowd funding mistake.

Quote from: hop
The evidence they don't have such a plan seems pretty strong to me:
If they knew how to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, they'd be doing it.

What makes you think they're not? Raising a billion starts by raising a million. Raising a million starts by raising a thousand.

Quote from: hop
The fact that they just slipped 2 years and are spending very small amounts of money on studies suggests quite strongly that they have not been successful in raising the kind of money required.

That's just because you seem to think money for ventures is raised in a single shot. It isn't.

Quote from: hop
After their initial announcement, they had well over a year to raise money. They reportedly brought in "over $200k" (which could in theory be lots over, but if it was millions they'd probably be bragging about that) To fly their lander, they need to bring orders of magnitude more in the same timeframe. Yet there is no obvious reason to think their ability to attract funding has changed significantly.  A preliminary study from Lockheed isn't going to suddenly open the floodgates.

The ability to raise money at the beginning of something is rarely comparable to the ability to raise money once you get started. They've made it abundantly clear how they intend to raise the money to do the actual flights: a reality tv show. We haven't even seen that yet. If they fail to make a compelling show, or sell it to a network, they'll probably never fly anything.

This is still irrelevant to the crowd funding for the studies, which you're saying isn't in good faith. If all you're talking about is the rewards, then we agree, but I don't think that's all you're talking about, is it?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 12/11/2013 01:59 am
There are things I can see a plausible path to do that I can't personally do.  SpaceX making Falcon 9 fully reusable is plausible to me, even though I'm not in a position to personally make that happen.

The Mars One business plan seems highly implausible to me.  Just my opinion, of course, but I've explained my reasoning for finding it implausible.  You can judge for yourself whether you agree.

.. and the Mars One folk, who are just mere mortals like you and I, think they can personally do something too. Of course it sounds implausible to you. Heck, SpaceX's business plan sounded implausible to everyone back in 2003 too (and it was, which is why they went another way), so what? Some people say SpaceX's business plan is implausible now.

I have no problem with people saying they don't see it working. I've said the same thing. What I continue to see, and it continues to dishearten me, is that people seem to think Mars One should just shut up and go away. I think it is good that they are trying. No-one else is. We're still waiting for Elon to share his grand vision with us, and more than likely it'll just be another Hyperloop-style gabfest.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 12/11/2013 02:01 am
There are things I can see a plausible path to do that I can't personally do.  SpaceX making Falcon 9 fully reusable is plausible to me, even though I'm not in a position to personally make that happen.

The Mars One business plan seems highly implausible to me.  Just my opinion, of course, but I've explained my reasoning for finding it implausible.  You can judge for yourself whether you agree.

.. and the Mars One folk, who are just mere mortals like you and I, think they can personally do something too. Of course it sounds implausible to you. Heck, SpaceX's business plan sounded implausible to everyone back in 2003 too (and it was, which is why they went another way), so what? Some people say SpaceX's business plan is implausible now.

I have no problem with people saying they don't see it working. I've said the same thing. What I continue to see, and it continues to dishearten me, is that people seem to think Mars One should just shut up and go away. I think it is good that they are trying. No-one else is. We're still waiting for Elon to share his grand vision with us, and more than likely it'll just be another Hyperloop-style gabfest.

I'm certainly not one to say they should go away.  I'm all for people trying very risky things, including things I think won't work.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/11/2013 02:11 am
Not really something worth getting into for several pages, especially when it's starting to look counter productive.....we're not here to be counter productive, we're here to be fans of all types of these ideas.

Sure, they will be judged on results, just like Golden Spike and others who take this route. $24K already says this is a good start.

Next, I'll see what I can get (to add meat to the bones, as opposed to just rehashing press releases) on their plans and we'll have an article on site that I can assure you won't be "OMG, they did crowdfunding". It'll be about their plans.

If they pull it off, amazing! If they don't, at least they tried. I'm not seeing a negative here.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: fatjohn1408 on 12/11/2013 12:57 pm
I wonder how large they are going to print the tweets.

I found that a ink cartridge can print about 600p at about 5% or ~500 words for like 50 ml.

So that's about 0.02 ml per tweet in normal print. What's the price per milligram to mars?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 12/12/2013 12:20 am
I don't think the crowdfunding thing is necessarily a bad sign. It is if they actually want it to be a major source of money, but they might just be doing it to stir up interest in advance of doing the on-Earth reality show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 12/15/2013 04:56 pm
They're up to $50k and 1200 backers...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 01/03/2014 12:50 am
They're about half done with the time and have $115k, so it now seems unlikely that they'll meet the $400k goal.  They started out with a big burst of funding, but it's been slow recently...


EDIT: Also, they've apparently done the first round of cuts, down to 1058 people. 

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-announces-round-2-astronaut-selection-results
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/03/2014 02:39 am
EDIT: Also, they've apparently done the first round of cuts, down to 1058 people. 

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-announces-round-2-astronaut-selection-results
And as usual, they aren't clear about how many of those "200,000 applicants" actually completed the full application process.

Bas Lansdorp recently did a AMA on reddit, which did not go terribly well (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/)

Leaving aside all the people calling it a scam and downvoting his replies, he really didn't offer much that was new or substantive. One vaguely interesting bit http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/cec1d7p

"We're still in negotiation with TV studios about what round 2 will look like."

My interpretation: Round 2 is contingent on TV studios buying in, and they haven't yet.

Response to a question about applications:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/cec1sex?context=3

Q: On your website we see less than 3000 public application videos. Why is that so ?
A: There are people who did not finish their application and people with private profiles.

and doesn't answer a direct follow up on how many are didn't finish.

My interpretation: It's highly unlikely that 90% of the applicants decided to make their videos private. Number of people who payed the fee is likely closer to 6k than 200k, and possibly a lot less. That also makes round 1 a fairly big fraction of the people who completed the application.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 01/05/2014 02:31 am
EDIT: Also, they've apparently done the first round of cuts, down to 1058 people. 

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-announces-round-2-astronaut-selection-results
And as usual, they aren't clear about how many of those "200,000 applicants" actually completed the full application process.

True.

At the end of the application period, I counted 279 pages of videos @ 10 videos per page... the last page only had one video. So 2781 public videos... I doubt even half of the applications were private given that this is supposed to be a reality TV thing.

Quote
My interpretation: It's highly unlikely that 90% of the applicants decided to make their videos private. Number of people who payed the fee is likely closer to 6k than 200k, and possibly a lot less. That also makes round 1 a fairly big fraction of the people who completed the application.

But removing only maybe two-thirds or three-quarters of the applicants isn't necessarily a bad sign IMO... I got the impression from the press release that THIS selection only removed people who were clearly not serious about it or very obviously unsuitable. Mostly because of this quote:

Quote from: Bas Lansdorp
However, the challenge with 200,000 applicants is separating those who we feel are physically and mentally adept to become human ambassadors on Mars from those who are obviously taking the mission much less seriously. We even had a couple of applicants submit their videos in the nude!”
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 01/05/2014 04:36 am
Bas Lansdorp recently did a AMA on reddit, which did not go terribly well (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/)
Thanks for posting this, i normally ignore all Mars One related blahblah but the couple of first posts there were informative.

EDIT:  and that link should totally be in the updates thread, after all it's officially posted by "I am Bas Lansdorp"
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 01/05/2014 09:51 am
EDIT: Also, they've apparently done the first round of cuts, down to 1058 people. 

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-announces-round-2-astronaut-selection-results
And as usual, they aren't clear about how many of those "200,000 applicants" actually completed the full application process.

Bas Lansdorp recently did a AMA on reddit, which did not go terribly well (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/)

Reddit's self proclaimed edginess certainly didn't help. If you came in and didn't ask him a question that directly insulted him of Mars One you got downvoted for taking him seriously. This obsession with calling people out on AMA's pretty much ruins any chance to get any new information from Bas.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 01/05/2014 11:28 am
Bas Lansdorp recently did a AMA on reddit, which did not go terribly well (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/)

Any single one of those Reddit comments would have gotten you banned from this forum for life.

On Reddit, that's how they say hello.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MATTBLAK on 01/05/2014 11:41 am
It's difficult enough to get crowd funding to make a science fiction movie, let alone a Mars Colony. This venture doesn't have anything like the financial or technical horsepower to achieve a fraction of this project's goals. And that is as polite as I can get about all this... :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: IRobot on 01/05/2014 01:07 pm
Bas Lansdorp recently did a AMA on reddit, which did not go terribly well (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/)

Any single one of those Reddit comments would have gotten you banned from this forum for life.

On Reddit, that's how they say hello.
Well, lack of etiquete does not make it wrong. I have stated my opinion regarding Mars One several times on this forum and all were deleted by moderators. Personally I think that giving them so much credit is not doing any good for the space enthusiasts community.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 01/05/2014 02:23 pm
Personally I think that giving them so much credit...

I must have missed something :)

So far they haven't done any harm, but if they start televising the whole astronaut selection program without even having their robotic mission funded I would find that slightly annoying.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 01/05/2014 02:47 pm
I doubt there's much televising because that's based on Lansdorp's faulty logic "billions watch Olympics, therefore billions watch Mars One". Prediction: at best there's some obscure time slot on tax-funded NPO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Public_Broadcasting). Ratings suck hard vacuum and no commercial network picks it up.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/05/2014 06:56 pm
Reddit's self proclaimed edginess certainly didn't help. If you came in and didn't ask him a question that directly insulted him of Mars One you got downvoted for taking him seriously. This obsession with calling people out on AMA's pretty much ruins any chance to get any new information from Bas.
Yeah, that was rather silly, and doesn't help the case of those arguing that Mars One is a scam. If that's the goal, engaging and getting as much as possible on the public record would be far more effective.

On the other hand, it's not entirely "reddit being reddit", it does reflect a wider perception of Mars One. Planetary Resources has a pretty far out plan too, but their AMA was entertaining, informative and not nearly as confrontational.

If you do want to see all Lansdorps responses, the user page make it easier http://www.reddit.com/user/mars-one
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 01/05/2014 07:45 pm
If you do want to see all Lansdorps responses, the user page make it easier http://www.reddit.com/user/mars-one
I checked that before and there is more information encoded in Brownian motion in a petri dish
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: jabe on 01/06/2014 01:52 pm
Mars One just tweeted this (https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/420142742514053121).. I am tempted to get it as a good conversation piece....
jb
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: IRobot on 01/06/2014 03:13 pm
Mars One just tweeted this (https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/420142742514053121).. I am tempted to get it as a good conversation piece....
jb
You should, it is the first physical thing they present. I expect mugs and t-shirts to follow, doubt of anything with metal in it.

EDIT: woops, they made collection coins, that has some metal in it. Guess they covered all the cheap jabs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/07/2014 06:57 am
Mars One's Thunderclap has shot up: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/7726-private-mars-mission-in-2018?locale=en (https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/7726-private-mars-mission-in-2018?locale=en)

Now 1,100 supporters, over 1 million people reached (although I don't know how well Thunderclap accounts for duplicates) with just a few hours to go. May give a bit of a surge on Indiegogo.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/07/2014 06:30 pm
At 13:44 into Singapore Satellite Industry Forum 2013 - Opening Keynote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtNgWK4mm0M) (YouTube) Gwynne Shotwell anticipates Falcon 9 launches for $5-7 million once SpaceX have reusability working.

That would suggest Falcon Heavy launches for around $18 million.

Elon Musk has indicated that SpaceX will attempt a land landing of the first stage of the CRS 3 flight due on February 22nd 2014 - subject to a suitable site being found and the necessary permits being in place.

It will take longer than they hope (their advances always do) but it will come, almost certainly before 2018.

Should do wonderful things to Mars One's funding requirements. I wonder how much of the budget is for launch services?

We could probably guestimate it based on the number of launches required up to the first manned mission and the current list price of a Falcon Heavy (http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities).

Anyone care to do the calculation?


Edit: Link formatting.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 01/07/2014 07:02 pm
...BTW, I don't know if people realize it, but she said they are sand-bagging the GTO numbers for Falcon Heavy. She said that although it's publicized as 12 metric tons, it should be capable of 19.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 01/07/2014 07:13 pm
...BTW, I don't know if people realize it, but she said they are sand-bagging the GTO numbers for Falcon Heavy. She said that although it's publicized as 12 metric tons, it should be capable of 19.
It's publicized as 21.2 tons... To the skepticism of many.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/07/2014 08:43 pm
Elon Musk has indicated that SpaceX will attempt a land landing of the first stage of the CRS 3 flight due on February 22nd 2014 - subject to a suitable site being found and the necessary permits being in place.

It will take longer than they hope (their advances always do) but it will come, almost certainly before 2018.
That depends which part you are talking about. Landing the stage intact in a condition that can be re-used is one thing. Actually turning it around for the quoted cost is a whole different story.

Quote
Should do wonderful things to Mars One's funding requirements. I wonder how much of the budget is for launch services?
If you look at flown planetary missions or and HSF programs, the launch is usually not the most expensive component. Curiosity cost ~2.5 billion, while the launch probably cost a few hundred million.

Developing and building a Mars base that can support humans indefinitely will be hard. Getting the crew there and landing them safely will be no easy task either.

As for how that would affect Mars Ones costs, that's hard to say because when you look at their $6 billion number in terms of the mass and complexity of things that have actually flown, it appears delusional. Is a crewed Mars Colony really less then 3x more complicated than MSL? Much simpler than ISS or Apollo?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 01/07/2014 08:49 pm
Part of the reason interplanetary missions are so expensive is that the volume is low... it usually makes more sense to improve the terminal EDL system or the vehicle, netting several times the scientific payload, than it does to increase launch rate or whatever.

If the volume becomes higher, launch would be a larger portion of the cost. Also, if launch became cheaper, there'd be a little more risk-tolerance.

...what does that mean regarding Mars One? Well, very little since I don't have any faith they'll get to even an unmanned lander. But it's a good try, and I hope I'm wrong (though I'm not).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/07/2014 09:20 pm
Slow evening so calculated it myself...

From the Mars One Roadmap (http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap) it looks as though 11 Falcon Heavies and 3 Falcon 9s would be needed between 2018 and the departure of the first crew for Mars. At current list prices that would cost $1.654 billion and at the anticipated reusable prices just $216 million for a saving almost $1.5 billion.

So instead of needing to raise $4 billion they would need only $2.5 billion.

Pocket change  :)

Note: Lots of assumptions in the calculation and takes the roadmap at face value so YMMV.

Edit: Word order.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/07/2014 09:28 pm
Elon Musk has indicated that SpaceX will attempt a land landing of the first stage of the CRS 3 flight due on February 22nd 2014 - subject to a suitable site being found and the necessary permits being in place.

It will take longer than they hope (their advances always do) but it will come, almost certainly before 2018.
That depends which part you are talking about. Landing the stage intact in a condition that can be re-used is one thing. Actually turning it around for the quoted cost is a whole different story.
Sure. But they've undoubtedly designed for that; be madness not to have. Be interesting to know what time scale Gwynne had in mind when making her prediction.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 01/07/2014 10:00 pm
They've turned around Grasshopper many times, now.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 01/08/2014 05:32 am
They've turned around Grasshopper many times, now.

Yes, I am sure this is part of why they feel confident they can lower launch prices a lot with reflying stages.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 01/08/2014 09:13 am
Slow evening so calculated it myself...

From the Mars One Roadmap (http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap) it looks as though 11 Falcon Heavies and 3 Falcon 9s would be needed between 2018 and the departure of the first crew for Mars. At current list prices that would cost $1.654 billion and at the anticipated reusable prices just $216 million for a saving almost $1.5 billion.

So instead of needing to raise $4 billion they would need only $2.5 billion.

Pocket change  :)

Note: Lots of assumptions in the calculation and takes the roadmap at face value so YMMV.

Edit: Word order.

To support 4 people one-way they will need to land well over 100 tonnes of payload, on top of hab structure.

Red dragon can land 1 tonne of payload, a slightly larger Dragon can land perhaps a couple of tonnes of payload, but not much more without changing the EDL so much it is no longer a Dragon capsule.

FH in reusable mode will not be able to launch a slightly larger Dragon.

Non-recurring engineering of the base will be larger than $6B on its own.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/08/2014 08:17 pm
From the Mars One Roadmap (http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap) it looks as though 11 Falcon Heavies and 3 Falcon 9s would be needed between 2018 and the departure of the first crew for Mars. At current list prices that would cost $1.654 billion and at the anticipated reusable prices just $216 million for a saving almost $1.5 billion.

So instead of needing to raise $4 billion they would need only $2.5 billion.
Where does the $4 billion come from? Mars One gives the cost of the initial mission as $6 billion http://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/how-much-does-the-mission-cost

They say the subsequent crews will be $4 billion each, but that isn't until 2026

This initial vs recurring split is also interesting, since it implies the development and precursor missions can be done for $2 billion.

How does this break down?
The Phoenix clone + relay orbiter must in be the $500 million range, minimum. Insight is cost capped at $425 million without launch or orbiter, so this is quite optimistic.

The next precursor mission is a rover and another relay orbiter.  The rover is not a small or simple item, it is expected to "find the best location" for the colony, carry cargo modules up 10 km, and bury structures in regolith. It is also mission critical, with no mention of a redundant backup that I can see (though the illustration appears to show two). This no MER, by most measures it looks significantly harder than Curiosity. Getting it done for under $1 billion would be highly optimistic.

That leaves, very very optimistically, $500 million to develop the entire cargo, crew transport, landing and colony system.

To put that in perspective, Elon Musk stated at one point that crewed dragon development would cost $800 million - $1 billion (not including the money already spent developing cargo Dragon). Some of that is related to the launcher, but I'd still expect an interplanetary transport, Mars lander and self sustaining colony habitat to cost a bit more than a short duration LEO taxi.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/09/2014 12:05 am
Where does the $4 billion come from?
Working from memory. The principle stands.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 01/09/2014 07:53 am

I was just looking at some Mars pictures and I've come to the conclusion that Mars must be the most bland place in the solar system. I would rather hop around on an asteroid. Why anyone would want to live there for the rest of his life is beyond my comprehension :).

Quote from: hop
They say the subsequent crews will be $4 billion each, but that isn't until 2026

This initial vs recurring split is also interesting, since it implies the development and precursor missions can be done for $2 billion.

With every crew they would have to send another 6 cargo missions (living units, life support units, supplies).

Mars 2020 will cost NASA around $1.5bn. So they could probably fund their demo and rover mission for $2bn (as long as 1t is enough for the rover). But developing a 2.5t lander, sending 6 of them to Mars and assembling a Mars Transfer Vehicle in orbit for $4bn? No way.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/09/2014 05:55 pm
If you do want to see all Lansdorps responses, the user page make it easier http://www.reddit.com/user/mars-one
I checked that before and there is more information encoded in Brownian motion in a petri dish

Just wanted to add the snipe that reddit is worse than twitter.  At least twitter doesn't feign intelligence.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/09/2014 06:08 pm
At 13:44 into Singapore Satellite Industry Forum 2013 - Opening Keynote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtNgWK4mm0M) (YouTube) Gwynne Shotwell anticipates Falcon 9 launches for $5-7 million once SpaceX have reusability working.

Uhhhh.... Really?

Because that would be quite the price reduction from today's $56-60M or so.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/09/2014 06:13 pm

I was just looking at some Mars pictures and I've come to the conclusion that Mars must be the most bland place in the solar system. I would rather hop around on an asteroid. Why anyone would want to live there for the rest of his life is beyond my comprehension :).

Totally with ya on that.  Who wouldn't want to hop around on an asteroid for the rest of their natural lives?  The "rest" being what, 12 hours or so of O2?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 01/09/2014 08:06 pm
Quote from: JohnFornaro
Totally with ya on that.  Who wouldn't want to hop around on an asteroid for the rest of their natural lives?  The "rest" being what, 12 hours or so of O2?

:) Ok, I try to explain. I associate spaceflight with freedom and exploration. Why travel all the way to Mars only to be stuck on another planet for the rest of your life? (in the case of Mars One limited to a very small area on the planet). I'd rather live the life of captain Picard than some settler.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/09/2014 09:01 pm
Mars 2020 will cost NASA around $1.5bn. So they could probably fund their demo and rover mission for $2bn (as long as 1t is enough for the rover).
Even this seems doubtful. 2020 is "only" $1.5bn because it re-uses the design and actual hardware that was already built. Mars One cannot use the MSL design, because their requirements are very different: Carry multi-ton cargos over large distance, relatively quickly (compared to MSL), plus scouting and regolith moving. Except for the science instruments, it needs to be a much more capable vehicle than the MSL design. It is also extremely unlikely anyone would sell RTGs to Mars One.

Quote
But developing a 2.5t lander, sending 6 of them to Mars and assembling a Mars Transfer Vehicle in orbit for $4bn? No way.
I agree, but I was saying something a bit different. If the incremental cost for additional crews is $4bn, then we know that the entire budget for the development of all the systems must come out of the remaining $2bn. Once you count the lander, rover and comsats, there's little left even under very optimistic assumptions.

The $1 billion difference between MSL and 2020 provides an instructive comparison here. Development isn't cheap.

Of course, in reality there is no way the $6bn figure can be credible, because Mars One have not yet spent to the money required to figure out what it would actually cost.

For comparison, the three finalists in the last Discovery round each got $3 million to do preliminary design studies prior to the final selection. Yet Discovery missions are far simpler than what Mars One is proposing to do, and have much more heritage to build on. Just doing a serious feasibility study on Mars One's architecture would cost millions.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 01/09/2014 10:11 pm
I don't know if MarsOne can make their economics work.

But listening to the nay-saying here based on NASA project costs is like reading the incredibly low Jupiter launcher cost estimates (as compared to the ballooning costs of the Jupiter-esque SLS) or reading the unbelieving remarks about SpaceX's plans or prices.

I think COTS alone has shown us that even the government can save 50% or more (much more) on development projects just by having milestone-based contracts without the Federal Acquisitions Regulations red tape.

If NASA thinks it will cost $1.5 billion to reuse the Curiosity design, this may be a sign that a fully private, milestone-based contract with a hungry supplier could come in in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. (As to hungry suppliers, MarsOne mentioned Astrobotic, didn't they?)

Maybe SpaceX can scale-up and test a Super-Draco-based big Red Dragon for MarsOne for $50 milliion-$100 million, once they have proved out the DragonRider Resusable design.

We will know more if the first lander and com satellite move into construction later this year or next.

Flame away if you like, but stop using NASA as the benchmark for fully commercial costs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 01/10/2014 03:16 am
reading the unbelieving remarks about SpaceX's plans or prices.
SpaceX has accomplished great things, but many of their past predictions have in fact proven to be quite unrealistic.
Quote
I think COTS alone has shown us that even the government can save 50% or more (much more) on development projects just by having milestone-based contracts without the Federal Acquisitions Regulations red tape.
I think you still aren't grasping how far from reality Mars One is. They don't need 50% typical NASA cost, they need more like 5%. There is no evidence that "commercial" delivers this.
Quote
Maybe SpaceX can scale-up and test a Super-Draco-based big Red Dragon for MarsOne for $50 milliion-$100 million, once they have proved out the DragonRider Resusable design.
Even if the per flight cost can be brought down to that far, the development needs to be paid for. It also needs to start soon to meet the Mars One schedule.

As I mentioned earlier, Elon's own estimate was $800m-$1bn to develop crew Dragon. Transporting crew to Mars and landing them there is a much bigger step than going from cargo Dragon to crew Dragon.
Quote
We will know more if the first lander and com satellite move into construction later this year or next.
Since the first lander is a Phoenix / InSight clone, it's pretty safe to bet it will cost in the $400m range, without launch.
Choosing this lander is pretty telling in it's own right:
It's 1/15th or more of Mars One's budget, yet it's built entirely on NASA heritage, doesn't do anywhere close to 1/15th of the mission, and doesn't significantly advance the technology needed for the later missions. The fact that it isn't "Red Dragon" is also noteworthy, if Mars One is going to use Dragon based stuff for their later missions, proving the system at the earliest opportunity would be extremely desirable.
Quote
Flame away if you like, but stop using NASA as the benchmark for fully commercial costs.
NASA missions aren't a perfect comparison, but I believe it's a useful reference. The point is not that Mars One would necessarily pay the same, it illustrates just how much better they'd have to do to make the budget close.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 01/10/2014 07:56 am
Quote from: hop
I think you still aren't grasping how far from reality Mars One is. They don't need 50% typical NASA cost, they need more like 5%. There is no evidence that "commercial" delivers this.

I think that is exaggerated.

I don't know whether their plans are realistic from a technical point of view and what the colonists' life expectancy will be, but compared to NASA's manned mission designs they rely on relatively small 2.5t landers (not 40t) and do not need all the fancy equipment (pressurized rovers, return stage etc.). The rover may be more "heavy-duty" but it doesn't carry the scientific instruments curiosity (or Mars 2020) does.

With a little luck it can be done for $10bn ;)

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 01/10/2014 11:26 am
Quote from: hop
I think you still aren't grasping how far from reality Mars One is. They don't need 50% typical NASA cost, they need more like 5%. There is no evidence that "commercial" delivers this.

I think that is exaggerated.


Sure is, NASA would cost a lot more, so its more like 2%.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 01/10/2014 11:57 am
Mars One is interesting as a design study, but there is no way they can generate the revenue to fund it without government support. No government is going to fund a possible suicide mission.

TV shows can't sustain Olympic style ratings day in and day out. After the initial landing, the average TV viewing public will lose interest. Mars One is going to be orders of magnitude short of funding this.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 01/10/2014 01:12 pm
Maybe SpaceX can scale-up and test a Super-Draco-based big Red Dragon for MarsOne for $50 milliion-$100 million, once they have proved out the DragonRider Resusable design.
Even if the per flight cost can be brought down to that far, the development needs to be paid for. It also needs to start soon to meet the Mars One schedule.

As I mentioned earlier, Elon's own estimate was $800m-$1bn to develop crew Dragon. Transporting crew to Mars and landing them there is a much bigger step than going from cargo Dragon to crew Dragon.


I'm sorry if I was unclear in what I wrote. In referring to $50-$100 million, I was just referring to the design, construction, and Grasshopper-style landing testing for a scaled-up MarsOne-spec "Red Dragon" design test vehicle.

Given that Dragon cargo exists, the long pole in creating Dragon crew is the LAS: building the Super-Draco motors and making the retro-propulsion landing work (and yes, the escape propulsion, too). It isn't unreasonable to think that with that system working, it will be relatively cheap to build a scaled up version.

For instance, building Falcon 1 allowed SpaceX to solve problems for Falcon 9. And although the analogy is not exact, Merlin1D is around twice as powerful as the original Merlin1A.

Now, I don't think $100 million will cover manufacturing 5-10 Big Red Dragons. And not even MarsOne thinks the Big Red Dragon will be the spacecraft for housing the Mars colonists on the interplanetary journey. See http://www.mars-one.com/technology/mars-transit-vehicle (http://www.mars-one.com/technology/mars-transit-vehicle)

Finally, as to Musk's $1 billion cost estimate for building crew Dragon, I think that was partly for Congressional and NASA consumption. Is SpaceX actually getting $1 billion through CCiCap and CCtCap?

Musk also said SpaceX would build crew Dragon with or without NASA. But SpaceX doesn't have, and won't have, a billion-odd dollars in funds for that project any time in the foreseeable future. So I suppose Musk thinks he can develop Dragon crew fast and NASA-style for $1 billion, or he can develop it slower and Grasshopper style for much less. Which price could MarsOne get?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/10/2014 01:18 pm
I don't know if MarsOne can make their economics work.

But listening to the nay-saying here based on NASA project costs is like reading ... the unbelieving remarks about SpaceX's plans or prices.

The comparitive cost problem is a difficult one.  SpaceX's costs, not prices, are proprietary info.  So are Russian and chinese costs.  Even the NSA can't figure out what NASA's true costs are, even tho these costs are ostensibly in the public domain.

All that anyone can do is to look at NASA's "public" costs, and compare them to Mars-One's "public" cost estimates. 

The MSL team managed to successfully complete their mission for $2.5B.  They missed their first launch window, and got to add $400-500M to their "price".  It is reasonable to assert that a nuclear powered martian rover mission could have been designed on a clean sheet and successfully launched for a "price" of about $2B.

We also know that the construction price of ISS, about 200-300 miles away, was about $100B.  Obviously, about six people can live up there on a nearly permanent basis, with regular supplies on a roughly quarterly basis.

The current mantra from Mars-One, briefly summarized is: All you have to do to build a human tended base on Mars is to spend $6B.

I think that an analogy here can be made with the FTL wormhole crowd:  They assert that all you have to do is make a wormhole and then travel to the other side of the galaxy in minutes, or whatever. The so-called "naysayers" question the "all you have to do" part, and the FTL wormholers scoff: "Obviously, you naysayers don't understand theoretical physics".

Obviously, the naysayers on the Mars-One financial projections don't understand finance.  So I get where you seem to be coming from.

As to Gwynn Shotwell's assertion that launch prices, not costs, could drop one order of magnitude, pending re-usability:  Why not? 

That would still be quite the price reduction.  They have a modular design, and rocket nursery which appears to indicate that they have a handle on some aspects of mass producing rockets.

From a political standpoint regarding the lack of political consensus to support the commercial crew companies:  Democrats don't care all that much for space; it can't be peopled with an entitled voting class who have limited education and skills.  Republicans aren't supportive of space either, if it should provide widespread employment of a skilled labor force and open up a new economy where wealth for more than the elites can be achieved. 

Point is, the basic politics of space in the US are not going to change.  The one silver lining to the Mars-One marketing program is that it does not seem to be government dependent.  That's more or less a first.

You are probably correct in that there's more "flaming away" on this thread than from the tailpipe of an M-O rocket.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 01/10/2014 01:24 pm
Quote from: JohnFornaro
Totally with ya on that.  Who wouldn't want to hop around on an asteroid for the rest of their natural lives?  The "rest" being what, 12 hours or so of O2?

:) Ok, I try to explain. I associate spaceflight with freedom and exploration. Why travel all the way to Mars only to be stuck on another planet for the rest of your life? (in the case of Mars One limited to a very small area on the planet). I'd rather live the life of captain Picard than some settler.

English is my first, and pretty much only language; you seem to have missed a few of the subtle layers of meaning in my brief comment.

As to Cap'n Picard; thanks for sharing.  That distant future has little bearing on mankind's current inabilities to even visit Luna.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 01/11/2014 07:35 pm
A 7th January Via Satellite interview with Bas: Mars One Plans Two, Possibly Three Communications Satellites for the Red Planet (http://www.satellitetoday.com/telecom/2014/01/07/mars-one-plans-two-possibly-three-communications-satellites-for-the-red-planet/)

A /. poster (http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/01/11/0010244/mars-one-studying-how-to-maintain-communications-with-mars-247) summarised it thus:
Quote
Mars One, the low-credibility effort to colonize Mars, is at least funding some interesting concept studies for their alleged plan to colonize the red planet. One of the most interesting is the effort to maintain uninterrupted communications with Mars. This is not as trivial as it may sound, as any satellite in Martian orbit will still have to deal with occultations between Mars and Earth due to the Sun. Surrey Satellite Technology will be performing the study.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 01/12/2014 03:25 am
SEL4/5? SML4/5?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: subzero788 on 01/23/2014 11:40 am
In other news, they now have a book deal  ;D


http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/book-release-mars-one-the-human-factor
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: subzero788 on 02/06/2014 01:39 pm
They've done pretty well on indiegogo (well better than I expected, $267k right now).


Though with four days left it seems unlikely they'll make it to $400k


http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018 (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 02/09/2014 03:02 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJLwJlIGs7U
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 02/09/2014 08:39 pm
The indiegogo is now over $300k, but with 10 hours to go, doesn't look like they're making $400k.

Also, there's a new announcement from Bas Lansdorp here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018?c=activity

interesting highlights:
"we’ve actually raised more money during this two-month campaign than we raised from private donations over the past two years"
and
"We're expecting the results of the [Lockheed Martin] study in May of this year"


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/09/2014 08:46 pm
Despite the fact that it is possible to live for many months (years?) floating in microgravity, I do not believe it is necessary, and certainly much more comfortable with gravity.
Mars Ones budget is almost certainly too low to get any one to Mars at all, never mind with "extras" like artificial gravity, VASIMR and a new space rated high power nuclear reactor. The last would probably blow their entire budget many times over all by itself. If by some miracle Mars One manages to raise ~$6 billion, their only hope will be to do everything as bare bones as possible.

Your concept may have merits, but as far as I can tell it has  nothing to do with Mars One, so should be discussed in some other thread. Unless they've contracted you to develop it...

Meanwhile, with 10 hours left, Mars One has just past $300k on their indigogo. While it appears very unlikely they will hit their 400k goal, it's a pretty impressive amount. $300k could make a small but meaningful contribution to space exploration if applied to real projects. Unfortunately, in Mars Ones case it's unlikely to produce anything, since they still need to raise another $399.7 million or so to fly their first mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: neilh on 02/09/2014 09:51 pm
Does anybody know how many engineers they have now?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 02/09/2014 10:56 pm
Even if Mars One does ultimately raise the few billions they need they're most likely going to be overtaken by events.

Their first manned mission is currently slipping at around one year per year and is now scheduled for 2024; ten years hence. It would be astounding if it did not slip further.

In a recent interview Elon Musk suggested that the first MCT mission would be in 10-12 years. Similar time-scale, enormously greater scale and sustainability. That too will slip. But likely by far less.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 02/10/2014 12:08 am
If by some miracle Mars One manages to raise ~$6 billion, their only hope will be to do everything as bare bones as possible.

I agree.


Quote
Meanwhile, with 10 hours left, Mars One has just past $300k on their indigogo. While it appears very unlikely they will hit their 400k goal, it's a pretty impressive amount. $300k could make a small but meaningful contribution to space exploration if applied to real projects. Unfortunately, in Mars Ones case it's unlikely to produce anything, since they still need to raise another $399.7 million or so to fly their first mission.

Well, if I understand the Mars One plan correctly, their main source of funding will be television - originally, I think, the astronaut selection rounds will be televised as a reality TV show. Presumably the crowdfunding is just to get things started and to get people interested.

(I still don't think they're likely to make the amount they need, of course, but it's not as hopeless as if they were trying to do it by crowdfunding alone.)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/10/2014 07:00 am
Indiegogo campaign just finished at $313,749 and 8,152 backers.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 02/10/2014 07:09 am
Mars-One about $40 a person, comparable to the astronaut application fee.
Golden Spike (Indiegogo) about $70 a person.
Planetary Resources Arkyd about $85 a person. (Although disentangling the investor injections would be hard to do/prove.)
Useful metrics/pricepoints. Bit of a 1/r dependency.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 02/18/2014 12:24 am
http://newday.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/16/one-way-ticket-to-mars/
"Army Officer Heidi Beemer has been the first finalist selected to travel to Mars with the Mars One mission– a project that aims to establish a small colony of humans on the red planet by 2025. If Heidi goes, she will be one of 24 people who will leave Earth FOREVER to live, research and experiment on Mars. We talked with Heidi about her brave ambition to take on this project and if she has any fears of leaving her friends and family for this miraculous mission." Video length 3:24.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 02/18/2014 03:00 am
Wait, that doesn't sound right. I don't think they're really "finalists" yet, they've only narrowed it down to 1000+ people, I think.

I think the real selection round would be televised, anyway.

And I don't know where the "24 people" number comes from - the first launch window is supposed to be 4 people, then 4 more, but I don't think they said anything about stopping at 24...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: corrodedNut on 02/22/2014 01:40 pm
What the fatwa?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/22/muslim_clerics_issue_fatwa_banning_the_devout_from_mars_one_suicide_mission/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 02/22/2014 02:26 pm
What The Fatwa indeed! 

Suicide is against the law in most civilized countries.

The Mars One response (http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-ones-response-to-the-fatwa-issued-by-the-general-authority-of-islamic) is an illuminating example of what I've been calling cognitive infiltration.

Quote from: Mars-One
Do the dangers associated with exploration merit a Fatwa?

And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors: verily in that are Signs for those who know. (Quran 30: 22)

The Muslim world has a rich tradition of exploration.

The issue is suicide, not exploration.

Quote from: Mars-One
The mission to Mars is a road that has never been walked before, even though the first settlers will be walking in the footsteps of Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Neil Armstrong, or any of the other great explorers in history.

Ibn, Marco, and Neil were all as knowledgeable of the exploration dangers as they could be.  The organizations which supported their efforts used the highest technology of the time to reduce the risks associated with LOC.

Ibn had a scimitar, no doubt.  Neil had a felt tip pen:

While moving within the cabin, Aldrin accidentally broke the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for lift off from the Moon. There was concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. Fortunately a felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. Had this not worked, the Lunar Module circuitry could have been reconfigured to allow firing the ascent engine. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Lunar_ascent_and_return)

Mars-One makes no credible demonstration that it has considered the forty years or so that the first group of people would live on Mars.  As a Buddheo-Christian, I have no moral problem with the unknowns of spending the rest of one's life in a sub-one-gee environment.  Until mankind knows what those unknowns are, we shall never get off planet.

The moral issue, for me, is twofold.  First, Mars-One owns the life story of those first individuals.  Mars-One will retell that story as they see fit and there is to be no independent means of verifying the fidelity of the Mars-One story line.

Secondly, Mars-One has not believably stated that they will provide for the first participants' living needs.

Quote from: Mars-One
It may seem extremely dangerous to send humans to Mars today, but the humans will be preceded by at least eight cargo missions. Robotic unmanned vehicles will prepare the habitable settlement. Water and a breathable atmosphere will be produced inside the habitat and the settlement will be operational for two years, even before the first crew leaves Earth. Each of the cargo missions will land in a system very similar to the human landing capsule. An impressive track record of the landing technology will be established before risking human lives.

]Anybody can write down forward looking statements of no substance.  That is what these statements are.

This is a red herring of no value:

Quote from: Mars-One
It should be noted that the moon lander was never test[ed] on the Moon before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed successfully on the Moon.

The devices were thoroughly tested here on Earth as best as could be done.  There was a cost with the risk reduction and all this testing.  Mars-One continues to be sketchy about cost:

The proposed Mars One budget includes a large safety margin to take into account significant mission failures as well as smaller but costly failures of components on Mars. (http://www.mars-one.com/mission/risks-and-challenges)

Finally, here is the specific statement of cognitive infiltration:

Quote from: Mars-One
If we may be so bold: the GAIAE should not analyze the risk as they perceive it today. The GAIAE should assess the potential risk for humans as if an unmanned habitable outpost is ready and waiting on Mars.

Just believe.

Quote from: Mars-One
As Ibn Battuta also wrote: "Travelling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."

Personally, the Mars-One "story" that they are "telling" leaves me "speechless". Believe dat.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 02/22/2014 03:03 pm
The economics of Mars One don't make sense. It is not going to happen funded by a reality TV show.

Let's take their $6B cost at face value. They would have to earn more money that the worldwide gross of the movies Avatar and Titanic. The top ten films of all time gross is about $14.5B. This is orders of magnitude greater than the money generated by any TV show, but nowhere near enough for a Mars base.

http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/ (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/)

What about ratings? Once the Mars landing is over, are people going to watch the daily routine and maintenance of a Mars base? If people wanted to watch that, we would have a ISS reality TV show. I haven't heard of any networks making a deal with NASA TV.

Even if they pulled it off and dropped a team on Mars, Mars One would run out of money, the supply ships will not launch, and the crew will die.

The best bet for Mars One is to continue with their studies and planning. Then when humanity is ready to go to Mars, maybe some of their ideas will be used.

Edit: Forgot to add the link.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 02/22/2014 08:50 pm
Suicide is against the law in most civilized countries.

No it isn't. Unless you consider India and Singapore to be "most civilized countries". The rest of the world decriminalized suicide in the second half of last century. Ireland being the last, in 1993.



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: M129K on 02/22/2014 08:57 pm
Living on Mars is as much of a "suicide" as living on Earth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 02/22/2014 09:01 pm
Living on Mars is as much of a "suicide" as living on Earth.

Well, maybe not New Jersey.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 02/22/2014 09:55 pm
Suicide is against the law in most civilized countries.

No it isn't. Unless you consider India and Singapore to be "most civilized countries". The rest of the world decriminalized suicide in the second half of last century. Ireland being the last, in 1993.

We're talking about my "law" here.  Have a nice Cadillac.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 02/24/2014 12:08 pm
Mars One is interesting as a design study, but there is no way they can generate the revenue to fund it without government support. No government is going to fund a possible suicide mission.

I agree. They have very little chance of success, but they could do a few good things. Like paying for a few design studies, that can later be used as a reference by all people developing technologies for a Mars base. They can also attract funding from people who like fantastic ideas better than scientific results, and maybe generate some more intrest among the general public. Hopefully increasing NASA's budget a little.

As for the reality show idea, that will never pay for the base. Not for its construction, and certainly not for the upkeep and supply missions. But a space-themed reality show on earth might be better. It could attract about as many viewers as all the goldminer/logger/metal detector guys/pawn shop/survival/etc. shows out there. The profits could go to the development of more ISRU/ECLSS/EDL technology, to be tested by new candidates in the next season. That'll generate more interest in space exploration, test equipment in a much more complete way than controlled trials could do. It would be a fantastic medium for peer review of the community. Developers that get their equipment in the show would attract funding more easily, even if the show didn't finance them directly.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 02/25/2014 02:28 am
One of their big problems is no return.

If return to Earth is made possible then would people, companies, ect. sponsor groups of people to colonize Mars though Mars-One?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 02/27/2014 05:22 am
just for a benchmark, how much money DOES a successful TV show make? I'd imagine not $6 billion, but...

I know big movies tend to be in the hundreds of millions, but how do shows compare?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: dcporter on 03/05/2014 06:54 pm
just for a benchmark, how much money DOES a successful TV show make? I'd imagine not $6 billion, but...

I know big movies tend to be in the hundreds of millions, but how do shows compare?

Here's (http://"https://www.google.com/search?q=american+idol+revenue") a list of articles about a top show's revenue. Forbes seems to think that American Idol is pulling in $6M per half-hour in advertising revenue, which I don't think includes product placement. BOE suggests $720M in ad revenue per season, from 40 1.5-hour episodes (WAAs based on WAGs).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/05/2014 09:38 pm
How much revenue could the consumers of WALL-E generate. That's not too far away. Perhaps Lansdorp is prescient of the rapidly growing demographic of 'captive audience'.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 03/07/2014 05:00 am
just for a benchmark, how much money DOES a successful TV show make? I'd imagine not $6 billion, but...

I know big movies tend to be in the hundreds of millions, but how do shows compare?

Here's (http://"https://www.google.com/search?q=american+idol+revenue") a list of articles about a top show's revenue. Forbes seems to think that American Idol is pulling in $6M per half-hour in advertising revenue, which I don't think includes product placement. BOE suggests $720M in ad revenue per season, from 40 1.5-hour episodes (WAAs based on WAGs).

Ah. Thanks.

So if somehow they managed to be as popular as American Idol (unlikely at best) they'd need about 9 years worth.

No, wait, that's revenue, not profits, right? So it'd be much worse than that  :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 03/07/2014 05:51 am
just for a benchmark, how much money DOES a successful TV show make? I'd imagine not $6 billion, but...

I know big movies tend to be in the hundreds of millions, but how do shows compare?

Here's (http://"https://www.google.com/search?q=american+idol+revenue") a list of articles about a top show's revenue. Forbes seems to think that American Idol is pulling in $6M per half-hour in advertising revenue, which I don't think includes product placement. BOE suggests $720M in ad revenue per season, from 40 1.5-hour episodes (WAAs based on WAGs).

Ah. Thanks.

So if somehow they managed to be as popular as American Idol (unlikely at best) they'd need about 9 years worth.

No, wait, that's revenue, not profits, right? So it'd be much worse than that  :(
Through the show they could ask for sponsors.

Give so much to send a couple to help colonize Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/07/2014 10:40 am
How many of your regular Idols viewers would keep watching an entire season of Mars colonization technobabble?
One whole episode?
Five minutes of episode one?
The new Cosmos series ratings should give a hint, and that even has NdGT.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 03/09/2014 06:15 am
How many of your regular Idols viewers would keep watching an entire season of Mars colonization technobabble?
One whole episode?
Five minutes of episode one?

Probably very few... the question is whether it can find its own audience.

Quote
The new Cosmos series ratings should give a hint, and that even has NdGT.

Eh, I don't think that's exactly the right comparison. I think Deadliest Catch is probably a better analogue... and I have to say Mars colonization is probably inherently interesting to more people than Alaskan crab fishing.

Don't get me wrong, it still won't make $6 billion...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/18/2014 05:44 am
Lionsgate TV Teams with Mars One for Reality Series
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/03/17/lionsgate-tv-teams-mars-reality-series/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/18/2014 07:23 am
Quote from: Parabolic Arc article
It looks like Lionsgate TV has won the sweepstakes to produce the Mars One reality series, which will chronicle the effort by “eccentric Dutch billionaire entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp” to colonize the Red Planet.

 ::)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/18/2014 07:27 am
Interesting, from the article I get the distinct impression that Lionsgate doesn't care at all whether Mars One actually ever launches anything.  It also says Lionsgate will do their own casting, and then "merge" it with the selection process of the Mars One folks.

It sounds to me like Lionsgate sees this as a gimmick to get people to watch what will be essentially Big Brother -- throw a bunch of quirky people together and force them to live in close quarters and hope for drama.  Lionsgate will make their money, and if there's no hope that the cut going to Mars One will fund actual Mars missions, it doesn't hurt Lionsgate.  The missions are far enough in the future they can have several seasons of the show while maintaining the fiction there's an actual non-zero chance Mars One will launch people.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Altonity on 03/18/2014 01:45 pm
It also says Lionsgate will do their own casting, and then "merge" it with the selection process of the Mars One folks.

Now I lost even my last hope for Mars One. If Lionsgate will do their own casting this will be Mars themed Big Brother and Mars One will never launch anything. I wasn't too hopeful about Mars One before, but now even last bit of hope vanished.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 03/18/2014 01:54 pm
Really? With that news, I'm actually thinking Mars One might go /somewhere/, as in at least complete a study or two. I never expected them to even fly that one unmanned mission, I thought they'd just fade. But an agreement for a fake Mars big brother show sounds like there might be some good which comes of Mars One, even though they'll never send anyone to Mars (they never had a chance of that anyway).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 03/19/2014 03:31 am
I'm not sure exactly what that bit about separate casting and then "merging" it means... will they do one season that's pure TV before they start bringing in the actual Mars One selection hopefuls or something?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/19/2014 04:29 am
Whenever I hear people complaining about how horrible it would be if a television show was actually successful at attracting the mainstream to space, I can't help being reminded of the alternative rock scene in the early 90s. Yes, wouldn't it be sad if everyone suddenly liked the same stuff we liked, we'd all have to go find something else obscure and intricate to obsess over.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/19/2014 05:25 am
"For the next several years, the series would be covering the different stages of preparation for the mission, starting with participant selection and the finalists — called candidates — undergoing an 8-year training protocol. The series’ cast will evolve as candidates in the mission drop out and new ones are brought in. “This is a social experiment that focuses on the people that would sign for something like this — they have to agree to participate and be willing to go on a one-way mission, knowing that if you go, you can never come back,” said Roy Bank, who is producing the project as part of his overall deal with Lionsgate TV."

Think Venn diagram. One circle has "Mars-One participant". One has "Mars-One finalist/candidate". One has "Lionsgate series cast member". "Mars-One finalist/candidate" is fully enclosed by "Mars-One participant". "Lionsgate series cast member" tries to take a bite out of "Mars-One finalist/candidate" without wasting too much time on "Mars-One participant". Not every single last person of "Lionsgate series cast member" is a member of either Mars-One set.

I would add the model of other successful reality shows where one season's winner is held in reserve for future guest appearances as a battle of the titans or a mentor. The best reality tv is captured in that box of exponentially increasing difficulty and unpredicted hardship. They have to track that 'demographic' of skill set and capability, and throw in their own twists and turns. (Could they have made a reality show of the tricks and errors and misleading readings that ground control played on the Apollo astronauts during training.)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/19/2014 12:48 pm
Whenever I hear people complaining about how horrible it would be if a television show was actually successful at attracting the mainstream to space, I can't help being reminded of the alternative rock scene in the early 90s. Yes, wouldn't it be sad if everyone suddenly liked the same stuff we liked, we'd all have to go find something else obscure and intricate to obsess over.

Sort of good analogy there. Billions starting to continuously watch spaceflight reality-TV is about as likely as billions starting to listen Photek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qJKxaWb0_A) on repeat.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: GalacticIntruder on 03/19/2014 07:45 pm
I am curious to see how and where these cast members/actors/astronaut wannabes will train. I am sure no legitimate space center would want the stereotypical reality show to make a mockery of their processes and facilities.


IMO professional and disciplined people don't make good TV, we need the bozos. Lions-gate definitely will alter the idea of Mars One, but that might lead to some good, just maybe.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/19/2014 09:58 pm
I am curious to see how and where these cast members/actors/astronaut wannabes will train. I am sure no legitimate space center would want the stereotypical reality show to make a mockery of their processes and facilities.

NM Spaceport. Mars-like. Silly architecture.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Zed_Noir on 03/20/2014 05:40 am
I am curious to see how and where these cast members/actors/astronaut wannabes will train. I am sure no legitimate space center would want the stereotypical reality show to make a mockery of their processes and facilities.

They could in theory train anywhere if they have the cash to pay .
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/23/2014 04:45 am
http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac/sites/ag.arizona.edu.ceac/files/08ICES-0187%20Res%20Pro%20SPFGC%20Giacomelli%2004-30-08.pdf
Resource and Production Model for the South Pole Food Growth Chamber
R. Lane Patterson, Gene A. Giacomelli The University of Arizona 2008

http://www.academia.edu/2194711/Bio-Regenerative_Life_Support_System_Development_for_Lunar_Mars_Habitats
Bio-Regenerative Life Support System Development forLunar/Mars Habitats
Giacomelli Patterson UA 2012

http://ag.arizona.edu/event/ceac-hydroponic-crop-production-engineering-design-short-course
fwiw. Pricey 4 day 'convention' headed by Giacomelli. Access to streaming/archived video stars at $400.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: go4mars on 04/16/2014 12:20 pm
http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/baslansdorptodiscussmarsoneplanningat2014marssocietyconvention

"Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-Founder of Mars One, will give a plenary talk about his organization’s current planning for the Red Planet at the 17th Annual International Mars Society Convention, to be held August 7-10, 2014 at the South Shore Harbour Resort in League City, Texas, just outside Houston near NASA's Johnson Space Center."
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 04/17/2014 05:50 am
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

---

I don't see anything on their website about the Lionshead TV deal that was mentioned here a while back. Is that real? If so, why wouldn't they mention it on the website?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 04/17/2014 07:03 am
I hope they make it not so boring that someone reports on it.. unlike the two already existing Mars analog stations that so few people have even heard about.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 04/17/2014 02:04 pm
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

The interesting news was Kristian von Bengtson of Copenhagen Suborbitals being the outpost architect. Will Tordenskjolds propel the colonists to their destination...

Quote
I don't see anything on their website about the Lionshead TV deal that was mentioned here a while back. Is that real? If so, why wouldn't they mention it on the website?

Lionsgate TV, but even they don't have anything about this on the corporate pages.

But there will be another Mars reality TV done by Thinkfactory Media (http://www.thinkfactorymedia.com/deadline-thinkfactory-media-shopping-mars-exploration-reality-series/) with Mars Society.

Wonder if billions will watch both series, or will both get billions/2 viewers?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ThereIWas3 on 05/25/2014 04:38 am
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 06/05/2014 04:32 am
(from update thread)
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-teams-with-endemol-for-worldwide-tv-event

Mars One teams up with Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP). DSP will exclusively produce the show about selection and training.

So what happened to Lionsgate TV? I guess that fell through? (Not surprising really, as there was never a press release on the Mars One site)...

I'm glad they have an agreement though...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 06/07/2014 06:34 pm
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)

a lot of good work is being done at the MDRS, but it does not count as a 'realistic' simulation. the habitat or greenhouse does not resemble anything that could ever be put on Mars. More importantly, the ECLSS would seem like the most important part to test extensively.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 06/13/2014 12:59 am
https://medium.com/@arxivblog/the-science-of-deflector-shields-revolutionised-by-discovery-of-radiation-shelters-on-the-moon-a0ba6bfdf65d

No clue where to put; put where necessary.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2014 07:11 am
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)

a lot of good work is being done at the MDRS, but it does not count as a 'realistic' simulation. the habitat or greenhouse does not resemble anything that could ever be put on Mars. More importantly, the ECLSS would seem like the most important part to test extensively.

MDRS is as close in size, shape and layout to a potential Mars habitat as is possible given the constrains of money and materials.  This means it is ideal for testing habitability and other human factors and operations.  It has never been intended as an ECLSS testbed,  For that look to Mars 500 - or the ISS.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 06/13/2014 10:11 am
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)

a lot of good work is being done at the MDRS, but it does not count as a 'realistic' simulation. the habitat or greenhouse does not resemble anything that could ever be put on Mars. More importantly, the ECLSS would seem like the most important part to test extensively.

MDRS is as close in size, shape and layout to a potential Mars habitat as is possible given the constrains of money and materials.  This means it is ideal for testing habitability and other human factors and operations.  It has never been intended as an ECLSS testbed,  For that look to Mars 500 - or the ISS.

'Given the constraints of money' is quite a euphemism for 'not realistic' here. But as I said: there's a lot of good work being done there, and I don't expect it to be realistic at this stage. But nobody should be given the impression that it is. Especially considering this is a discussion thread about an initiative which faces a lot of criticism for (amongst other things) the unrealistic image it creates about missions to Mars, the technical difficulty thereof, the technological readiness, and what astronauts might be capable of on the surface.

The MDRS does not have a functioning ECLSS, it's power generators and consumables are replenished 'out of sim', and the two week turnaround time hardly allows the 'human factors' to become problematic. All things that are absolutely paramount before we can talk about 'realism'. And yes, that's very costly. Who'd of thought going to Mars cost a pretty penny?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 06/13/2014 12:09 pm
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)

a lot of good work is being done at the MDRS, but it does not count as a 'realistic' simulation. the habitat or greenhouse does not resemble anything that could ever be put on Mars. More importantly, the ECLSS would seem like the most important part to test extensively.

MDRS is as close in size, shape and layout to a potential Mars habitat as is possible given the constrains of money and materials.  This means it is ideal for testing habitability and other human factors and operations.  It has never been intended as an ECLSS testbed,  For that look to Mars 500 - or the ISS.
Quote
'Given the constraints of money' is quite a euphemism for 'not realistic' here. But as I said: there's a lot of good work being done there, and I don't expect it to be realistic at this stage. But nobody should be given the impression that it is. Especially considering this is a discussion thread about an initiative which faces a lot of criticism for (amongst other things) the unrealistic image it creates about missions to Mars, the technical difficulty thereof, the technological readiness, and what astronauts might be capable of on the surface.

Not a euphemism, a statement of reality.  MDRS is built from steel and wood, not from aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre.  This is for reasons of cost, but using such material would add nothing to the realism.  They are not needed for the purpose.  Linking this to Mars One is really not germane, While Mars One people have been to MDRS, Mars One will, one hopes develop their own facilities that a more suited to their purposes.

The MDRS does not have a functioning ECLSS, it's power generators and consumables are replenished 'out of sim', and the two week turnaround time hardly allows the 'human factors' to become problematic. All things that are absolutely paramount before we can talk about 'realism'. And yes, that's very costly. [/quote]

Nobody has said that MDRS should have a functioning ECLSS, that's not it's purpose.  For what it is intended to do it is quite realistic.  Which is to provide a structure that is realistic in terms of size and configuration in a field environment that offers a diversity of Mars analogues, that allows education, training, and research in the field.  if you want to investigate ECLSS,. go elsewhere.

Quote
Who'd of thought going to Mars cost a pretty penny?

Everyone knows this here, so the sarcasm is quite pointless.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 06/13/2014 12:41 pm
This looks interesting:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-begins-work-on-simulation-mars-home-for-crew

If it's a good (realistic) simulation of a Mars colony, this could be something very positive they could contribute.

Hasn't the Mars Society already done this?  You can even read the trip reports of the teams that have gone through it.  Like here. (http://mdrs.marssociety.org/)

a lot of good work is being done at the MDRS, but it does not count as a 'realistic' simulation. the habitat or greenhouse does not resemble anything that could ever be put on Mars. More importantly, the ECLSS would seem like the most important part to test extensively.

MDRS is as close in size, shape and layout to a potential Mars habitat as is possible given the constrains of money and materials.  This means it is ideal for testing habitability and other human factors and operations.  It has never been intended as an ECLSS testbed,  For that look to Mars 500 - or the ISS.
Quote
'Given the constraints of money' is quite a euphemism for 'not realistic' here. But as I said: there's a lot of good work being done there, and I don't expect it to be realistic at this stage. But nobody should be given the impression that it is. Especially considering this is a discussion thread about an initiative which faces a lot of criticism for (amongst other things) the unrealistic image it creates about missions to Mars, the technical difficulty thereof, the technological readiness, and what astronauts might be capable of on the surface.

Not a euphemism, a statement of reality.  MDRS is built from steel and wood, not from aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre.  This is for reasons of cost, but using such material would add nothing to the realism.  They are not needed for the purpose.  Linking this to Mars One is really not germane, While Mars One people have been to MDRS, Mars One will, one hopes develop their own facilities that a more suited to their purposes.

The MDRS does not have a functioning ECLSS, it's power generators and consumables are replenished 'out of sim', and the two week turnaround time hardly allows the 'human factors' to become problematic. All things that are absolutely paramount before we can talk about 'realism'. And yes, that's very costly.

Nobody has said that MDRS should have a functioning ECLSS, that's not it's purpose.  For what it is intended to do it is quite realistic.  Which is to provide a structure that is realistic in terms of size and configuration in a field environment that offers a diversity of Mars analogues, that allows education, training, and research in the field.  if you want to investigate ECLSS,. go elsewhere.[/quote]

Ergo, it is not a 'realistic simulation of a Mars mission'... Realistic being: once we're done with it, we're ready to go to Mars.' It does not need to be that realistic for what it does. It provides a few realistic parameters, while other parameters are not considered due to financial reasons, technological readiness, etc. MO has been accused on many occasions of misrepresenting the technological readiness, so it's important to point out the difference between an early test area and a grand rehearsal to take out the last kinks.

Quote
Who'd of thought going to Mars cost a pretty penny?

Everyone knows this here, so the sarcasm is quite pointless.
[/quote]

It was intended to be ironic, not sarcastic. I'll try and remember adding a smiley next time. I wasn't quite sure why you were arguing. We're saying pretty much the same: 'MDRS good, but not that good.' MO does not make that difference, but we should. The rest is semantics.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 06/13/2014 01:23 pm
The missions are far enough in the future they can have several seasons of the show while maintaining the fiction there's an actual non-zero chance Mars One will launch people.

Nothing wrong with TV shows.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 06/13/2014 02:07 pm
https://medium.com/@arxivblog/the-science-of-deflector-shields-revolutionised-by-discovery-of-radiation-shelters-on-the-moon-a0ba6bfdf65d

No clue where to put; put where necessary.

Was put here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30765.msg1211951#msg1211951

On the 10th from IO9. Still interesting stuff

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kerlc on 06/14/2014 01:55 pm
I haven't yet read this topic in its entirety (and it is quite a long, fascinating one) so I don't know if this has been asked already but is it possible that Mars One would be keen on buying seats on Musk's MCT?

I haven't seen much info on the technology they intend to use to get to mars, so in my head, it seems likely that this could potentially be the case.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 06/14/2014 10:24 pm
I haven't yet read this topic in its entirety (and it is quite a long, fascinating one) so I don't know if this has been asked already but is it possible that Mars One would be keen on buying seats on Musk's MCT?

I haven't seen much info on the technology they intend to use to get to mars, so in my head, it seems likely that this could potentially be the case.

That's not their existing plan. They are talking about something smaller than MCT.

http://www.mars-one.com/mission/the-technology   "Mars One anticipates using Space X Falcon Heavy"
"Mars One will secure the landing capsule from one of the experienced suppliers in the world, for example Lockheed Martin or SpaceX. The SpaceX capsule under consideration is a variant of the Dragon Capsule"

http://www.mars-one.com/technology/mars-transit-vehicle
"The Transit habitat has a mass of about 20,000 kg."

However, since it seems unlikely they'll have funding to actually colonize Mars before MCT starts flying (if it does), I wouldn't be surprised to see them change their plan as MCT becomes more developed.

Maybe eventually they would become a partner in whatever Mars colonization consortium SpaceX plans to sell transportation services to?

EDIT: That really seems to me the most likely "successful" outcome for them. It seems extremely unlikely that a reality TV show could provide enough funding to colonize Mars, but they might contribute, as part of a bigger effort, in exchange for media rights of some sort (maybe less than 'the whole colony as a reality TV show').
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sdsds on 07/11/2014 08:15 pm
From the update thread:
From  press release today: "Mars mission opens its doors to global community for 2018 lander"

and what turns out to be an interesting 56 page PDF document full of useful facts: for 2018 lander payload proposals

http://www.mars-one.com/images/uploads/MarsOne_PIP.pdf

For me, this document is the strongest affirmation I've seen that the Mars One effort might be real. That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 07/12/2014 12:28 am
That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.

It just shows they wrote LM a check, but I guess if your doubt is that they haven't raised enough money to write big enough checks, this is a good reminder that they have. It's a little self fulfilling though, don't you think?




Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/12/2014 10:19 am
From the update thread:
From  press release today: "Mars mission opens its doors to global community for 2018 lander"

and what turns out to be an interesting 56 page PDF document full of useful facts: for 2018 lander payload proposals

http://www.mars-one.com/images/uploads/MarsOne_PIP.pdf

For me, this document is the strongest affirmation I've seen that the Mars One effort might be real. That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.

I second that emotion.  I just threw an eyeball over the TOC, which gives a convincing appearance of thoroughness.  Too early to decide if I prefer fricasseed crow to boiled crow, but I will be reading the document.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 07/14/2014 08:57 am
For me, this document is the strongest affirmation I've seen that the Mars One effort might be real. That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.

Define 'real'. On the one hand, MO plans a reality show about an astronaut selection process gameshow in a sort of MDRS. Nothing impossible there, and major research can be done. Plus, it could appeal to a greater audience. Which might lead to increasing budgets for space agencies, which is what will get us to Mars the fastest.

Secondly they're planning this lander. This would be fantastic, but here we start to see that MO doesn't really get the difficulties on the technical side. The Mars insight mission uses the same general idea (Phoenix lander + new experiments) and still costs over 400 milion to build. And a mission costs a lot of money after launch as well. MO has shown repeatedly that with their best efforts, they can't gather even 1/1000 of this budget. But if they can pitch this idea to enough universities, and get enough public support, they might try to appeal to ESA. Do a Musk, sort of speak.

Thirdly, they want to build a Mars base. Frankly, considering the ridiculous timeline, budget and complete lack of any technological requirement, that 'plan' is nothing more than an idea for a fiction novel (intentionally dropped the 'science' there).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/14/2014 01:05 pm
For me, this document is the strongest affirmation I've seen that the Mars One effort might be real. That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.

Define 'real'.

Stop now, and refer to a dictionary.  Either that, or provide a completely thorough, peer reviewed, irrefutable definition of "real" that we all can debate.

Quote
On the one hand, MO plans a reality show about an astronaut selection process gameshow in a sort of MDRS. Nothing impossible there  ...

Secondly they're planning this lander. This would be fantastic, but here we start to see that MO doesn't really get the difficulties on the technical side. ...

Thirdly, they want to build a Mars base. Frankly ... "I" intentionally dropped the 'science' there. ...

Otherwise, a good post.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 07/14/2014 01:52 pm
For me, this document is the strongest affirmation I've seen that the Mars One effort might be real. That LM spent the time and effort to put together this proposal shows they feel Mars One has at least some chance of flying its 2018 "Precursor Lander" mission.

Define 'real'.

Stop now, and refer to a dictionary.  Either that, or provide a completely thorough, peer reviewed, irrefutable definition of "real" that we all can debate.

Dang, I fell into the same trap as the one I was pointing out.

When using words like 'real', it helps to define the criteria that would make MO 'real' to you. There is a large gray area between 'total scam' and 'they have a good chance to succeed'. The entire gray area could be called both 'real' and 'a joke' as it assumes an honest intent to go to Mars, but low chances of actually getting there, even if good things are done along the way. See my previous post for the three 'criteria' I've given.

Personally, I think MO has long (well, months) gone beyond the perception that they were 'really' only making money by selling dreams to 'stupid' people. On the other hand, that does not change my opinion that they have no 'real' chance in hell to go to Mars. Or to 'really' launch said lander. However, I still hope they might galvanise a 'real' positive effect on initiatives for Mars exploration.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 07/14/2014 02:24 pm
... refer to a dictionary. ...

Dang, I fell into the same trap as the one I was pointing out.

When using words like 'real', it helps to define the criteria that would make MO 'real'...

Good job on being self-aware.  Ya just gotta start the discussion as if everybody generally speaks the same language.

Yeah, it helps to clarify the terms, but in this forum, clarifications should be, had I my way, gentle and general.  But that can only happen in a two way communication, as I'm sure you know.

Anyhow, I think your brief analysis of MO is pretty good.  Again, I've only thrown an eyeball over the TOC, and I've not been inclined to read it, frankly because I've got affairs of the heart which call for the MO report to be found on the lower level of the bathroom reading material pile.  When inclination strikes, I will read it thoroughly.

I think that the "perception that they were 'really' only making money by selling dreams to 'stupid' people" has been dimished in my opinion, but should not be forgotten.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 09/06/2014 10:41 pm
Mars One has started a promotional thing with a chance to win a Lynx flight...

"The campaign will provide funding for a 2015 Earth mission, which is a simulation project to replicate the future Mars human settlement here on Earth, as well as the 2018 Mars mission to Mars."

"To earn an entry into the contest, participants can visit http://urgencynetwork.com/marsone and choose to donate or purchase Mars One items."

Mars One press release:
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-announces-chance-to-win-two-way-trip-to-space

Parabolic Arc article:
www.parabolicarc.com/2014/09/04/mars-launches-competition-lynx-suborbital-flight/


EDIT: I wonder if they're getting the Lynx flight for free from XCOR?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 09/14/2014 03:47 am
EDIT: I wonder if they're getting the Lynx flight for free from XCOR?
Hard to see why XCOR would do that, if they wanted to give a away a flight for promotion they could do that without involving Mars One.

Quote
To earn an entry into the contest, participants can visit and choose to donate or purchase Mars One items.
So it's supposed to work like a raffle, where they take in more than the cost of the rewards.

edit: that's my interpretation anyway
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/09/2014 01:23 am
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/mit-analysis-paints-bleak-outcome-for-mars-one-concept
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/mit-analysis-paints-bleak-outcome-for-mars-one-concept

OK, I'm baffled by this oxygen problem. It seems to me the plants can only make oxygen to the limit of the amount of CO2 available, so where is all the extra oxygen coming from? What am I missing?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 10/09/2014 01:26 am
Yeah, can't say I had "too much oxygen" on the top of my list of why Mars One won't work.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/09/2014 01:49 am
It's silly, just an arbitrary limit of .3 molar fraction of O2, something that every US mission before Shuttle violated. Lazy reporting.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/09/2014 03:04 am
It's silly, just an arbitrary limit of .3 molar fraction of O2, something that every US mission before Shuttle violated. Lazy reporting.

Yeah, that's one issue, but I can't figure out where the extra mass is going.

Presumably they're feeding in CO2 to feed the plants, so the oxygen level goes up, that part makes sense... and then they feed in more nitrogen to balance it... and when they run out of nitrogen, the total pressure crashes within what, a few days? That seems to imply that they're losing gas out of the system at a fast rate (not just converting CO2 to O2 or vice versa, but actually losing pressure)... where is the loss? Am I totally misreading it?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/09/2014 06:25 am
Yeah, can't say I had "too much oxygen" on the top of my list of why Mars One won't work.

I did read only the article but not that study. From the article I get the impression from the article that their professor may be strongly anti Mars One and their study reflects it. That's the polite way of saying it seems a hit piece.

The excess oxygen problem is kind of obvious. If they grow plants for food there must be oxygen excess because plants will produce exactly the amount of oxygen that will be needed to metabolize the plant mass. As not all the plant mass is edible there will be excess oxygen. The obvious solution would be not to dump the inedible plant mass outside but use it to consume the oxygen. Like burning or composting it.

I actually thought about excess oxygen before but I did not identify it as a problem. ;D

I want to add, I am not a fan of Mars One at all, the opposite really.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 10/09/2014 07:10 am
It does amuse me somewhat that they picked one of the more bizarre and obscure things to criticise, out of the many potential - and more significant - problems Mars One might encounter...



... their professor may be strongly anti Mars One and their study reflects it ...

Or maybe he's in their employ, told to make questionable criticism of the program so Lansdorp can bravely refute it! It all makes sense!   ::)

Oooops sorry, left my tinfoil hat on.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/09/2014 07:38 am
It does amuse me somewhat that they picked one of the more bizarre and obscure things to criticise, out of the many potential - and more significant - problems Mars One might encounter...

Agree!

Actually it may not be any one problem but the multitude of things that need to be considered and solved.

Besides the obvious. They will never raise the money to get even started.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: saliva_sweet on 10/09/2014 08:22 am
Looks like they have done a lot of work and quite a thorough analysis. Overall the impression I get is that the Mars One approach is surprisingly viable. The major problem they identified appears to be that if your ECLSS is programmed to kill the crew (due to an unnecessary limit on O2 molar fraction) in a situation of positive oxygen balance the crew will die.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 10/09/2014 12:37 pm
I dunno about the thorosity.  But they are doing "a lot of work".  Just sayin'.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sghill on 10/09/2014 04:06 pm
Looks like they have done a lot of work and quite a thorough analysis. Overall the impression I get is that the Mars One approach is surprisingly viable. The major problem they identified appears to be that if your ECLSS is programmed to kill the crew (due to an unnecessary limit on O2 molar fraction) in a situation of positive oxygen balance the crew will die.

Open a window perhaps?  Just sayin'
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/09/2014 04:10 pm
Looks like they have done a lot of work and quite a thorough analysis. Overall the impression I get is that the Mars One approach is surprisingly viable.

What "Mars One approach"? This isn't an analysis of some Mars One white paper describing their (his) approach in detailed scientific manner. AFAIK there isn't one.

A group of students took the few bits of actual information and even fever hard numbers spread across MO's website (otherwise laden with ambiguous mumbo jumbo, couple pages from NSF Mars threads produces more meat than it) and with great effort turned it into something more real while being forced to assume most of the stuff using sources other than MO. They did work which MO so far hasn't, Lansdorp should pay them  :P

Sorry for the harsh tone, but it is what it is and my NSF mug is broken.

The paper confirms suspicions (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1042685#msg1042685) that the greenhouse allocation is too small. MO claims 50m2, paper shows 200m2 is required (184m2 if you eat just wheat and soy).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MikeAtkinson on 10/09/2014 05:12 pm

The paper confirms suspicions (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1042685#msg1042685) that the greenhouse allocation is too small. MO claims 50m2, paper shows 200m2 is required (184m2 if you eat just wheat and soy).

200m2 is a no margin area. In practice margin is needed for crop variation and failures, food wastage, maintenance, etc. Better plan on 300m2 if you want the crew to survive.

Also 875 Heliospectra L4A Series lights at 600W each is > 500 kW. Add in ISRU, general electronics, lighting, air conditioning, power for rovers, etc. and ~ 1MW would be required (daytime), perhaps 100 kW at night. Allowing for sun angle, dust storms, storage efficiency, panel failures, cell deterioration and margin a 5MW (peak) solar system seems necessary.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 10/09/2014 06:03 pm
<things>

I do believe you might've missed a large dose of sarcasm from, uh, saliva. I at least interpreted his remarks as poking fun at how the study pointed out a pretty obscure thing and didn't really mention many of the other, far more apparent, flaws. Therefore, the rest of the concept must be totally fine! ...right?

Also, I will hold a moment of silence for your mug.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 10/09/2014 07:05 pm
<things>

I do believe you might've missed a large dose of sarcasm from, uh, saliva. I at least interpreted his remarks as poking fun at how the study pointed out a pretty obscure thing and didn't really mention many of the other, far more apparent, flaws. Therefore, the rest of the concept must be totally fine! ...right?

Also, I will hold a moment of silence for your mug.

I trust you didn't get any on you.

I claim yet another graduate, cum lard, from my fictitious online school of sarcasm.

Breaks the heart about the mug, I'm sure.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: saliva_sweet on 10/09/2014 07:25 pm
I do believe you might've missed a large dose of sarcasm from, uh, saliva. I at least interpreted his remarks as poking fun at how the study pointed out a pretty obscure thing and didn't really mention many of the other, far more apparent, flaws. Therefore, the rest of the concept must be totally fine! ...right?

Actually no :) My comment was sincere. I am genuinely surprised that you could technically keep four people alive on mars for two years, possibly indefinitely, with quite limited landed mass and no needed sci-fi tech. The authors have done a ton of work and got into the meat of an important aspect of mars settlment IMO. They do not cover a bunch of important issues like transit and EDL. And for good reason politics, financing models, estimated reality show ratings, the personality of Landsdorp and no doubt many other things do not fall in the scope of this study.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 10/09/2014 07:50 pm
I do believe you might've missed a large dose of sarcasm from, uh, saliva. I at least interpreted his remarks as poking fun at how the study pointed out a pretty obscure thing and didn't really mention many of the other, far more apparent, flaws. Therefore, the rest of the concept must be totally fine! ...right?

Actually no :) My comment was sincere.

Woah. 

My first read of your comment was that it was sincere, but the babble from the other guys (sorry other guys) got me thinking that your comment was the highest form of sarcasm.  Where even a pro, like me, cannot see it at first.

Have you reviewed some of the comments linked below, and looked into the substance of those comments? M-O has skimped, in a major fashion, from revealing too much of its approach, beyone the reality tv and celebrity endorsements.  And by celebrities, I include scientific celebs.

I raise no objections about motives, mind you.  Yours or theirs.

Quote from: well, saliva
The authors have done a ton of work and got into the meat of an important aspect of Mars settlment IMO.

If their data is no good, you know how to judge their conclusions, no mtter how much work they have done.

Looks like they have done a lot of work and quite a thorough analysis. Overall the impression I get is that the Mars One approach is surprisingly viable.

What "Mars One approach"? This isn't an analysis of some Mars One white paper describing their (his) approach in detailed scientific manner. AFAIK there isn't one.

A group of students took the few bits of actual information and even fever hard numbers spread across MO's website (otherwise laden with ambiguous mumbo jumbo, couple pages from NSF Mars threads produces more meat than it) and with great effort turned it into something more real while being forced to assume most of the stuff using sources other than MO. ...

...the study pointed out a pretty obscure thing and didn't really mention many of the other, far more apparent, flaws. Therefore, the rest of the concept must be totally fine! ...right?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/09/2014 08:12 pm
About supplying people from earth. Mars One propses to feed people with that greenhouse. I agree with that study it is not possible out of this volume. Though there was talk about 200m². A 50m² could provide that with plants stacked above each other.

But supplies from earth are not that extreme. Inspiration Mars calculated with 300g/day and person. With cooking meals from ingredients on Mars and using local water and air production less should be doable. But calculate with 300g/day.

~800 days between launch windows x 0,3kg is 240kg per person. One Red Dragon can deliver 2000kg. So one Red Dragon each launch window can supply 8 persons, probably more with some food from the greenhouse. Not too bad, just not what Mars One is proposing.



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/09/2014 08:24 pm
If Mars One were a serious, competently-run project, they'd certainly build a copy of their indoor greenhouse and the rest of their habitat here on Earth and test it in a closed loop for several years to make sure the system actually kept everyone alive before sending it to Mars.

Biosphere 2 had the right idea, but to make it a real test you'd need to set it up underground somewhere and run it with the artificial lighting you'd use on Mars, and you'd want to test exactly the hardware you planned to use on Mars with exactly the atmospheric composition.

Sending people to Mars without doing that is reckless endangerment.  Fortunately, there's almost no chance Mars One will actually be sending anything to Mars because they're a couple of orders of magnitude away from the funding they would need.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: saliva_sweet on 10/09/2014 09:34 pm
If their data is no good, you know how to judge their conclusions, no mtter how much work they have done.

I don't think the purpose of the study was to read Lansdorp's mind and recreate the mission as it exists (or doesn't) in his head. I think it was done to explore the technical feasibility of the concept in the broadest of strokes. The things that surround the actual MO project - the TV show, crowdfunding, crew contest etc. are ridiculous and boring.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 10/09/2014 10:34 pm
I thought it was an excellent assessment, built on very limited numbers.  Ther numbers do line up with other studies, so while you can quibble about some things (I do), they are in the right area.

The oxygen was a suprise to me, it shows that it is the unexpected details that will get you every time.

It's salutory that there is more analysis in this student paper than anything coming out of Mars One.

 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 10/10/2014 12:42 am
But supplies from earth are not that extreme. Inspiration Mars calculated with 300g/day and person. With cooking meals from ingredients on Mars and using local water and air production less should be doable.

Unfortunately, your calculus here is lacking.  By "supplies from Earth", you mean to suggest that the base is fed from Earth, and that souncs doable but expensive.

Your next facile statement about "ingredients from Mars" is less than edifying.  What ingredeients are you talking about?  Pizzas, cheeseburgers and beer? Or cornmeal, cornmeal and water? Or some collection of hydrocarbons?

Even on Earth, it passeth all understanding that eight people could live for two years on what you can pack into a Dragon capsule.  And that's freeze dried.

Do tighten up.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JohnFornaro on 10/10/2014 12:47 am
If their data is no good, you know how to judge their conclusions, no mtter how much work they have done.

I don't think the purpose of the study was to read Lansdorp's mind and recreate the mission as it exists (or doesn't) in his head. I think it was done to explore the technical feasibility of the concept in the broadest of strokes. The things that surround the actual MO project - the TV show, crowdfunding, crew contest etc. are ridiculous and boring.

Sal,  (ditch the moniker) that line of reasoning doesn't work on me.  I'm an American!  These kids aren't trying to read Lansdorp's mind, as to what he envisions, so don't bring it up.  They're doing the best they can, with the limited data available, to suss out how Lansdorp's stated plan could possibly work.

They don't have sufficient data to work with.  GIGO. 

Anyhow, a base is not going to fail because of too much O2, unless you can't open the windows.  If they can't open the windows and go outside, then those people are in for a very poor standard of living, along the lines of being in an Earthly prison.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/10/2014 06:25 am
The paper confirms suspicions (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1042685#msg1042685) that the greenhouse allocation is too small. MO claims 50m2, paper shows 200m2 is required (184m2 if you eat just wheat and soy).

I agree that 50 m2 sounds way too small, but why wheat and soy? Those are far from the best plants in terms of calories/acre? I guess soy is nutritionally broad at least, but wheat???
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/10/2014 06:57 am
The paper confirms suspicions (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1042685#msg1042685) that the greenhouse allocation is too small. MO claims 50m2, paper shows 200m2 is required (184m2 if you eat just wheat and soy).

I agree that 50 m2 sounds way too small, but why wheat and soy? Those are far from the best plants in terms of calories/acre? I guess soy is nutritionally broad at least, but wheat???

http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_various_foods/

I found this blog. Wheat is poor in calories per acre. Soy may be high nutritional value with protein but it is dismal in calories per acre. Potatoes (and yams) have the highes yield in calories per acre. While they provide not a lot of protein they do provide important aminoacids.

If I understand correctly, you get more protein if you filter potatoes through pigs than you get growing soy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/10/2014 07:04 am
What about using something like Spirulina for protein supplementation rather than wasting space on soy? There's a lot of health food claims for this stuff which are questionable, but it IS genuinely protein rich (about 60% protein by dry weight, and a complete protein, per Wikipedia).

I can't figure out why they would consider a wheat/soy mix to be optimal in terms of minimal area.

EDIT: If you allow stuff like Spirulina to become a significant part of the diet rather than relying entirely on conventional plants, 50 m^2 might be quite doable.

With wheat (and corn and soy and other traditional crops) you throw away most of the plant (stem/leaves/roots) and most of the energy it's accumulated, since we can't digest cellulose. Stuff like Spirulina can get around that limitation.

EDIT: wheat/soy, not corn/soy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/10/2014 07:26 am
What about using something like Spirulina for protein supplementation rather than wasting space on soy? There's a lot of health food claims for this stuff which are questionable, but it IS genuinely protein rich (about 60% protein by dry weight, and a complete protein, per Wikipedia).

I am probably the greatest fan of algae on this board. :) Their biggest advantage is you don't need a greenhouse. Just grow them in cheap simple lightweight transparent pipes.

But this is the Mars One thread and not a generic Mars Colony thread. Mars One have not considered algae, probably because they need some processing they don't want to mess with. Or perhaps because they have not really thought it through.

About protein production. I have looked at the data again. Soy may have the highest % of protein in dry mass. But potatoes produce a huge amount more of total dry mass and calories and actually more protein per acre than soy does. Just less in % of dry mass, because soy yields are so low.

One item missing in the blog article is rice. I wonder how rice fares in comparison.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/10/2014 07:44 am
Soybeans fix nitrogen in the soil.  That's why in Iowa, for example, they rotate corn and soybeans in the same fields.  The corn (and other crops) deplete the soil of nitrogen and soybeans put it back.

If you don't want to deplete your Martian soil, it's probably not a bad idea to rotate crops and include soybeans in the mix.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/10/2014 08:03 am
Funny. Everyone is going on about the right plant mix, while the 'conclusion' of the paper is that producing a certain quantity of food on Mars requires more payload than bringing it from Earth.

something else though: what's all that about nitrogen from Martian air being at the lowest TRL? Is that a fact?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 10/10/2014 11:24 am
Funny. Everyone is going on about the right plant mix, while the 'conclusion' of the paper is that producing a certain quantity of food on Mars requires more payload than bringing it from Earth.

something else though: what's all that about nitrogen from Martian air being at the lowest TRL? Is that a fact?
It seems one compresses Mars air, let cool, and get dry ice and nitrogen.

I think grow food on Mars in first decade, should be done for entertainment purposes.
Particularly with NASA crew, they have too much to do, than focus on being farmers.
So NASA do for entertainment and do it for science, otherwise stouffer's pizza.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: saliva_sweet on 10/10/2014 11:34 am
It seems one compresses Mars air, let cool, and get dry ice and nitrogen.

I like it, I think you don't even need to cool it. Just compress and release the pressure suddenly. CO2 should drop out as dry ice.

edit: leaving N2 and Argon. Nice buffer gases.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/10/2014 06:20 pm
I do believe you might've missed a large dose of sarcasm from, uh, saliva

Maybe, it's hard to know with MO because some people still take it seriously... Harsh tone was not meant at saliva, just general frustration. The comment section in the article about the paper contained some brainfart gems; people were calling BS on the paper on grounds that it contained "too much assumptions". As if it's the paper authors' fault that MO hasn't produced anything tangible beyond a few wide strokes any wide-eyed space geek could make.

Quote
Also, I will hold a moment of silence for your mug.

Thanks  :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/10/2014 06:32 pm
Even on Earth, it passeth all understanding that eight people could live for two years on what you can pack into a Dragon capsule.  And that's freeze dried.

Pack it full of lard. A bit low on protein and fiber but hey maybe you can recycle (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/japanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop/) those.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: saliva_sweet on 10/10/2014 06:35 pm
Quote
Hi everyone - we are the authors of the Mars One paper described in this article, and we are excited to see so much enthusiasm surrounding the discussion of the colonization of Mars.
We will be holding a Reddit AMA this afternoon from 3pm to 6pm to answer questions about our analysis, and we would love to hear from you all there.
We will post a link here as soon as the AMA thread is created. Thanks!

The team that did this in-depth analysis will be holding an AMA on reddit. Not sure about the timezone they are talking about.

edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2ivo0t/we_are_the_authors_of_the_mit_mars_one/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/10/2014 06:56 pm
I agree that 50 m2 sounds way too small, but why wheat and soy? Those are far from the best plants in terms of calories/acre? I guess soy is nutritionally broad at least, but wheat???

Paper authors used mathematical NASA model (described in this document (http://www.marsjournal.org/contents/2006/0005/files/Hanford2004B.pdf)) to calculate crop growths. The model contains parameters for nine popular crop plants. Algae or other fancy stuff is not included in that model.

Daily carbohydrate, protein and fat needs for the crew was set, then solved for crop plant combination which satisfies the daily nutrition production while using minimum growth area. Other solutions added a parameter to give preference to include more different crop species.

Soy and wheat compliment each other very well in nutritional chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food#Nutritional_content). One or the other is at the top in most cases, no case where both have zero nutrition X.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/10/2014 07:24 pm
http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_various_foods/

I found this blog. Wheat is poor in calories per acre. Soy may be high nutritional value with protein but it is dismal in calories per acre. Potatoes (and yams) have the highes yield in calories per acre. While they provide not a lot of protein they do provide important aminoacids.

If I understand correctly, you get more protein if you filter potatoes through pigs than you get growing soy.

That table tells only how many calories you get from the crops per season. Crop species have different growth times. What you really are interested in closed growth system like Martian greenhouse is the average daily production of nutrition X per area in each crop species. That decreases potato's leverage because it takes the most time to grow.

Your table, also some values in the NASA model, can be argued to not reflect most realistic expectations from high intensity outer space farming. For instance 6,400,000cal/acre for wheat translates to ~4.8tonnes/ha yield. In best open field wheat farming areas (Central Europe, NZ) that would be considered a catastrophe. They get regularly over 10t/ha yields, current world record is in NZ 15.6t/ha.

edit: I'm all for pigs in spaaaaaace but soy might be easier for ECLSS :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/10/2014 09:15 pm


something else though: what's all that about nitrogen from Martian air being at the lowest TRL? Is that a fact?
It seems one compresses Mars air, let cool, and get dry ice and nitrogen.


Exactly. Pump and dump, preferably without the massive amount of energy required for cooling. Sounds like TRL9 to me. Unless the usual N2 concentrating methods don't work in a near vacuum rich on CO2...

edit: the authors already answered this question on reddit. They meant that technology thar works perfectly on earth might behave unexpectedly on Mars. Another open door thoroughly kicked in.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/10/2014 09:57 pm

Exactly. Pump and dump, preferably without the massive amount of energy required for cooling. Sounds like TRL9 to me. Unless the usual N2 concentrating methods don't work in a near vacuum rich on CO2...

edit: the authors already answered this question on reddit. They meant that technology thar works perfectly on earth might behave unexpectedly on Mars. Another open door thoroughly kicked in.

It takes some energy and pumps designed for that purpose to compress the martian near vacuum air. Maybe those pumps are low TRL.

No energy needed for cooling. Compressed air gets hot, let it cool to near ambient temperature, that is enough cooling. Expanding it then will freeze the CO2 out.

Edit: This process will be part of fuel ISRU. So not in the Mars One scenario but in plans with return large amounts of nitrogen will be byproduct of fuel production.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/11/2014 06:43 am
No energy needed for cooling. Compressed air gets hot, let it cool to near ambient temperature, that is enough cooling. Expanding it then will freeze the CO2 out.

Pump it to about 10 bar and it liquefies or freezes in external HX without expanding, depending on how cold it happens to be outside. Might want to schedule this during night time for even more effortless cooling. Then either compress further for high pressure storage, or expand the N2/Ar to liquefy it.

I don't get the previous propositions to just compress and expand without cooling. Isn't that adiabatic isentropic reversible process, you end up with what you started with.

Btw whatever the method to produce buffer gases it must take care of not bringing in the CO from Martian atmosphere. If just CO2 is removed the resultant mixture contains over 1% CO :o
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/11/2014 07:19 am
I agree that 50 m2 sounds way too small, but why wheat and soy? Those are far from the best plants in terms of calories/acre? I guess soy is nutritionally broad at least, but wheat???

Paper authors used mathematical NASA model (described in this document (http://www.marsjournal.org/contents/2006/0005/files/Hanford2004B.pdf)) to calculate crop growths. The model contains parameters for nine popular crop plants. Algae or other fancy stuff is not included in that model.

Ah, ok.

I really think algae and stuff should be included in a space-limited system. It would probably be a huge help to getting self-sufficiency going on a small scale.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/11/2014 08:30 am

I don't get the previous propositions to just compress and expand without cooling. Isn't that adiabatic isentropic reversible process, you end up with what you started with.

on earth, nitrogen is 'made' by passing pressurized air over a membrane that absorbs nitrogen while the other compounds escape. When the pressure drops, the nitrogen is released from the membrane.

I was worried that this wouldn't work on Mars due to the different composition of Martian air, but that's not what the authors meant.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 10/11/2014 01:36 pm
No energy needed for cooling. Compressed air gets hot, let it cool to near ambient temperature, that is enough cooling. Expanding it then will freeze the CO2 out.
{snip}
I don't get the previous propositions to just compress and expand without cooling. Isn't that adiabatic isentropic reversible process, you end up with what you started with.
{snip}

It is a reversible process but by allowing the compressed gas to "cool to near ambient temperature" the heat from the compression is expelled into the Martian atmosphere.  Having lost the heat the expansion needs to gain heat/energy from elsewhere, it takes it from the gas.  This equipment is likely to need a radiator.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/11/2014 02:20 pm
The team that did this in-depth analysis will be holding an AMA on reddit. Not sure about the timezone they are talking about.

edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2ivo0t/we_are_the_authors_of_the_mit_mars_one/

Civil and good discussion in the AMA. Your electrolysis O2 removal suggestion was nice. Should work, but feels energy intensive option.

It is a reversible process but by allowing the compressed gas to "cool to near ambient temperature" ...

Yes, with cooling involved it's refrigeration 101, I was referring the post that suggested cooling is not require (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1268970#msg1268970)d.

Btw sanman's oxygen sucking crystals (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35795.0) might help with getting the excess O2 out of habitat. Let it suck oxygen until saturates, enclose from habitat atmosphere and expose to ambient, heat to release the O2. Enclose again and repeat the cycle.

Selective zeolites can be used in mining N2/Ar but if ISRU water is produced in large quantities then water CO2 scrubbers could be an option too. Simple technology, bubble gas trough water under high pressure where CO2 dissolves into it, regenerate the water under lower pressure which releases the CO2. Adding temperature swing too helps.

But closing the carbon cycle inside the habitat solves the transient O2 rise problem.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/11/2014 02:28 pm
No energy needed for cooling. Compressed air gets hot, let it cool to near ambient temperature, that is enough cooling. Expanding it then will freeze the CO2 out.

Pump it to about 10 bar and it liquefies or freezes in external HX without expanding, depending on how cold it happens to be outside. Might want to schedule this during night time for even more effortless cooling. Then either compress further for high pressure storage, or expand the N2/Ar to liquefy it.

I don't get the previous propositions to just compress and expand without cooling. Isn't that adiabatic isentropic reversible process, you end up with what you started with.

Btw whatever the method to produce buffer gases it must take care of not bringing in the CO from Martian atmosphere. If just CO2 is removed the resultant mixture contains over 1% CO :o
It contains even more O2. You could catalytically combine the CO and O2.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 10/11/2014 02:57 pm
It contains even more O2. You could catalytically combine the CO and O2.

Good point. Catalytic scrubbing is probably needed anyways, people and especially plants emit stuff which must not accumulate too much in the air (eg. ethylene, H2S, mercaptans).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 10/11/2014 07:52 pm

It is a reversible process but by allowing the compressed gas to "cool to near ambient temperature" ...

Yes, with cooling involved it's refrigeration 101, I was referring the post that suggested cooling is not require (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1268970#msg1268970)d.


He meant active cooling.  Passive cooling will save weight.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 10/12/2014 09:47 am
I am having trouble with the concept of "Too much oxygen"  on Mars.  Oxygen will be needed where ever humans are.  Hab's, rovers, suits, out stations, emergency supply caches, rocket propellant etc. Surely any excess in one location would be used somewhere else.

Or you could just light a candle or two.

Mick.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/12/2014 04:20 pm
The authors just want to point out that automatic ECLSS systems can behave unexpectedly. This is one of several examples of problems that are easy enough to fix, but could be dramatic if not anticipated.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Elmar Moelzer on 10/17/2014 01:55 am
The MIT study just once again reinforces my point that long trip times and rare launch windows are a big problem for mars colonies. I have not seen anything that convinces me that mars colonization can be done without taking care of trip times first (by using advanced propulsion, most likely).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/17/2014 04:48 am
The MIT study just once again reinforces my point that long trip times and rare launch windows are a big problem for mars colonies. I have not seen anything that convinces me that mars colonization can be done without taking care of trip times first (by using advanced propulsion, most likely).
What kind of trip times are acceptable? 100 day? 90 day? 400+ day stay in LEO have been demonstrated. The guy reportedly walked out of his Soyuz without assistance since he exercised a lot (and wanted to prove a point ;) ).

Radiation environment in LEO is worse than on the surface of Mars without shielding, at least at low altitudes. And deep space is only about twice the dose rate as at ISS.

To me, the MIT study mostly points out that an industrial approach to ECLSS is probably a good idea, at least as a backup.

In order to colonize Mars, we have to be able to build such machines at Mars. That way we know we can fix them.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/17/2014 05:12 am
To me, the MIT study mostly points out that an industrial approach to ECLSS is probably a good idea, at least as a backup.

Assuming their assumptions about how the farming would be done (and their assumptions about acceptable oxygen % etc.) are accurate to what Mars One plans. If not, it may not really mean anything at all.

Some of their assumptions are baffling to me. (Wheat and soy as primary crops; 32% oxygen concentration is unacceptable; etc.)

And I still don't understand why they show a loss of total pressure...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 10/17/2014 06:03 am
The MIT study just once again reinforces my point that long trip times and rare launch windows are a big problem for mars colonies. I have not seen anything that convinces me that mars colonization can be done without taking care of trip times first (by using advanced propulsion, most likely).

Or just use more rocket fuel.
It seems to me the focus could to get timely and cheap rocket fuel to L-points. After fueled, swing by Earth and apply lots of thrust.

Most of these advance propulsion are using their delta-v inefficiently.  Which is basically all about changing the vector of the trajectory. I would have that vector changed at near earth distance- or essentially as though one began with correct vector from a launch from earth.
Also advantages of say nuclear is compared to chemical is from starting point of LEO, and would be less advantageous as compared to having starting point from higher place in Earth gravity well [and then falling into Earth escape trajectory, and gaining the Oberth effect].
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/18/2014 06:23 am
Or you could just light a candle or two.

Yeah...

There are real problems with Mars One (primarily, way too little funding) but I'm not sure it's these problems...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Elmar Moelzer on 10/22/2014 02:26 pm
What kind of trip times are acceptable?
Depends on where Mars is relative to earth, of course. I would say that a minimum trip time should be less than 30 days. That would still provide for an acceptable trip time during a less ideal constellation. Otherwise, you will not be able to get supplies there in time in case of an emergency. Actually, I find 30 days still too long, but I don't know of a potential near term propulsion system that could do less than 30 days.
Generally, I think that the long trip times are the biggest issue. Of course people here will disagree, but it is an opinion.
I don't think you can achieve less than 30 days with chemical fuel (unless you have a very large system).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 10/23/2014 02:32 am
What kind of trip times are acceptable?
Depends on where Mars is relative to earth, of course. I would say that a minimum trip time should be less than 30 days. That would still provide for an acceptable trip time during a less ideal constellation. Otherwise, you will not be able to get supplies there in time in case of an emergency. Actually, I find 30 days still too long, but I don't know of a potential near term propulsion system that could do less than 30 days.
Generally, I think that the long trip times are the biggest issue. Of course people here will disagree, but it is an opinion.
I don't think you can achieve less than 30 days with chemical fuel (unless you have a very large system).

Why do trip times need to be that short?

Honestly, I don't really see the problem with 8 months for that matter. Antarctic exploration trips often took years, and colonization is inherently long-term anyway.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/23/2014 02:35 am
You could send 100 tons of extra supplie for EACH astronaut in the same IMLEO as it'd take to do 30-day transits.

The current spaceflight record is 427 days in space. I believe dozens have spent 5 months or more in space. We don't need 30-day transits. Which is good because orbital mechanics basically won't let us.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Patchouli on 10/23/2014 04:58 am
You could send 100 tons of extra supplie for EACH astronaut in the same IMLEO as it'd take to do 30-day transits.

The current spaceflight record is 427 days in space. I believe dozens have spent 5 months or more in space. We don't need 30-day transits. Which is good because orbital mechanics basically won't let us.

If you can send 100 tons of extra supplies you just took care of feeding that astronaut for life.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: A_M_Swallow on 10/23/2014 07:44 am
You could send 100 tons of extra supplie for EACH astronaut in the same IMLEO as it'd take to do 30-day transits.

The current spaceflight record is 427 days in space. I believe dozens have spent 5 months or more in space. We don't need 30-day transits. Which is good because orbital mechanics basically won't let us.

If you can send 100 tons of extra supplies you just took care of feeding that astronaut for life.

You would still have to land the food on Mars, but yes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 10/23/2014 12:40 pm
What kind of trip times are acceptable?
Depends on where Mars is relative to earth, of course. I would say that a minimum trip time should be less than 30 days. That would still provide for an acceptable trip time during a less ideal constellation. Otherwise, you will not be able to get supplies there in time in case of an emergency. Actually, I find 30 days still too long, but I don't know of a potential near term propulsion system that could do less than 30 days.
Generally, I think that the long trip times are the biggest issue. Of course people here will disagree, but it is an opinion.
I don't think you can achieve less than 30 days with chemical fuel (unless you have a very large system).

30 days is difficult to do with chemical rockets. I think NASA should focus on 60 to 90 days for crew going to Mars using chemical rockets and depots.

Let's say one had a choice.
1 billion per seat for 30 day trip
100 million per seat for 90 day trip
10 million per seat for 240 day.

The seat is 200 kg weigh capacity and 2 cubic meters of space.

And extra if seat weigh is more than 200 kg or you pay less if seat is less 200 kg- at the rate of 1/2
So billion seat is 1 billion divided by 200 kg-  5 million per kg. If less than 200 you get to subtract
2 1/2 million per kg less, and if it's more than 200 kg, it's 2 1/2 million for each kg.
The seat is 2 cubic meter and one buy up to 8 cubic meters, at price of 1/2 of seat price.

Seat doesn't include food, oxygen, water, or waste disposal or anything.
And lets say there are 10 passenger seats per flight- and so you can get with them and share the Co2 removal or whatever.
Plus there is no radiation shielding worth talking about. And passenger might want to buy your waste for radiation shielding. Trading shielding or whatever is permited.

Basically the "seat" 2 cubic meters, and you bring whatever you want to survive the trip and
you can share whatever resources with the 10 other passengers- and the assumption is one does have choice in which passengers you go with.
If want to get rid of anything- it's no change. The 2 cubic meter comes air, internet connection, 500 watts of power- which you can swap- you give 500 watts for hour- say when sleeping, then one gets to add their traded watt 500 hour so get 1 kw hour at one time. Or the portion of power goes to something which shared.
Plus you buy up to 10 kwh a day at rate of $100 per Kw hour. It  mean you order it ahead of time, if pre-scheluled, you will get it, but limited to 10 kwh a day- but in term when buy your seat can one pay double for any amount you want at anytime you want.
But anyways, the seat comes with 500 watts per hour for 24 hours a day- don't use it, you lose it.

These may not be accurate numbers- if so, provide whatever numbers you think is more realistic but I think they are plausible numbers [not now- but I mean at some time in future] and the point is, which is cheaper, and which would one would you pick?
So which is cheaper is one question and another question, assuming one had enough money for any of option- which would you want?
Or as in the real world there other things to buy on Mars- whatever there are. Or saying if have 2 billion dollar budget for next 10 years- there could billion dollars of stuff you want on mars- a year of supply of food, a nice house, water, or whatever.

Also, for immediate round trip you get a free return seat. Or the price includes the landing on Mars- if don't want it, one can immediately [within a day or two] return to Earth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 10/23/2014 08:37 pm
30 days is effectively impossible.   Anything under about 120 days is extremely difficult even with advanced propulsion, except in very favourable windows. Why are we even thinking about it?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/23/2014 09:12 pm
30 days is effectively impossible.   Anything under about 120 days is extremely difficult even with advanced propulsion, except in very favourable windows. Why are we even thinking about it?
Because Elmar declared by fiat that he didn't like anything over 30 days. ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 10/23/2014 11:04 pm
Maybe, but you can't get round the physics.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 10/24/2014 01:45 am
Maybe, but you can't get round the physics.

60,000,000 km distance

40 m/s/s
54,772 seconds

20 m/s/s
77459.6 seconds which is 21.5 hours
Attaining velocity of 1,549,192 m/s or 1549.192 km/sec- a bit faster than
1/200th speed of light.

In theory, a nuclear Orion could reach 1/10th the speed of light-
And this requires lots of nuclear bombs and a largish pusher plate. That Orion design was
considered as feasible for star travel rather than going to Mars, but one could design a similar one
for very fast travel to Mars.

With 1600 km/sec of delta-v, available, it's a matter of navigation and time
of departure to reach Mars in far less than 30 days.

But disussion was about chemical propulsion and how one can't get to Mars in 30 days.
With chemical rockets
I would say 90 days is quick enough and that is possible with chemical rockets.
And in addition, unless one is talking about Orions, chemical is best way to get to Mars in
90 days.

It is probably politically impossible for US to launch Orion from Earth- or it
requires great political need to do this. Like earth was going to be hit with 10 km rock
in 20 years. Or getting into space would require that getting into space was very, very
important, and today it's not vaguely important.
We get statement like we have already gone to the Moon, and endless stupidity from political
leaders leading from behind.
In terms of politics, it's probably politcally possible to use Orions from the Moon or
other locations in space- if we had Nuclear Orions.

So it's not  matter of physics.
What it's mostly about is a matter of economics, and the economics most people imagine
is swell, is some form of Marxism. Which has repeatitively and constantly shown to fail-
not once has it ever worked- as it claimed it would work. The only thing workable is
it requires the public give enormous political power to politians- it works in terms
of making political despots- that all it's actually has ever achieved, and the examples
are many. Despite the obvious failure it must be the need of politicans to become despots
that drives this madness. Coupled with enormous amount of delusional ideas.

But could chemical rockets get to Mars in 30 days?
Well certainly not from the Earth surface, and probably not from LEO, but it it seems
vaguely possible if you launching from Earth space from high earth orbit- say Earth/Moon L-1.

But it seems this sort of thing would only be done for fun, or a race, rather than the more
sensible action of exploring Mars.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/24/2014 02:00 am
Okay, then: it's just dumb to do 30 day trips to Mars. You could move at least an order of magnitude more stuff you took ~120 day trips. And that's STILL only for closest approach.

It's dumb, and now this thread has been derailed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Kalle on 12/24/2014 12:56 pm
There are real problems with Mars One (primarily, way too little funding) but I'm not sure it's these problems...

TMRO talks to mars one here, he claims that their are some heavy investors. one that what to fund the whole thing. http://youtu.be/MDXPXTICgAI?t=16m32s
it will be interesting to see how this unfolds :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mfck on 12/24/2014 01:11 pm
TMRO talks to mars one here, he claims that their are some heavy investors. one that what to fund the whole thing. http://youtu.be/MDXPXTICgAI?t=16m32s
it will be interesting to see how this unfolds :)
Qatar?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MP99 on 12/24/2014 02:29 pm
Quote from: NovaSilisko
Or maybe he's in their employ, told to make questionable criticism of the program so Lansdorp can bravely refute it! It all makes sense!   ::)

Oooops sorry, left my tinfoil hat on.

Off?

The hat is there to keep away stray thoughts. They only get in if you leave the hat off. :-)

Cheers, Martin

Sent from my GT-N5120 using Forum Fiend v1.2.14.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 12/24/2014 02:36 pm
Okay, then: it's just dumb to do 30 day trips to Mars. You could move at least an order of magnitude more stuff you took ~120 day trips. And that's STILL only for closest approach.

It's dumb, and now this thread has been derailed.

It would be dumb to send all the stuff needed with only 30 day trip times.
As would be dumb to send all stuff needed with only 120 day trip times.
Most of mass needed should be sent in 240 day trip times.
And most of mass needed will be rocket fuel and/or the infrastructure to make rocket fuel.

In terms of Mars One, I think a 120 day trip to Mars for crew makes sense, but most of the mass
sent should longer than 120 day trip time- one could  send 8 to 6 months simply to have larger
launch window, and one could even send cargo at 4 month trip time due to same reasons.

But I think NASA should focus on sending crew [not the cargo] in a time period of 60 to 90 days.
The less travel time crew have the less size and mass is needed for spacecraft, but it is more expensive
per kg to send within 90 days as compared 120 days, but such added cost is not significant in terms
the entire budgetary cost of a NASA Mars program.
Or NASA would spend more than 100 billion for any kind of Mars manned program.
Or NASA will require at least 10 years for manned program [I think time frame should be 20 to 30 years- or as long or longer than the ISS program].

Sending crew to Mars fast for NASA will do a lot to solve various political problems and political problems
are a major aspect related to success of a NASA Mars program.
Give one example, say NASA was delivering crew to Mars in 90 days, and suppose congress is looking
to lower Mars program costs. NASA could offer to send crew at slower trajectory, and NASA informs congress that this will cause the crew to experience more radiation [and higher risks in general].
My question is how popular would the idea of saving some insignificant amount of money be? Would one get a large political support to take this cost cutting option?

[Edit: btw I think NASA might increase trip time to save costs. So NASA could start at 90 day in beginning and increase the travel time to save cost. So first dozen sent at 90 days, and last 50 crew sent at 120 days or longer. But one could say that by the time after sending the first dozen to Mars, one can have the infrastructure in place that would effectively lower the risk of longer travel times. And/or the sun could become more active and therefore one has less radiation from the trip time.
Though it's as possible NASA wants to shorten the trip even shorter [60 or even 30 days]. Either the shortening or lengthening of travel time could be "sold" as improvement with various reason given related to known facts at the time. But I think having goal of 60 to 90 day for first crews send to Mars, has numerous program related advantages.]

Of course Mars One will not have a +100 billion dollar budget, and it will do many things that NASA will not do, in order to save costs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Kalle on 12/27/2014 10:04 am
TMRO talks to mars one here, he claims that their are some heavy investors. one that what to fund the whole thing. http://youtu.be/MDXPXTICgAI?t=16m32s
it will be interesting to see how this unfolds :)
Qatar?
Maybe a midle easterner, they would definitely have the funds. their are also some russian and a few americans that would be able to fund it in its entirety (if they keep the budget)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Kalle on 12/27/2014 10:12 am
i am leaning towards some sheik that what to have the bragging rights  that he funded the first mars mission.
That would be totally Fine by me, i mean if you want something to brag about this would be hard to beet. ;)

I would not be surprised that if they get the mission off the ground the first Mars base will be named "Base Khalifa"  or "base Al Maktoum"
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 01/18/2015 06:39 pm
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-winner-of-the-mars-one-university-competition-will-bring-life-to-mars-i

Apparently they've picked the university experiment, and it'll be growing Arabidopsis (a commonly studied plant) seeds on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Russel on 02/07/2015 08:10 am
I've so far avoided talking about Mars One in any way but I will say that it will be invaluable in teaching us what not to do..
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 02/07/2015 09:42 am
I've so far avoided talking about Mars One in any way but I will say that it will be invaluable in teaching us what not to do..

Yes and no.
Doing things wrong and failing is very instructive.
And as general rule, humans appear to require to do all things wrong, in order to do something
right. Though poor education systems, do result in doing the wrong thing repetitively- as in "history
repeats itself".
But one can also do things wrong and be successful.
And great example of this is the Apollo program.
Or 40 years after landing on the moon, and NASA has yet to develop depots.
And 40 years later, NASA is building another Saturn V.
[See, Cargo Cult]

AND things which were right about Apollo *seem* to be utterly forgotten.
Anyways Mars One could be successful {and success can measured in numerous ways- and in ways
not even imaginable] and no doubt, some ways it will be done will be "the wrong way to do it" and
that success will predictably result in higher probability of a continuation of these bad habits.
 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Russel on 02/07/2015 04:25 pm
There is no doubt there will be good come of Mars One. And I believe that the exercise is worth doing, in the sense that as it unravels there will be new things learned. Even if in the unlikely event they do launch and end up failing at the cost of lives, there will be lessons learnt too. No worse than all the silly things that have been done in the name of colonisation/exploration on Earth, which taught us a lot in retrospect.

I do believe humans have the right to do anything with their own bodies and take any risks they so choose (with the understanding that if it goes south it doesn't hurt anyone else).

The real danger in Mars One is that if it ever goes ahead it will become the public face of Mars, and if it fails (and it probably will) then it could be a PR disaster for the general idea of exploring Mars and actually force the likes of NASA to become even more risk averse.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: BusterSky on 02/09/2015 11:45 am
Mars One popularizes Mars but in a wrong way. The reality TV concept could sully actual Mars colonization efforts. Setting up permanently on Mars is a serious endeavor that only serious people can undertake. Technically speaking a colony that can accept Mr so-and-so-but-willing-to-pay from Earth is a very long time away. Till then I can only see top-scientists there or short vacation trips like they sell on the ISS.


That said, I am split about Mars One, there is potential for a positive fallout ( to some extent there already is ) as there is potential for a PR disaster as mentionned in Russel's post.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whiteflash444 on 02/17/2015 03:01 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxS7dCMBvSI
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/18/2015 08:55 pm
While the media laps up the hype about the final 100, I'm sure everyone will be shocked to learn that Mars One has not paid Lockheed or SSTL to actually start construction on their 2018 missions, or even do anything beyond the initial studies:
http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/
Quote
Despite that heritage, [Lockheed Martin] said, “we would have to start construction very soon to launch an InSight clone in the 2018 window.”

Also funny, considering Lansdorp's initial dismissal of the MIT study:
Quote
“Especially with the recent MIT (student) report, we’re focusing on releasing the mission concepts study on life support systems by Paragon,” Lansdorp said
Which strongly suggests they hadn't even done that kind of high level study up to now. This makes it virtually certain that all their published cost estimates are completely unreliable.

In reality they would need to do much more detailed engineering studies just to come up with a meaningful cost estimate for the full mission. For much less ambitious robotic missions, these studies run to millions, and overruns are still common.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Russel on 02/18/2015 09:21 pm
Is there a website or a blog that serves as a one stop shop for info on Mars One? I'm after a simple compilation of the basic facts. Who is in charge, what have they said, what research has been done. All the basic factual stuff.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/19/2015 03:43 pm
While the media laps up the hype about the final 100, I'm sure everyone will be shocked to learn that Mars One has not paid Lockheed or SSTL to actually start construction on their 2018 missions, or even do anything beyond the initial studies:

Yeah, totally shocked.

Okay, I'm not shocked about this at all. I saw it coming back when they did their December 2013 press conference on this (and even wrote about it for Spaceflight magazine). You just had to do some basic math and understand how they work. The math was simple even for somebody like me: these two missions would cost anywhere from $600 million to a billion dollars, adding in the launch vehicles. And to meet a launch date of 2018, they would have to start construction almost as soon as the initial reports were finished in summer 2014. That meant that Mars One had about six months to raise several hundred million to start paying the contractors (assuming that they didn't need to pay the full amount up front, they would still need to be able to put enough money on the table for the contractors to start making commitments--Lockheed Martin doesn't work on IOUs).

So, six months to finish the studies and raise a huge amount of money. When they didn't say anything more about this by summer 2014 it was clear where this was headed.

The other thing to understand is how organizations like this work--they keep momentum by issuing new press releases and count on the fact that few people pay attention to their past broken promises. The same thing happened with MirCorp back around 1999: they would issue a new press release and nobody would bother to look at the last press announcement and realize that they had not done it. Mars One is lucky because the stuff that people pay attention to is the contestants, the human angle, and not the tech or milestones or even the fund-raising. So as long as they keep issuing relatively inexpensive announcements about their candidates, the press will focus on that and ignore their lack of progress.

The one question that people should ask them again and again is how much money they have raised. They will always dodge that, but that's the first and most important question, and they should never be allowed to hold a press event without being pestered about that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: redliox on 02/19/2015 04:11 pm
That is depressing to hear about the robotic missions.  I had doubts but sadly if they can't pay for a 'seemingly simple' (which of course rocket science rarely is) robotic mission this pretty much confirms they are slowly going under like the Titanic.  I figured the whole affair was a long shot at best.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/19/2015 04:19 pm
Maybe the media spotlight will go back to giving overdue attention to things that are actually likely to happen...

Haha. Yeah. Sure...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: JasonAW3 on 02/19/2015 04:41 pm
I think, perhaps, they are overreaching.

Why not set up a colony on the Moon first?

Yes, in some ways it'd be tougher, but it'd be a WHOLE lot cheaper and probably less likely to fail.

I am wondering if the Dragon 2 itself, could be used as a moon lander, but if not, I figure a landing stage could be assembled and installed in the trunk of a Dragon 2.  Interior layout could be reconfigured for a lunar landing and appropriate controls and windows, if need be.

If naught else, this could prove the viability of utilizing the Dragon V2 equipment for a potentile Mars landing.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/19/2015 04:46 pm
I think, perhaps, they are overreaching.

Why not set up a colony on the Moon first?

Yes, in some ways it'd be tougher, but it'd be a WHOLE lot cheaper and probably less likely to fail.

I am wondering if the Dragon 2 itself, could be used as a moon lander, but if not, I figure a landing stage could be assembled and installed in the trunk of a Dragon 2.  Interior layout could be reconfigured for a lunar landing and appropriate controls and windows, if need be.

If naught else, this could prove the viability of utilizing the Dragon V2 equipment for a potentile Mars landing.

They barely have the money to launch a cubesat as far as I can tell, let alone to build a moonbase.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 02/19/2015 05:03 pm
As I wrote a year ago, they can't possible fund this with a TV show.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1163207#msg1163207 (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1163207#msg1163207)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/19/2015 05:48 pm
As I wrote a year ago, they can't possible fund this with a TV show.
Lansdorp has all but admitted that their business model boils down to convincing billionaires to front the money:
http://www.universetoday.com/117564/mars-one-readies-for-robotic-red-planet-mission-in-2018/
Quote
As for Mars One’s funding, the organization eventually hopes to receive money from broadcast rights and sponsorships in association with its crewed landing, which it says would take place in the 2020s. But the money required to fund a robotic mission isn’t available from that revenue source yet. Hence, the organization is seeking an upfront investment in its work to get the money ready for development.

Lansdorp said Mars One already underwent an angel investment round, and the organization is now in touch with an institutional group connected to an “institutional fund”, which would also attract money from other investors. Negotiations are ongoing, so the name is not disclosed publicly yet.

The goal is to have this investment group fund the robotic mission and the crewed one. The investor’s financial return would come from the eventual broadcasting and sponsorship revenues.
Needless to say, this would be a tough sell even if you had a technically plausible mission architecture...

IMO, Blackstar's post above is spot on.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: majormajor42 on 02/19/2015 08:24 pm
It kills me that the guys at work, knowing that I'm a bit of a space geek, keep asking me about Mars One every once in a while when it reenters the news cycle.

I roll my eyes and try to explain to them what I wrote here a couple years ago.

Elon has his own plan and...
Quote
I'm willing to wait and see what the Falcon Dragon Mars plan is from the guy who's building and launching the Falcons and the Dragons (if that is what he wants to use to get there).
I'm not that interested in hearing hype about a Falcon/Dragon Mars plan from a 3rd party.

There's got to be a term for what is going on here. 'Riding coat tails' doesn't quite fit what I'm trying to say.

If it were Congress however, that started saying there is this viable SpaceX option, that can get us there ahead of schedule, and under budget..."Lets fund it! Call it our own! ...and pretend it was our idea all along!" I'd be all for it.


That promotion video makes me cringe. Too much like a reality show commercial, which may be what they were going for. Brings unnecessary personality drama to mind. Is the show the trip to Mars or the competition to see who will be the four finalist to (not) go to Mars? Who's gonna get kicked off the island? Who's gonna die first? I hope the man/women I like to watch most is the last to die.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/19/2015 08:39 pm
They got significant press coverage of their 100 candidates announcement. The Washington Post devoted almost three full pages to a profile of several of the applicants, this included a full page of graphics showing the mission components. For those of you who still know how much page space that represents in a newspaper, that's a big deal. I also saw segments on them on CNN and another news program.

Keeping in mind that news is entertainment--and doesn't have to be true--the news programs love this stuff. They get to devote time to something that they think is interesting and weird, and they can act incredulous that there are goofballs who actually want to sign up for something like this. So they can fill airtime and have a few laughs, and nobody really bothers to ask how credible any of it is.

We'll see this go on for awhile, provided that Mars One can actually sign a TV deal. They need to do some things that will get them attention. If their applicants sit around doing nothing eventually the news sites are not going to pay any attention. So Mars One will call all their people together, maybe have them run some obstacle courses, do things for the cameras. But how long can they keep that up without actually launching rockets or anything like that? Probably less than five years, probably no more than a couple of more years. Then Mars One is going to be over.

That said, I gotta give them credit for getting this far. They've raised a few hundred thousand dollars and gotten a lot of press. Other recent concepts, which I think were much more realistic like Golden Spike and Inspiration Mars, have already disappeared and nobody hears about them anymore.

And they have gotten thousands of people to participate, which is more than we can say for many organizations. How many people show up for a Mars Society conference anymore? A few hundred. So Mars One was able to energize some people.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: SpacemanInSPACE on 02/20/2015 06:05 pm
This project is never intended to proceed past the simulation phase. Just look at the finalist selection videos, none of the potential contestants are qualified. The main question asked, "How would you describe your sense of humor?" states clearly what they are looking for; characters.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Baranquilla on 02/21/2015 01:01 am
I Will be very interested in all the knowledge that will come from training the colonists.  I'm 80% sure they won't Set foot on Mars though.

The current amount of donations is 760.000 $. They payed for 2 design studies, on for an immobile sience station/lander and one for a communication sat, 200.000 per study.

I like to see Mars one as an extremely well funded thought experiment but no more than that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: topsphere on 02/21/2015 01:10 am
Not only are they fanciful about any future progress they may make with getting people to Mars, they have always been fanciful about any revenue stream they have.

They predicted in 2013 that they would make $25m from Astronaut selection and $5m from 'Google Adsense'.

I don't think I need to tell you that neither of these things have happened.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/21/2015 01:40 am
Spot on post.  I just want to point out that Golden Spike is a far more sober venture (IMHO), and they gave a great data dump to Forbes magazine in late January.  They ain't dead yet!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2014/01/30/golden-spike-still-aims-for-human-lunar-surface-expeditions-by-decades-end/

I should probably repost this in the GS thread.....

January 2014. That Forbes article is almost 13 months old.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: majormajor42 on 02/21/2015 06:47 am
Mars One needs a more obtainable goal. Take their volunteers and send them to a Mars Analog Habitat, and make that the show. Maybe the ones maintained by the Mars Society, if they were willing to work with them. It could be mutually beneficial.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: BusterSky on 02/21/2015 11:42 am
Some of the 100 candidates are actually decent and qualified people, Phds in astronomy, astrophysics, engineering etc that I have no problem picturing as actual martian colonists.

Technical and financial difficulties aside the media indeed seem to like the Mars One project. In fact I incline to think that their lack of detailed plans could be a smart move, nothing like something controversial to generate a media storm.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Oli on 02/21/2015 01:22 pm
Quote
Despite that heritage, [Lockheed Martin] said, “we would have to start construction very soon to launch an InSight clone in the 2018 window.”

IMO Mars One should give up once it becomes clear that they cannot finance the 2018 mission in time. They had a good run.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: IRobot on 02/21/2015 01:58 pm
Quote
Despite that heritage, [Lockheed Martin] said, “we would have to start construction very soon to launch an InSight clone in the 2018 window.”

IMO Mars One should give up once it becomes clear that they cannot finance the 2018 mission in time. They had a good run.
They will go on as long as the sponsors keep throwing money. This was about showbiz, not actually sending something to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/21/2015 06:40 pm
They will go on as long as the sponsors keep throwing money. This was about showbiz, not actually sending something to Mars.
That seems likely. Lansdorp is now saying that they may have to delay until the next launch window:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27005-crunch-time-for-mars-one-to-avoid-twoyear-delay.html
Quote
But meeting the 2018 launch date will be tricky, he [Lansdorp] admits. "If we cannot make this deadline we are always flexible in moving another two years," he says. "That's a decision that we will have to make before the summer."
As always, no specifics about how close they are to raising the required money.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: subzero788 on 02/22/2015 12:18 am
http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-mars-100-mars-one-announces-round-three-astronaut-candidates
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 02/22/2015 08:18 pm
I think, perhaps, they are overreaching.

Even if they were planning a group trip to Alaska they'd be overreaching.

Their only ability was to issue press releases, Photoshop Dragons, and raise money from people who don't know better.  Which sadly, self-feeds for a while, since it seems that they "are at least doing something".  BS.  They sold a baseless fantasy to clueless people.  They probably sold it to themselves as well.  So not quite fraudulent, but at least delusional.

Lots of that going around in new fields. It hurts the credibility of the serious players, but it's impossible to weed out, and the minute they're gone, someone else will pop up to fill the void.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 02/23/2015 01:23 am
The only silver lining I can see is that we may end up with a list of possible Astronaut candidates out of this, that might save NASA and other international space agencies a bit of money.

Also for a lark I brainstormed some Martian reality TV show ideas.


This new Habitat - Watch your 4 hosts a mechanical, electrical, software engineers and a doctor design and build comfortable and pretentious habitats for the waves of yuppy Mars colonists.

The Victory Hydroponic Greenhouse - Learn how colonists grow wheat-grass, sweet-potatoes, Spinach and one or two other plants in subterranean artificially lit tunnels.  Our top chefs present over one dozen ways to prepare and eat the artificial bounty.

Mars the Last Frontier - On Mars Extra-Vehicular-Acivity is essential for survival, watch brave pioneers scout the surrounding area for mineral samples, search for useful resources and possibly confront ferocious dust-storms.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/23/2015 02:21 am
The only silver lining I can see is that we may end up with a list of possible Astronaut candidates out of this, that might save NASA and other international space agencies a bit of money.

I sure hope you mean that by crossing the names on the Mars One list off their own list they'll have fewer astronaut candidates to screen.  Nobody ignorant enough to fall for Mars One should be considered for a real astronaut program.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 02/23/2015 05:16 am
The only silver lining I can see is that we may end up with a list of possible Astronaut candidates out of this, that might save NASA and other international space agencies a bit of money.

I sure hope you mean that by crossing the names on the Mars One list off their own list they'll have fewer astronaut candidates to screen.  Nobody ignorant enough to fall for Mars One should be considered for a real astronaut program.

After reviewing some of the profiles of people in the final 100 round I completely agree with you.  I had assumed that SOME remotely qualified people had applied in the early rounds and would have percolated up to the top, but is was absolutely drivel, a random selection of people on this forum would have better qualifications to go to Mars. 

But apse these people are being selected for which ones will be the best reality TV show contestants which is kind of the opposite kind of person from a real Astronaut (and particular opposite of a Cosmonaut).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/23/2015 05:38 am
The only silver lining I can see is that we may end up with a list of possible Astronaut candidates out of this, that might save NASA and other international space agencies a bit of money.

I sure hope you mean that by crossing the names on the Mars One list off their own list they'll have fewer astronaut candidates to screen.  Nobody ignorant enough to fall for Mars One should be considered for a real astronaut program.

After reviewing some of the profiles of people in the final 100 round I completely agree with you.  I had assumed that SOME remotely qualified people had applied in the early rounds and would have percolated up to the top, but is was absolutely drivel, a random selection of people on this forum would have better qualifications to go to Mars. 

But apse these people are being selected for which ones will be the best reality TV show contestants which is kind of the opposite kind of person from a real Astronaut (and particular opposite of a Cosmonaut).

Yeah, reality TV is all about drama -- people getting in crazy fights with each other.  Level-headed people who are calm under pressure and work well with others are the last people they want.  All the viewers would get bored and turn the channel in 5 minutes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/23/2015 05:45 am
To be completely blunt, I hope Mars One kicks the bucket before they get a chance to start their stupid TV show. I can't see it doing anything but hurting public perception of spaceflight if it were ever to exist, even if it's just presented as a training thing with no chance of anybody actually going to mars (despite what the candidates were told of course... ::) )

I'm trying really really hard to stop myself from going verbally nuclear on them and giving a true unfiltered piece of my mind...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/23/2015 05:56 am
To be completely blunt, I hope Mars One kicks the bucket before they get a chance to start their stupid TV show. I can't see it doing anything but hurting public perception of spaceflight if it were ever to exist, even if it's just presented as a training thing with no chance of anybody actually going to mars (despite what the candidates were told of course... ::) )

I'm trying really really hard to stop myself from going verbally nuclear on them and giving a true unfiltered piece of my mind...

Now there's a reality show: on the left half of the screen, the Mars One candidates go through their Mars training; on the right half of the screen, people who actually have a clue about Mars watch and react.  Pass the popcorn.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/23/2015 05:58 am
Now there's a reality show: on the left half of the screen, the Mars One candidates go through their Mars training; on the right half of the screen, people who actually have a clue about Mars watch and react.  Pass the popcorn.

I will straight away volunteer for the role "excessively-angry enthusiastic non-expert" on the right half.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: tea monster on 02/23/2015 08:28 pm
According to the Daily Mail: "It's dead Jim" Looks like it's up to Elon now  ;)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2965182/No-Big-Brother-red-planet-Endemol-axe-plans-reality-TV-record-life-Mars-One-explorers-documentary-made.html
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/23/2015 08:34 pm
According to the Daily Mail: "It's dead Jim" Looks like it's up to Elon now  ;)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2965182/No-Big-Brother-red-planet-Endemol-axe-plans-reality-TV-record-life-Mars-One-explorers-documentary-made.html

From the article:

Quote
reality TV show [...] has been shelved after the companies were 'unable to reach an agreement on details'

I can just imagine the negotiations:

Mars One: We'll need you to give us $2 billion a year for our Mars program.

Producers: OK, $2 million a year is about right...

Mars One: No, billion, with a "b".

Producers: What?

Mars One: We need billions of dollars to get to Mars.

Producers: Oh, look at that, I'm late for my next meeting.  I'll call you.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/23/2015 09:51 pm
Interesting comments from Gerard ’t Hooft (Nobel winning physicist and Mars One "Ambassador" (http://www.mars-one.com/about-mars-one/ambassadors))

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/23/mars-one-plan-colonise-red-planet-unrealistic-leading-supporter

Quote
“It will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved I told them ‘you have to put a zero after everything’,” he said, implying that a launch date 100 years from now with a budget of tens of billions of dollars would be an achievable goal. But, ’t Hooft added, “People don’t want something 100 years from now.”
...
Despite being sceptical about the details, t’Hooft said he still supported the project’s overall goals. “Let them be optimistic and see how far they get,” he said.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 02/23/2015 10:32 pm
[quote ]
Let them be optimistic and see how far they get,” he said.
[/quote]
Nothing problematic with that, as long as you stay far enough up-range from them.  Figuratively speaking.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 02/23/2015 10:46 pm
AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING!!!

Seriously the damage their silly shows would have done to public perception of the legitimacy of space-flight is likely incalculable, we likely dodged a bullet here.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/24/2015 02:13 am
Quote
Let them be optimistic and see how far they get,” he said.
Nothing problematic with that, as long as you stay far enough up-range from them.  Figuratively speaking.
It at least explains why Hooft is willing to lend his reputation to such an implausible project.

That said, I don't completely agree with the reasoning. Even granting the assumption that MarsOne is actually trying send anything to Mars, at some point you have to draw a line between "long shot" and "completely unrealistic"

MarsOne may contribute something of value before it implodes, but hyping non-viable projects has it's own costs to the broader cause of space exploration.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 02/24/2015 03:35 am
Quote
Let them be optimistic and see how far they get,” he said.
Nothing problematic with that, as long as you stay far enough up-range from them.  Figuratively speaking.
It at least explains why Hooft is willing to lend his reputation to such an implausible project.

That said, I don't completely agree with the reasoning. Even granting the assumption that MarsOne is actually trying send anything to Mars, at some point you have to draw a line between "long shot" and "completely unrealistic"

MarsOne may contribute something of value before it implodes, but hyping non-viable projects has it's own costs to the broader cause of space exploration.
Yup.

They've been given much more credibility than they deserve, and the sum total effect will be negative

Not the end of the world though, they are not the first, nor the last, of their type.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 02/24/2015 03:56 am
To be completely blunt, I hope Mars One kicks the bucket before they get a chance to start their stupid TV show. I can't see it doing anything but hurting public perception of spaceflight if it were ever to exist, even if it's just presented as a training thing with no chance of anybody actually going to mars (despite what the candidates were told of course... ::) )

I'm trying really really hard to stop myself from going verbally nuclear on them and giving a true unfiltered piece of my mind...

I don't see the problem.
Many business fail, it's the nature of business.
So chances from the start were and are that Mars One would fail.
As general notion, I really like something like Mars One- the problem is one has to be really
good at it, for it to succeed, and even then there element of luck involved.

The biggest problem with Mars One has to do with timing. Or I am not sure it's right time to do this-
but that my guess.
Now if NASA were to explore Mars and certain thing were discovered, that could change things.

The only problem I see with Mars One is that fraud might be involved. If enterprise including fraud
than then that would something wrong with it. As far as I am aware there wasn't fraud involved.

Unlike what some NASA Administers have said in public.
I hate government agencies giving false promises, cause they are on public payroll and harms NASA.
And done only to further the careers of these disinterested, lazy, and lying public servants.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Russel on 02/24/2015 04:02 am
Almost all of it is facepalm-inducing. On the other hand, I'd like to see what Elon's Mars cabal has come up with in terms of architecture...  ;)

Elon might be clever and successful. But doesn't mean he isn't also batshit crazy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 02/24/2015 04:45 am
Elon might be clever and successful. But doesn't mean he isn't also batshit crazy.
Anyone who can get something to orbit can't be that crazy.

..unless he wants to put a giant "laser" on it. Then he is crazy.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Russel on 02/24/2015 06:11 am
Elon might be clever and successful. But doesn't mean he isn't also batshit crazy.
Anyone who can get something to orbit can't be that crazy.

..unless he wants to put a giant "laser" on it. Then he is crazy.

Does Elon have a cat? :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/24/2015 06:14 am
MarsOne may contribute something of value before it implodes, but hyping non-viable projects has it's own costs to the broader cause of space exploration.

Bingo. That's the point I've been trying to articulate for a while, but never have found the words for. I feel like a very public implosion of Mars One would be damaging to the public image of space exploration in general and Mars colonization in particular.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/24/2015 06:20 am
Elon might be clever and successful. But doesn't mean he isn't also batshit crazy.
Anyone who can get something to orbit can't be that crazy.

..unless he wants to put a giant "laser" on it. Then he is crazy.

Does Elon have a cat? :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Moe Grills on 02/24/2015 07:36 pm
MarsOne may contribute something of value before it implodes, but hyping non-viable projects has it's own costs to the broader cause of space exploration.

Bingo. That's the point I've been trying to articulate for a while, but never have found the words for. I feel like a very public implosion of Mars One would be damaging to the public image of space exploration in general and Mars colonization in particular.

Actually, it's already starting to happen. The planned "reality" TV show/series which the Mars One organization
had intended to use to raise large sums of money from sponsors has fallen through. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/25/2015 05:17 am
The biggest problem with Mars One has to do with timing. Or I am not sure it's right time to do this-
but that my guess.
IMO, their biggest problem is money. Or their first biggest problem anyway, if they had money, engineering would be their biggest problem.

Timing is irrelevant unless the cost of doing stuff in space comes down by several orders of magnitude.

Quote
The only problem I see with Mars One is that fraud might be involved. If enterprise including fraud
than then that would something wrong with it. As far as I am aware there wasn't fraud involved.
They may not engage in outright fraud, but IMO they clearly engage in deception.

Their indigogo crowd funding campaign (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018) is a good example: They offered rewards which require them to fly to Mars, but in the "risks and challenges" they didn't even mention the possibility that they might not raise the additional hundreds of millions required. Instead, they said things like
Quote
Rockets can fail, resulting in loss or degradation of service. Launch risks are outside our control, but in the event that the worst happens, we will do our best to serve all pledges through followup Mars One missions.
Implying that not only is funding not a major risk, but they have some non-zero chance of re-flying if needed.

When they announced the 2018 mission, they said that construction would need to start in late 2014 (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1130957#msg1130957).

The fact they haven't started construction makes it virtually certain they do not have funds to fly the mission, and based on public statements, it seems unlikely they've even raised 1%. It must have been obvious for months they had no realistic chance of hitting the 2018 window, but they went ahead and announced the payload selection in January (http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-winner-of-the-mars-one-university-competition-will-bring-life-to-mars-i), as if everything was going  fine.

Again, they went to lengths to talk about backup plans if the payload wasn't ready, and didn't even mention the possibility of not having funds to fly it. They only admitted to possible delays after Lockheed and SSTL publicly confirmed there were no contracts.

MarsOne have chosen hype over honesty, and IMO, those of us who care about real space exploration should call them out at every available opportunity.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 02/25/2015 07:10 am
The biggest problem with Mars One has to do with timing. Or I am not sure it's right time to do this-
but that my guess.
IMO, their biggest problem is money. Or their first biggest problem anyway, if they had money, engineering would be their biggest problem.

Timing is irrelevant unless the cost of doing stuff in space comes down by several orders of magnitude.
Timing is everything. And you are exaggerating, 1 order magnitude maybe 2 would be easy.
But same cost and it depends on circumstances. Lower the costs would obviously make easier.

I would say the stunt of putting people on Mars is within order magnitude of mining water on the Moon.
Or somewhere around 5 billion dollars.
The problem with mining lunar water. Or what is stopping this from occurring is lack of exploration of the Moon. Plus circumstances.
With Mars One it's mostly circumstances, but with some mars exploration discovery this could also make a difference.
Now I can see no near term possibility of Mars discovery which could make it the most significant factor.
Or seems unlikely Curiosity is going to find a creek or small pond of salty water.  And it probably have to be something bigger than that to make "a discovery" a more major element.
But let's change the subject, suppose we find a frozen lake on Ceres. That is possible and we could find it if it were possible within next 6 months. Not saying it's likely, but probably far more likely than Curiosity finding a creek. 
Now Ceres is harder to get to than Mars. And Ceres lacks Mars fans. But that would an example of something big as far exploration. Now, I have not given it much thought, but could one do a Ceres One.
I would roughly put dollar amount for the stunt at twice the price tag- or somewhere around 10 billion.

Now with such major discovery it's still matter of timing and/or circumstances.
Or another way to look at it, is that circumstances going on affect what I mean by timing.
Or don't think that we are still in the great recession is helpful. Though maybe even that could be "helpful"
in some way. And that we have crazy fanatical Islamic murderers is likewise not generally helpful, but again perhaps like the fact we still have not recovered from great recession [though I understand how some may be deluded with idea that the economy is fabulous- though such delusional people is also not helpful]  jihadas could in some weird way be helpful.
Or basically no one can predict or time this, but things can sort of fall in the right direction in terms of exterior events. The next part is the people involved with the project, which basic management type stuff,
but also matter of luck involved with this- or having right people at right time, that will do things when they should do things and not do things when they should not do do things.
Or it's the difference of winning sport team and losing one. And why professional baseball players tend to be superstitious.

Quote
Quote
The only problem I see with Mars One is that fraud might be involved. If enterprise including fraud
than then that would something wrong with it. As far as I am aware there wasn't fraud involved.
They may not engage in outright fraud, but IMO they clearly engage in deception.
You could be right. And if so, it could be their ruin. But IMO they have not.

Quote
The fact they haven't started construction makes it virtually certain they do not have funds to fly the mission, and based on public statements, it seems unlikely they've even raised 1%. It must have been obvious for months they had no realistic chance of hitting the 2018 window, but they went ahead and announced the payload selection in January (http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-winner-of-the-mars-one-university-competition-will-bring-life-to-mars-i), as if everything was going  fine.

Again, they went to lengths to talk about backup plans if the payload wasn't ready, and didn't even mention the possibility of not having funds to fly it. They only admitted to possible delays after Lockheed and SSTL publicly confirmed there were no contracts.

MarsOne have chosen hype over honesty, and IMO, those of us who care about real space exploration should call them out at every available opportunity.
I think always good to have honest dialogue about it. But I assume people involved are adults. I am not involved. Unless laws were broken, I don't see the harm in trying to do it.
Or I see *a lot* more going on which I have serious problems with how they being done.
Or don't see why the hate or the fear of consequences coming from it.
Now, I didn't have "high hopes" about it, and I did not invest my time or money in it- but had I,  I would hope I would have realized such projects has risks, and etc.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 02/25/2015 08:22 am
The biggest problem with Mars One has to do with timing. Or I am not sure it's right time to do this-
but that my guess.
IMO, their biggest problem is money. Or their first biggest problem anyway, if they had money, engineering would be their biggest problem.

Timing is irrelevant unless the cost of doing stuff in space comes down by several orders of magnitude.
Timing is everything. And you are exaggerating, 1 order magnitude maybe 2 would be easy.

I think hop has it exactly right, with no exaggeration.  ISS cost $100 billion, just for an outpost in Low Earth Orbit.  Unless costs come down, a Mars settlement will be much more expensive than ISS.  Mars One has apparently raised less than $1 million.  That's more than five orders of magnitude difference between what Mars One has raised and what a Mars colony would cost based on ISS experience.

I happen to think costs could be lowered a great deal from the ISS model, but that's not proven, and it's certainly a lot more than 1 or two orders of magnitude more than what Mars One has raised.

But let's change the subject, suppose we find a frozen lake on Ceres.

This and a lot of the rest of your post is off topic for this thread.  Lets stick to Mars One on this thread.

Quote
MarsOne have chosen hype over honesty, and IMO, those of us who care about real space exploration should call them out at every available opportunity.
I think always good to have honest dialogue about it. But I assume people involved are adults. I am not involved. Unless laws were broken, I don't see the harm in trying to do it.

There are a lot of unethical things that are still legal.  The argument that unless a law was broken there's no harm isn't very convincing.

Hop laid out a good case for unethical behavior by Mars One in the crowdfunding campaign.

Or don't see why the hate or the fear of consequences coming from it.

It's not hate or fear to point out that a project is causing harm.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 02/25/2015 10:16 am
The biggest problem with Mars One has to do with timing. Or I am not sure it's right time to do this-
but that my guess.
IMO, their biggest problem is money. Or their first biggest problem anyway, if they had money, engineering would be their biggest problem.

Timing is irrelevant unless the cost of doing stuff in space comes down by several orders of magnitude.
Timing is everything. And you are exaggerating, 1 order magnitude maybe 2 would be easy.

I think hop has it exactly right, with no exaggeration.  ISS cost $100 billion, just for an outpost in Low Earth Orbit.  Unless costs come down, a Mars settlement will be much more expensive than ISS.  Mars One has apparently raised less than $1 million.  That's more than five orders of magnitude difference between what Mars One has raised and what a Mars colony would cost based on ISS experience.

Nope. Hop was obviously exaggerating.

Now, Hop, don't see the serious ethical consequences with your exaggerating?
You went and got ChrisWilson68 to bring in ISS to explain your point.

Chris I believe Hop wasn't serious. He was making fun of my use of timing.
As in, never at any time could Mars One work. Or something like that.

Unless by order of magnitude Hop didn't mean by a factor of 10 [and several being 100,000 to  10,000,000 times cheaper]

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 02/25/2015 11:45 am
Quote
The only problem I see with Mars One is that fraud might be involved. If enterprise including fraud
than then that would something wrong with it. As far as I am aware there wasn't fraud involved.
They may not engage in outright fraud, but IMO they clearly engage in deception.

The first sentence in the body of their latest press release is a prime example;

Quote
From the initial 202,586 applicants, only 100 hopefuls have been selected to proceed to the next round of the Mars One Astronaut Selection Process. - See more at: http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/the-mars-100-mars-one-announces-round-three-astronaut-candidates#sthash.PoYOnAgl.dpuf

There never were 200k+ actual applicants (http://www.newspacejournal.com/2013/05/09/mars-one-has-78000-applicants-so-far-sort-of/). Try ~3000 (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34201.msg1174816#msg1174816).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 02/25/2015 05:46 pm
Timing is everything. And you are exaggerating, 1 order magnitude maybe 2 would be easy.
I disagree. Their own, non-engineering based estimate is $6B.  This isn't credible, but even if it were, raising ~$600 million from investment funds for an unprecedented, long term, super high risk venture would require a miracle. $60 million starts to get into more plausible territory, but it's still far more than MarsOne or other far-out space projects have demonstrated the ability to raise.

Ridiculous amounts of money sometimes gets thrown at ill-conceived start-ups, but only because there is the promise of occasionally getting the next facebook or google in return, or being bought out by one of the existing giants. The really big money also doesn't come in until they have actually done something.

In reality though, MarsOne's $6B estimate is worthless. We know it's worthless, because just coming up with a valid estimate would require millions of dollars in detailed engineering studies, prototype development and testing. Based on more serious studies and other space projects, it's is virtually certain that MarsOne's estimate is low by at least an order of magnitude.

That's 3 orders of magnitude, which counts as "several" in my book.

MarsOne's claim that they can do it without any major tech development is another example of their deceptive messaging. They say they can get everything they need from existing suppliers, but if you went to those suppliers and said you wanted to build a Mars colony, they wouldn't just hand you a quote from their catalog.

Quote
Now, Hop, don't see the serious ethical consequences with your exaggerating?
::)
I've given my honest opinion based on my years of watching the space industry. I stand by it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/25/2015 06:00 pm
So, summing up what Hop said... They might have had a much better chance if they'd named it "MarsBook" instead? :D

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 02/25/2015 06:46 pm
1) How long should the colony exist to be considered successful? IMHO, a couple weeks/months is enough. A short-lived colony is still a colony. They all know they will die in Mars: the question is not the IF but the WHEN.

2) In 2011 NASA sent 4 tons to Mars (MSL mission) in order to land a 1-ton rover (Curiosity), or about 25% of the launched mass. Compare that to Falcon Heavy's announced 14 tons to Mars orbit: that's at least 3500 kg (25%) of landed mass. Some say FH could land 10+ tons on Mars.

3) NASA paid US$ 2.5 B to develop and launch MSL (including Curiosity). SpaceX will charge ~ US$ 90 M to launch a Falcon Heavy to LEO. The MIT's study that doomed Mars One estimated US$ 300 M for a full mission to Mars with SpaceX's hardware, including the capsule.

4) Mars One plans about 10 flights, 9 with equipment/supplies and 1 with astronauts. With 3500 kg per mission (item 2) we have more than 30 tons of material (90 tons if 10 T/flight) plus crew landed on Mars for about US$ 3.0 B (freight only), about HALF of the stated budget.

5) If they buy most of the equipment and supplies off-the-shelf, how much more is needed?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/25/2015 06:49 pm
In reality though, MarsOne's $6B estimate is worthless. We know it's worthless, because just coming up with a valid estimate would require millions of dollars in detailed engineering studies, prototype development and testing.

This is a very good point, and it's one that I don't think many people understand. I work for an organization that over the past half decade or so has had to hire a contractor to perform cost estimates of space missions. That contractor has a very good database and a lot of experience doing this. Generally, we have to pay them several hundred grand to do this over a period of less than a year. But these are low-fidelity estimates, meaning that they are mostly tapping into their existing data and knowledge bases and entering in some figures and getting a result. For a more advanced cost estimate, they would have to do a lot more work and that would indeed cost even more money.

Truly costing out a human Mars mission is going to cost a lot of money. You have to pay a bunch of experienced engineers and accounting people.

What Mars One obviously did was some basic back-of-the-envelope calculations. And they probably went cheap too. For instance, they baselined SpaceX for all the vehicles, although they might actually require other vehicles to make it work. Probably one of the biggest flaws in their assumptions was assuming off-the-shelf equipment for a lot of the mission, but it is the stuff that you have to design from the ground up that is the hardest to develop and the hardest to estimate.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 02/25/2015 06:53 pm
Funny how, to this day, the first reply to this thread still sums up Mars One perfectly:

Heavy on style, light on substance, unfortunately.  :(
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: redliox on 02/25/2015 07:05 pm
Well looks like TV won't save Mars One.  Oh well, back to eyeing real space travel.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 02/25/2015 07:20 pm
Timing is everything. And you are exaggerating, 1 order magnitude maybe 2 would be easy.
I disagree. Their own, non-engineering based estimate is $6B.  This isn't credible, but even if it were, raising ~$600 million from investment funds for an unprecedented, long term, super high risk venture would require a miracle. $60 million starts to get into more plausible territory, but it's still far more than MarsOne or other far-out space projects have demonstrated the ability to raise.

Ridiculous amounts of money sometimes gets thrown at ill-conceived start-ups, but only because there is the promise of occasionally getting the next facebook or google in return, or being bought out by one of the existing giants. The really big money also doesn't come in until they have actually done something.

In reality though, MarsOne's $6B estimate is worthless. We know it's worthless, because just coming up with a valid estimate would require millions of dollars in detailed engineering studies, prototype development and testing. Based on more serious studies and other space projects, it's is virtually certain that MarsOne's estimate is low by at least an order of magnitude.

That's 3 orders of magnitude, which counts as "several" in my book.

MarsOne's claim that they can do it without any major tech development is another example of their deceptive messaging. They say they can get everything they need from existing suppliers, but if you went to those suppliers and said you wanted to build a Mars colony, they wouldn't just hand you a quote from their catalog.

Quote
Now, Hop, don't see the serious ethical consequences with your exaggerating?
::)
I've given my honest opinion based on my years of watching the space industry. I stand by it.

To summarize at least one order magnitude is at least 3 order magnitude, and that is several.
Ok. I thought you might be kidding. So.
Your point was the the cost landing private lander on Mars, and then the follow on of putting people on Mars, in order to be vaguely credible needs the costs of doing stuff in space  has lower down by several orders of magnitude.

So to get  realistic metric, how many several orders of magnitude has the the cost of doing stuff in space lowered over previous decades of time since NASA started doing stuff in space?

And when in the future do you think the cost of doing stuff in space will lower by at least 10 times?

Now India is third country that put something in Mars orbit. And NASA the only country to put a lander
on the ground. Who will be the 4th to put something in Mars orbit and the second to put a lander on the Mars surface?
And wasn't these two things something Mars One wanted to do as early step toward their main goal of putting people on the surface?

So isn't this the first thing to consider, to be first private effort to put a satellite in Mars orbit and putting something on the surface? And with that mind, and your view that cost must become a 1/10th less,
when should such project begin?
Or when someone try to do this?
And don't you think a private effort should first do something comparatively simple before going on and doing something that none of government space agencies are actually seriously considering doing in the near term?

Btw, loosely speaking, I agree that Mars One was not as realistic as say Google X-prize is.
And would think as far as a stunt, the moon would a better choice. Being the first private group to put people on the moon would be pretty significant and about 5 times easier than Mars.

Though I think it would be more significant to actually explore the Moon in order to determine if and where there is minable water. But that is not a stunt. Nor good plot for goofy reality show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/16/2015 07:21 pm
Some details of the selection process from one of the "final 100"
https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3

Quote
... all the info they have collected on me is a crap video I made, an application form that I filled out with mostly one-word answers… and then a 10-minute Skype interview

Also a hint at how their fund raising is going
Quote
In February, finalists received a list of “tips and tricks” for dealing with press requests, which included this: “If you are offered payment for an interview then feel free to accept it. We do kindly ask for you to donate 75% of your profit to Mars One.”
But I'm sure their going to have the ~$400 million for an Insight clone Real Soon Now ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/16/2015 09:53 pm
Yeah, read the article at the link that Hop posted. It is pretty devastating:

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3


"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview."


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/16/2015 10:18 pm
Here is an interesting article regarding Mars One:
http://laurasspaceonspace.blogspot.com/2015/03/mars-or-bust-mars-one-busted-and-other.html

Linked by:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/

Generally it's within the ballpark of way I think about it. And would say it's well written.
I going grab some quotes from it regarding stuff I agree with or I want quibble with, first one
point of concern:
"The chances of them launching an expedition to anywhere other than this planet anytime soon are laughable. The fact that they launched a IndiGoGo crowd-funding campaign a year ago to take money from the wide-eyed and believing public takes the laughter out of me and makes me very wary of their intentions."

So anything where we get into possible fraud is a problem, but it's common problem of politicians and other types of sales people. It needs to be discouraged- at minimum.
Next:
"President Obama said, “Let's go to an asteroid!” pretty much because it was something different than what President Bush had said (his direction was Moon-bound)."

I disagree that President Bush plan was "Moon-bound", or I think it's about the only realistic way to get to Mars. Though I would say there is problem that NASA bureaucracy could spend too much time [and money] exploring the Moon before going to Mars. And plus the main advantage of going to Moon is it would be a relatively low cost major NASA program- so less than 10 years and less than 40 billion should have been a big emphasis regarding going to the Moon, first.
And then Mars program has to be longer and more expensive program. But if NASA were to do a good Moon program which come close to the lunar exploration goals in terms of time and money, this would give more confidence for Congress to fund the next larger Mars program.

I thought this was interesting for couple reasons:
"When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad."
One reason it is interesting is I have not heard much discussion of this.
Two, I made post recently about making a commerical landing pad on the Moon:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22073.300
And three, I wonder if this issue is related to the design of Dragon with it's flared angle engines.
 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/16/2015 10:25 pm
1) How long should the colony exist to be considered successful? IMHO, a couple weeks/months is enough. A short-lived colony is still a colony. They all know they will die in Mars: the question is not the IF but the WHEN.

The Norse colony on Greenland lasted several centuries and it is considered a failure.  The vast majority of people would not consider a stay of a couple of weeks or months a colony.

A Colony is a success if it's forever.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/16/2015 10:43 pm
Yeah, read the article at the link that Hop posted. It is pretty devastating:

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3


"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview."

Heh, that's more than I gave them credit for :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/16/2015 11:26 pm
Yeah, read the article at the link that Hop posted. It is pretty devastating:

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3

I don't find find it surprising, but if news media say sky is blue, it motivates me to look at the sky again.
And generally speaking most people don't regard the media [or blogs] as reliable source of info.
The media used to make an effort to lie about how objective they were, but they have given up trying to sell this idea.

They have never been objective- ever, nor will ever be, but they can honestly try to be more objective- which would be a good idea- but they simply don't even attempt to do this very much anymore.
Another thing is I simply don't get why some people enjoy reality shows, as I also don't get why people watch "professional wrestling". Though I would not normally want to watch real wrestling. Though I do like campy stuff in general- if it's in "good taste" :)

Anyways the linked article show picture of Mars being 140 million miles from Earth. Which is wrong.
Average earth is 149.6 million km and average Mars is 227.9 million km. And difference being 78.6 million km. Or 48.839 million miles.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/

And the traveling distance is more than 140 million miles. 700 million km distance is a normal type distance
traveled to get to Mars. But maybe around 500 million km has been done.
And if want to get to Mars really fast it could** be somewhere around 140 million miles [225 million km]- but as far as I know no one involved in Mars One has considered such fast transit times. Nor has NASA mentioned doing this.

Edit: ** It could be some distance like 140 million miles, but it must be a shorter distance of travel if you want to get to Mars quicker.
Or shortening the distance of travel is only actual way to get to Mars faster [than the typical hohmann or patched conic + hohmann type transfers]. So exotica ion, nuclear whatever, and etc [or star trek] would get to Mars faster because they shorten the travel distance [so it's not really about how fast they go, rather it's the trajectory taken which is a shorter distance- though it does require more km/sec of delta-v to take this path].
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/16/2015 11:37 pm
I simply don't get why some people enjoy reality shows, as I don't get why people watch "professional wrestling".

Umm.. if someone could figure out how to redirect the vast disposable income of football fans to space, good on 'em?

There seems to be two different groups objecting to Mars One: those who think they're making too little money to ever achieve the things they say they want to, and those who think they're making too much money for what they're actually getting done.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/17/2015 03:14 am
Yeah, read the article at the link that Hop posted. It is pretty devastating:

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3

I don't find find it surprising, but if news media say sky is blue, it motivates me to look at the sky again.
And generally speaking most people don't regard the media [or blogs] as reliable source of info.
The media used to make an effort to lie about how objective they were, but they have given up trying to sell this idea.


I'd simply point out that "media" is a pretty broad term. There are indeed media that can be accurate and objective. And there's also media outlets that in general won't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

It helps if you actually look at some of the underlying factors at play. One of the problems with many media, particularly the cable news networks, but also many daily websites (like Gawker) is that they have a lot of space to fill. And so a major driver for them is filling the space, much more so than checking the accuracy of the story. So, for instance, CNN doesn't really care how likely Mars One is, what they care about is that it is a good story, a new angle, and has some good visuals. They can grab some of the finalists and interview them and make fun of them in a polite manner (essentially winking at their audience "Hey, lookit the weirdo who wants to die on Mars!"). And they think that they can cover themselves journalistically by having the news reader say something like "But not everybody thinks that the idea will work." Then they think they have done due diligence. But more importantly they have filled airtime.

I've had a few experiences dealing with members of the press that drove me nuts. I once explained to a reporter how he had made a very basic mistake in an article that had gotten picked up and repeated by a bunch of people. His response? "Oh well." Yeah, that was it. Not "I'll write a correction" or anything like that. I also dealt with a reporter (this was during the Mars Pathfinder landing) who clearly wanted to do a story about how "some people" thought that the Mars landing was faked. I patiently explained to her that the origin of that story was a guy who had admitted that he was lying just to have fun. I talked to her for half an hour and explained a number of things about the mission and how it was being discussed on the then-new internet. She thanked me, then went and wrote the story she wanted, essentially LYING to the readers. It got picked up by multiple media outlets and I'm sure that's all she cared about.

There are specialists for certain outlets--big newspapers, wire services, certain websites--who have a lot of experience and knowledge and contacts. And there are also members of the trade press. There are people in space journalism who have an incredibly deep knowledge of the issues. And there are people who have integrity and care more about accuracy than getting lots of page hits or filling space. So it's a mistake to lump them all together as "media."
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/17/2015 04:31 am
Regarding "the media".
There are extraordinary reporters and many good reporters, and it's hard work and I appreciate their efforts. And of course an "average" reporters can do extraordinary reporting.

But my point is "the media" does not encourage good reporting- and quite simply, it does not value it enough.
And what "the media" values the most is what we get [mostly].
So when talking about "the media" I mean the "system" or the culture.
I am using a generalization because it's the generalization which I am addressing.

I could also talk about the education system- which also is not about individual teachers, and which tend to be good people. But the educational system is not encouraging them- but instead, it's generally abusive.

And normally the media [or educational system] blames the public for their poor performance- which is obviously untrue. 
Instead it's due to simple principle that power corrupts and it's due to a lack of competition.

And any monopoly will be always be a failure.
And btw, having 3 or 4 major networks or thousands school districts does not alter the fact that it is a monopoly.

 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/17/2015 06:40 am
And any monopoly will be always be a failure.
And btw, having 3 or 4 major networks or thousands school districts does not alter the fact that it is a monopoly.

The media in the United States isn't remotely a monopoly.  Not only are the major broadcast networks fiercely competitive with each other, but there are also cable news networks, lots of local papers, magazines, and web-only outlets.  And all of them are available over the web to anyone, anywhere.  The barriers to entry have never been lower and never has there been such a wealth of different sources of information so easily available.

Many parts of the media have their faults, but as Blackstar says, not all the media are the same.  There are very good sources and terrible sources.  If you're an informed consumer of media, you can find good sources of information.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/17/2015 07:53 am
And any monopoly will be always be a failure.
And btw, having 3 or 4 major networks or thousands school districts does not alter the fact that it is a monopoly.

The media in the United States isn't remotely a monopoly.  Not only are the major broadcast networks fiercely competitive with each other, but there are also cable news networks, lots of local papers, magazines, and web-only outlets.  And all of them are available over the web to anyone, anywhere.  The barriers to entry have never been lower and never has there been such a wealth of different sources of information so easily available.

Many parts of the media have their faults, but as Blackstar says, not all the media are the same.  There are very good sources and terrible sources.  If you're an informed consumer of media, you can find good sources of information.

There are plenty of media, but fact-checking is hard and expensive. All media mostly repeat each other's items. Checking up on every small item is impossible. In my (small) country, news networks have very few reporters on site working for them, not even freelance. And even those they do have, mostly gather their information on the web. Most of the news is gatherd by 3 multinationals. Very neutral.

On the other hand, this isn't worse as it used to be. The news has never been neutral or objective. Neutrality and objectivity doesn't sell. The only thing that might have changed is our awareness of it. We're less gullable now than we were before. We can find an opinion that matches ours online, and call that 'quality reporting'.

As for Mars One having bad consequences for space exploration in general: unfortunately, space exploration is so far out of common people's field of interest, any news is good news. We're going on and on about how inspiring space exploration was in the sixties, and how slow it went after that. But every time someone comes along to 'make us yearn for the seas' once again, we're rallying against him? How sane is that. Including our favourite billionaire, when he was three years running and had nothing to show for it yet.

They sold a lot of Incorrect, and that's quite unethical. So what? If we had to stop everyone that keeps selling us Incorrect, we'd be out of a government or economy in no time. If we had to protect people from being stupid, we'd never get anything else done.

IMO, the only consequence MO will have had, is a short 'oh, this is weird' ripple of interest in the otherwise constantly bored average person. They will care no more for MO failing without any trace of progress as they would have cared for MO promising and achieving realistic things, which they wouldn't even have noticed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 03/17/2015 08:22 am
Here is an interesting article regarding Mars One:
http://laurasspaceonspace.blogspot.com/2015/03/mars-or-bust-mars-one-busted-and-other.html

I thought this was interesting for couple reasons:
"When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad."


I have no idea where that is coming from because I have scanned pretty much every Mars mission study to date, and not one has suggested making a landing bade beforehand.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/17/2015 11:23 am
Here is an interesting article regarding Mars One:
http://laurasspaceonspace.blogspot.com/2015/03/mars-or-bust-mars-one-busted-and-other.html

I thought this was interesting for couple reasons:
"When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad."

I have no idea where that is coming from because I have scanned pretty much every Mars mission study to date, and not one has suggested making a landing bade beforehand.

Yes.
As said I also had not read anything before about such a need in regards to Mars- before Laura Seward Forczyk mentioned it.

But it does make sense to me [though with Dragon type design it might not be as much needed].

I think a point is, that with just one spacecraft landing, it is less of a problem. But landing near infrastructure [landing near a base] then it's more of a concern. Unless you plan on not landing vehicles near the base.
And then if going to take off from a base, then it makes even less sense to have the spacecraft far from the base, so having a pad becomes more of a requirement.
And [on Earth] when launching or landing small spacecraft [like say Project Morpheus] I think it's usually from a pad. Though it might be tested see what kinds of problems one gets from not landing on pad.
And spacecraft coming from orbit or going to orbit will larger and have more thrust than something like the Project Morpheus.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: lauraforczyk on 03/17/2015 12:26 pm
Here is an interesting article regarding Mars One:
http://laurasspaceonspace.blogspot.com/2015/03/mars-or-bust-mars-one-busted-and-other.html

I thought this was interesting for couple reasons:
"When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad."

I have no idea where that is coming from because I have scanned pretty much every Mars mission study to date, and not one has suggested making a landing bade beforehand.

Yes.
As said I also had not read anything before about such a need in regards to Mars- before Laura Seward Forczyk mentioned it.

Thank you all for your interest! I didn't expect my little blog post to be included in the discussion here. I hope it helps to further the conversation.

I did a quick search and found one of Dr. Phil Metzger's papers here: http://enu.kz/repository/2009/AIAA-2009-1204.pdf. I'm sure there are others. Hope it helps!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 03/17/2015 01:08 pm
Welcome to the forum Laura and thanks for such a nice introduction with that paper.  I am interested in the response it receives here.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 03/17/2015 03:19 pm
So, after reading the paper, I am not convinced that enough study has been done to characterize the effect on fines, regolith, ice table et al, in the landing of a conical shape with engines angled out at 45° and protected from direct ejecta directly below them by the base of the craft. The "blast back" from an angular crater would still be an issue, but, pending further study, I think it is likely to assume that the oval shape of the crater and the 45° angle of the plume would have created in effect flame trenches leading away from the engines. Then landing on smaller legs that extend vertically from the base would be on to undisturbed soil.

I would like to see this tested: if we imagine 4 engines or engine sets at 90° around the perimeter of the cone shape, then orientation could also be used to mitigate potential damage from ejecta on surrounding equipment. While I don't argue that any location that will be subjected to a series of landings such as a base or permanent settlement will early on need a landing facility with a stabilized surface and baffles/flame trenches for landing and take off. I think we can, by judicious landing craft and point to point craft design bring the safety level of individual manned landings up enough to allow for human site visitation for the purpose of initial exploration and evaluation without robotic landing site preparation. However I agree more testing on different designs to address this is required and note that there is a 30% performance hit by angling the engines 45°. That can only be mitigated by adding more, un angled engines, or designing the engines to move or their exhaust to have been redirected to that 45° angle by baffles as is done with the Harrier.

Hmm, now all of this might be more appropriate on its own thread examining just this concern of manned Mars landing/launch site preparation.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/17/2015 04:12 pm
Yeah, read the article at the link that Hop posted. It is pretty devastating:

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3


"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview."

"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money."

True, they currently do not have a large amount of funds, however, the money they do have they have put into design work. This demonstrates, at the very least, that Mars One is not a fraud or a scam.

"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

"Mars One has no TV production partner."

False. While Endemol and Mars One are no longer working together, Mars One does have a new production partner, who was responsible for their most recently released promotional video.

"Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands."

They might need to do that in the future, but have no need to do such a thing yet. Mars One has said they are in discussions with a number of large investment firms, but that no deals have yet been made.

"Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves."

A blatant lie. Mars One hired architect Kristian von Bengtson to do the design work for it, this work was started a year ago.

"Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview."

I'm not sure why one person's experience (and one who was clearly unenthusiastic about Mars One) should be indicative of the whole.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/17/2015 08:58 pm
"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money."

True, they currently do not have a large amount of funds, however, the money they do have they have put into design work. This demonstrates, at the very least, that Mars One is not a fraud or a scam.
No it doesn't. They put some of the money into design work. If it were a scam, spending some of the money maintaining the illusion of viability would be necessary expense.

Quote
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.
There's no evidence they've contracted any significant design studies on the major elements of the colony itself. As I've noted earlier, all public information indicates they haven't even raised enough money to perform such studies. As far as I can tell, the Lockheed study is basically just Lockheed dusting off their Phoenix/InSight platform and defining some requirements, interfaces and milestones. A few hundred grand doesn't get you much in real aerospace.

There has been less public information about the SSTL and Paragon studies, but the amount of money involved puts upper bounds on it.

So yes, they have had some small contracts for very high level preliminary work. They have to contracts to actually build anything, or do detailed design of major systems like the MTV, rovers, surface structures, EDL systems and so on.
Quote
I'm not sure why one person's experience (and one who was clearly unenthusiastic about Mars One) should be indicative of the whole.
That person was one of the "final 100" candidates. The fact that someone like this who basically signed up on a whim even made the final 100 is telling, and there is no reason to believe the other finalists were screened in any more rigorously.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/17/2015 11:00 pm
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/17/2015 11:58 pm
No it doesn't. They put some of the money into design work. If it were a scam, spending some of the money maintaining the illusion of viability would be necessary expense.

Umm.. then it's a pretty petty scam.. as I said, everyone agrees that Mars One is vastly underfunded but some people still seem dissatisfied with how much they're getting done. I wonder if they feel any cognitive dissonance at all.

I'm reminded of Michael Laine's "LiftPort". Some people went out of their way to shut him down and he was exonerated. Just because you have aspirations beyond your abilities doesn't mean you're a fraud. If people want to back you, that's their business.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 03/18/2015 01:09 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.
And the cynics squeal with glee.

(Never thought they'd succeed, ever. But the schadenfreude is rank.)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 04:57 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.

No, it's not. The article does not support your claim - it says they had design studies completed, and that their window for launching in 2018 is closing quickly. So if they miss it they will have to wait till the 2020 launch window.

How does that put them into freefall???
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 05:06 am
"So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money."

True, they currently do not have a large amount of funds, however, the money they do have they have put into design work. This demonstrates, at the very least, that Mars One is not a fraud or a scam.
No it doesn't. They put some of the money into design work. If it were a scam, spending some of the money maintaining the illusion of viability would be necessary expense.

Quote
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.
There's no evidence they've contracted any significant design studies on the major elements of the colony itself. As I've noted earlier, all public information indicates they haven't even raised enough money to perform such studies. As far as I can tell, the Lockheed study is basically just Lockheed dusting off their Phoenix/InSight platform and defining some requirements, interfaces and milestones. A few hundred grand doesn't get you much in real aerospace.

There has been less public information about the SSTL and Paragon studies, but the amount of money involved puts upper bounds on it.

So yes, they have had some small contracts for very high level preliminary work. They have to contracts to actually build anything, or do detailed design of major systems like the MTV, rovers, surface structures, EDL systems and so on.
Quote
I'm not sure why one person's experience (and one who was clearly unenthusiastic about Mars One) should be indicative of the whole.
That person was one of the "final 100" candidates. The fact that someone like this who basically signed up on a whim even made the final 100 is telling, and there is no reason to believe the other finalists were screened in any more rigorously.

Mars One spent $250,000 on the Lockheed Martin design work, and $80,000 on the Surrey design work. For them, that's not chump change, it's more than half of what they have collected from their Indiegogo campaign and donations.

Yes, they will have to spend more money on more design work. We all know that. Taking things one step at a time can get you great distances, you know. 

A sample size of one is statistically useless, and he was clearly very unenthusiastic about Mars One. Have you ever gone to an interview where you didn't care if you got the job or not? Or worse, were negative about the company? I can assure you that interview would also last 10 minutes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/18/2015 05:27 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.

No, it's not. The article does not support your claim - it says they had design studies completed, and that their window for launching in 2018 is closing quickly. So if they miss it they will have to wait till the 2020 launch window.

How does that put them into freefall???

The article does support the claim.  The article says that the design studies were completed some time ago and ever since the companies have been waiting to hear from Mars One about follow-on work.  Mars One has not had them start any follow-on work after the preliminary concept studies.

Ceasing to move forward with the contractors they started working with is a sign things are pretty bad.  It's the equivalent of putting staff on unpaid leave.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 05:35 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.

No, it's not. The article does not support your claim - it says they had design studies completed, and that their window for launching in 2018 is closing quickly. So if they miss it they will have to wait till the 2020 launch window.

How does that put them into freefall???

The article does support the claim.  The article says that the design studies were completed some time ago and ever since the companies have been waiting to hear from Mars One about follow-on work.  Mars One has not had them start any follow-on work after the preliminary concept studies.

Ceasing to move forward with the contractors they started working with is a sign things are pretty bad.  It's the equivalent of putting staff on unpaid leave.

So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?

That seems like a stretch to me. It's a weak criticism of Mars One, to say the least.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/18/2015 05:37 am
Mars One spent $250,000 on the Lockheed Martin design work, and $80,000 on the Surrey design work. For them, that's not chump change, it's more than half of what they have collected from their Indiegogo campaign and donations.

You're really not helping your case here.  The fact that such small sums are big for Mars One is exactly the point.

Yes, they will have to spend more money on more design work. We all know that. Taking things one step at a time can get you great distances, you know.

Mars One claims they need $6 billion to send people to Mars.  Most people outside Mars One consider that unrealistically optimistic, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that.  So they need to spend $6 billion.  Last year, they spent $330,000 on those design studies.

At that rate, they'll reach Mars in 18,000 years.

A sample size of one is statistically useless,

How useful a sample size of one is depends greatly on the situation.  In many cases, it can tell you an awful lot.

Among other things, it gives us an upper bound on their minimum standards to get into the top 100.  Any competent organization would have minimum standards for its top-100 astronauts that are quite a bit higher than 10 minutes on Skype.  And Mars One itself promised much higher standards for the top-100.  It's something they said they would do and that they didn't do.

and he was clearly very unenthusiastic about Mars One. Have you ever gone to an interview where you didn't care if you got the job or not? Or worse, were negative about the company? I can assure you that interview would also last 10 minutes.

But the thing is he did get the job!  The interview was to see if he could get into the top 100.  He did.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/18/2015 05:41 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.

No, it's not. The article does not support your claim - it says they had design studies completed, and that their window for launching in 2018 is closing quickly. So if they miss it they will have to wait till the 2020 launch window.

How does that put them into freefall???

The article does support the claim.  The article says that the design studies were completed some time ago and ever since the companies have been waiting to hear from Mars One about follow-on work.  Mars One has not had them start any follow-on work after the preliminary concept studies.

Ceasing to move forward with the contractors they started working with is a sign things are pretty bad.  It's the equivalent of putting staff on unpaid leave.

So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?

That seems like a stretch to me. It's a weak criticism of Mars One, to say the least.

They didn't design anything.  Do you really think Lockheed Martin would design a space system for $250,000?

These were conceptual studies.  They don't require any sort of in-depth analysis.  What we're talking about is not moving from a design to a contract to build something.  We're talking about moving from a conceptual study to a little more detail in the high-level architecture.  The full design is still many steps down the road.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 05:54 am
Mars One spent $250,000 on the Lockheed Martin design work, and $80,000 on the Surrey design work. For them, that's not chump change, it's more than half of what they have collected from their Indiegogo campaign and donations.

You're really not helping your case here.  The fact that such small sums are big for Mars One is exactly the point.
Nobody has made that point, though. We all know Mars One isn't flush with cash, however, they are using the funds they do have as they should be if they are not a scam.

Quote
Yes, they will have to spend more money on more design work. We all know that. Taking things one step at a time can get you great distances, you know.

Mars One claims they need $6 billion to send people to Mars.  Most people outside Mars One consider that unrealistically optimistic, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that.  So they need to spend $6 billion.  Last year, they spent $330,000 on those design studies.

At that rate, they'll reach Mars in 18,000 years.
Bas Lansdorp has said that mars One is in discussions with large investment firms to secure the greater sums of money they will need later on. Hopefully they can get one soon to get the work on the lander going.

Quote
A sample size of one is statistically useless,

How useful a sample size of one is depends greatly on the situation.  In many cases, it can tell you an awful lot.

Among other things, it gives us an upper bound on their minimum standards to get into the top 100.  Any competent organization would have minimum standards for its top-100 astronauts that are quite a bit higher than 10 minutes on Skype.  And Mars One itself promised much higher standards for the top-100.  It's something they said they would do and that they didn't do.

and he was clearly very unenthusiastic about Mars One. Have you ever gone to an interview where you didn't care if you got the job or not? Or worse, were negative about the company? I can assure you that interview would also last 10 minutes.

But the thing is he did get the job!  The interview was to see if he could get into the top 100.  He did.

The article doesn't say that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 05:57 am
"Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions."

Not true, they have contracted design work going with Paragon, Surrey, and Lockheed Martin. It is true that as yet it is for design work rather than construction / assembly. However, you'd be hard pressed to do the latter without the former done first.

http://spacenews.com/mars-one-suspends-work-on-robotic-missions/

Mars One is in freefall.

No, it's not. The article does not support your claim - it says they had design studies completed, and that their window for launching in 2018 is closing quickly. So if they miss it they will have to wait till the 2020 launch window.

How does that put them into freefall???

The article does support the claim.  The article says that the design studies were completed some time ago and ever since the companies have been waiting to hear from Mars One about follow-on work.  Mars One has not had them start any follow-on work after the preliminary concept studies.

Ceasing to move forward with the contractors they started working with is a sign things are pretty bad.  It's the equivalent of putting staff on unpaid leave.

So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?

That seems like a stretch to me. It's a weak criticism of Mars One, to say the least.

They didn't design anything.  Do you really think Lockheed Martin would design a space system for $250,000?

These were conceptual studies.  They don't require any sort of in-depth analysis.  What we're talking about is not moving from a design to a contract to build something.  We're talking about moving from a conceptual study to a little more detail in the high-level architecture.  The full design is still many steps down the road.

Very well then. Exactly how long would you expect to wait between a "conceptual study" and moving on to further design work?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kdhilliard on 03/18/2015 06:04 am
The article doesn't say that.

By "the article", I assume that you mean Elmo Keep's recent Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters (https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3):
Quote
But eventually Joseph — who is actually Dr. Joseph Roche, an assistant professor at Trinity College’s School of Education in Dublin, with a Ph.D. in physics and astrophysics — found himself on the group’s shortlist of 100 candidates all willing to undertake the theoretical journey. And that’s when he started talking to me about the big problems he was seeing with Mars One.

Here is his Mars One profile: https://community.mars-one.com/screen_name/ALL/18/82/IE/ALL/5/3 (https://community.mars-one.com/screen_name/ALL/18/82/IE/ALL/5/3)

Worth reading is a rebuttal to Elmo Keep's article, also on Medium: Current Mars100 Finalists refute Elmo Keep’s Mars One “conspiracy theory.” (https://medium.com/@oscarmathewscorrea/current-mars100-finalists-refute-elmo-keep-s-mars-one-conspiracy-theory-fc303ebb4bea)

~Kirk

Edit: Linked and quoted from original article
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/18/2015 06:41 am
So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?
"Reviewing designs" is misdirection, they don't have the money to contract an actual mission. Their supposed 2018 mission would very optimistically cost around half a billion dollars. There is no indication that they have raised even 1% of that in their entire existence, and they have put forth no coherent plan for raising the rest.

By their own admission, they needed to start construction in the end of 2014 (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1130957#msg1130957). Yet Lansdorp is still insisting they have a chance of hitting the 2018 window.

You (and  Lansdorp) suggest they might slip to 2020, but applying the same construction timescale, that leaves them with 2 years to ramp up their fundraising more than a thousand fold. How are they going to do that? All Lansdorp has is some hand-waving about investors. The odds of finding investors who want to throw hundreds of millions at a venture like this extremely low, but Mars One does their best to avoid even admitting that fund raising is a problem. The report that they ask their candidates to "donate" a cut of their appearance fees strongly suggests otherwise.

It should also be remembered this isn't the first window they've missed either. The original plan called for launching a Dragon based lander in 2016. Some of us called the 2016 lander non-credible when it was announced (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg983961#msg983961). The Lockheed lander was announced with great fanfare after it become obvious they had no chance of hitting the 2016 window. What happened to the previous plan was never fully explained.

A this point, I will boldly predict something similar happens to the 2018 "plan" within the next 6 months or so, unless the whole thing implodes first.


edit:
My posted bumped kdhilliard's to the previous page, but you should read it http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1347379#msg1347379
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/18/2015 06:58 am
So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?
"Reviewing designs" is misdirection, they don't have the money to contract an actual mission. Their supposed 2018 mission would very optimistically cost around half a billion dollars. There is no indication that they have raised even 1% of that in their entire existence, and they have put forth no coherent plan for raising the rest.
Bas Lansdorp has said that Mars One is in discussions with some investment firms that are interested in providing funds. They would need to get a large amount from such investors to proceed.
Quote

By their own admission, they needed to start construction in the end of 2014 (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1130957#msg1130957). Yet Lansdorp is still insisting they have a chance of hitting the 2018 window.
I think the margin is slim, but given that the lander is based on 2 that were previously built and one that is currently under construction, I'd think they have a shot. But the window is indeed narrow.
Quote

You (and  Lansdorp) suggest they might slip to 2020, but applying the same construction timescale, that leaves them with 2 years to ramp up their fundraising more than a thousand fold. How are they going to do that? All Lansdorp has is some hand-waving about investors. The odds of finding investors who want to throw hundreds of millions at a venture like this extremely low, but Mars One does their best to avoid even admitting that fund raising is a problem. The report that they ask their candidates to "donate" a cut of their appearance fees strongly suggests otherwise.
There are rumors in the Mars One community that a there is a large investment firm (and speculations about a Qatari prince) interested in funding the entire project.
Quote
It should also be remembered this isn't the first window they've missed either. The original plan called for launching a Dragon based lander in 2016. Some of us called the 2016 lander non-credible when it was announced (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg983961#msg983961). The Lockheed lander was announced with great fanfare after it become obvious they had no chance of hitting the 2016 window. What happened to the previous plan was never fully explained.

A this point, I will boldly predict something similar happens to the 2018 "plan" within the next 6 months or so, unless the whole thing implodes first.
A slip to the 2020 launch window is very plausible. I would estimate that the time window is shorter than that, if they don't get going with further design and construction contracts by the end of April, they will almost definitely have to bump to 2020.
Quote
edit:
My posted bumped kdhilliard's to the previous page, but you should read it http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1347379#msg1347379

That is an excellent post!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/18/2015 08:16 am
I've yet to see anyone claim that Mars One is flush with cash... I have heard people call them a scam, which suggests that they think it's a scam aiming to make pennies.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Moe Grills on 03/18/2015 04:28 pm
I've yet to see anyone claim that Mars One is flush with cash... I have heard people call them a scam, which suggests that they think it's a scam aiming to make pennies.

On the message board over at the Parabolic Arc website, someone actually gave a very good description of this 'project'; not calling it a scam per se, but explaining that recent history has shown that many ambitious space projects/plans/dreams over the decades have vanished, sometimes taking gullible people's money with them.

When this project/dream collapses and disappears, if the generic media pay attention, it can do serious harm
when the media and the majority pubic end up describing all such independent commercial 'space' projects as either scams or well-intentioned but financially impractical fantasies.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/18/2015 08:01 pm
When this project/dream collapses and disappears, if the generic media pay attention, it can do serious harm when the media and the majority pubic end up describing all such independent commercial 'space' projects as either scams or well-intentioned but financially impractical fantasies.
I agree.

There's also a spectrum of less-than-honest approaches that fall short of a total scam. The Mars One principles may well know that they ~zero chance of sending anyone to Mars, but as long as they can keep it going, they have a pretty good gig on someone else's dime. That doesn't mean they wouldn't try to actually fly in the unlikely event someone throws billions of dollars at them, but in order to keep it going, they misrepresent their chances and engage in other deceptions.

I don't know where on the spectrum they fall, but for reasons I've explained before (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1336915#msg1336915), I think it's clear that their "success" to date is based on deception, and that they have no credible plan (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1337592#msg1337592).

I don't find the "it isn't a scam because they haven't made a lot of money (yet)" argument compelling, for several reasons:
1) They can do very well for themselves while falling far short of the amount required to actually send anything to Mars.
2) Convincing someone to give them a moderately lucrative TV deal is a plausible way of getting to #1.
3) And finally... not every scam is successful.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/19/2015 02:57 am
So.. umm.. now it seems that people who don't think Mars One is a scam have the burden of proof?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Darkseraph on 03/19/2015 03:07 am
Maybe not an outright scam, but publicity stunt at a minimum!

I really don't know why they didn't just fake the reality TV series on Mars and pay a bunch of unknown actors to appear to be volunteers? It would be much cheaper and the tech is pretty much good enough to do this! 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/19/2015 04:30 am
Maybe not an outright scam, but publicity stunt at a minimum!

I really don't know why they didn't just fake the reality TV series on Mars and pay a bunch of unknown actors to appear to be volunteers? It would be much cheaper and the tech is pretty much good enough to do this!

It could do both.
So my assumption is someone can make a better or good enough reality TV show.
And it could based on going to Mars, with the "series" leading to actually
going to Mars.
So the dream/fantasy actually coming true [schtick]
At least it has the advantage of reality being stranger than fiction, going for it.

But actually for me, it could be good science fiction.
Or the format requires it to be science fiction rather than the science fiction of
end of the world gloom, or warp drives and aliens- or the typical fantasy science fiction
which is not actually science fiction.

So I think it possible it could be an significant improvement on reality TV shows [and considering I dislike
reality TV shows- it would be relatively easy to get a modest improvement of this category of reality TV shows].

I do like some fantasy science fiction, I liked say, LEXX. But LEXX is closer to a reality TV show, than say, some reasonably good attempt at good acting.
So it's a reality TV show which has general direction in which the actors mostly Adlib.

And I would have the option of killing off the crew, if audience doesn't like them- give the actors some
incentive.
So one could get a Shakespearean like TV series.
So maybe one gets a lot of fictional death depending how it goes.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Burninate on 03/19/2015 04:42 am
So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?
"Reviewing designs" is misdirection, they don't have the money to contract an actual mission. Their supposed 2018 mission would very optimistically cost around half a billion dollars. There is no indication that they have raised even 1% of that in their entire existence, and they have put forth no coherent plan for raising the rest.

Half a billion?

This is what's on their website (http://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/how-much-does-the-mission-cost) right now:
Quote
After discussions with potential suppliers for each component and close examination, Mars One estimates the cost of putting the first four people on Mars at six billion US$. The six billion figure is the cost of all the hardware combined, plus the operational expenditures, plus margins. For every next manned mission, Mars One estimates the costs at four billion US$.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/19/2015 04:44 am
So you're saying that Mars One can't have time to review the designs before offering a contract to build what was designed? Is it standard industry practice to immediately proceed to building something once design work is completed?
"Reviewing designs" is misdirection, they don't have the money to contract an actual mission. Their supposed 2018 mission would very optimistically cost around half a billion dollars. There is no indication that they have raised even 1% of that in their entire existence, and they have put forth no coherent plan for raising the rest.

Half a billion?

This is what's on their website (http://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/how-much-does-the-mission-cost) right now:
Quote
After discussions with potential suppliers for each component and close examination, Mars One estimates the cost of putting the first four people on Mars at six billion US$. The six billion figure is the cost of all the hardware combined, plus the operational expenditures, plus margins. For every next manned mission, Mars One estimates the costs at four billion US$.

The "half a billion" is for the unmanned 2018 mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/19/2015 02:49 pm
The "half a billion" is for the unmanned 2018 mission.

And it would be quite a bit more than that. You're talking about two launch vehicles at $100+ million apiece. Plus an orbiter that's going to cost a couple hundred million. And the lander is essentially a clone of Phoenix, so figure ~$400 million for that. Those two missions are going to cost $750+ million, being generous.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/19/2015 02:51 pm
The spate of bad publicity about Mars One continues:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/19/that-one-way-flight-to-mars-could-keep-you-waiting-for-decades/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3

That one-way flight to Mars is losing its sheen
By Sarah Kaplan


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/19/2015 04:10 pm
And the spate of bad publicity about Mars One continues:

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com%2F2015%2F03%2F18%2Fjulie-payette-mars-one

Ex-Canadian astronaut Julie Payette says Mars One, the one-way mission to the red planet, is going nowhere

Peter Rakobowchuk, Canadian Press
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/19/2015 04:42 pm
And it would be quite a bit more than that. You're talking about two launch vehicles at $100+ million apiece. Plus an orbiter that's going to cost a couple hundred million. And the lander is essentially a clone of Phoenix, so figure ~$400 million for that. Those two missions are going to cost $750+ million, being generous.
I was being extremely generous, but also assumed one launch since IIRC that was their supposed plan. Phoenix launched on Delta 2 and they'd presumably be using F9 or Atlas, so that doesn't seem totally implausible if the relay is small.

Regardless of the of whether the number is $500M or $800M, comparison to Mars One's $6B estimate for the whole colony is a good illustration of just how absurd it is. A lander using an existing design, a small relay satellite (presumably based on one of SSTLs existing buses), and a single EELV class launch is on the order of 1/10th of Mars One's entire colony budget.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 03/19/2015 07:01 pm
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

What do you think of the recent news articles that doubt the feasibility of Mars One?

At Mars One we really value good criticism because it helps us to improve our mission. We get a lot of criticism from our advisors and that is also exactly what we want from them. The recent bad press about Mars One was largely caused by an article on medium.com, which contains a lot of things that are not true. For example, the suggestion was made that our candidates were selected on the basis on how much money they donate to Mars One. That is simply not true and this is very easy to find that on our website. There are a lot of current Round Three candidates that did not make any donations to Mars One and there are also lot of people that did not make it to the third round that contributed a lot to Mars One. The two things are not related at all and to say that they are is simply a lie. The article also states that there were only 2,700 applications for Mars One which is not true. We offered the reporter, the first journalist ever, access to our list of 200,000 applications but she was not interested in that. It seems that she is more interested in writing a sensational article about Mars One than in the truth.

Concerns have been voiced about the thoroughness of the astronaut selection process. What is your response to that?

We started our astronaut selection with over 200,000 applications that were submitted online. The application included a video and a lot of psychological questions for our candidates. We used that to narrow down the candidates to about 1000 that had to do a medical check, which was very similar to the check for NASA astronauts. All the remaining candidates then underwent an interview. The interview and all other parts of the selection process were lead by Norbert Kraft, our Chief Medical Officer. He has worked on astronaut selection for 5 years at the Japanese Space Agency and at NASA he researched crew composition for long duration space missions.

Interestingly, it is not so complex to determine who is not qualified to go to Mars, which is what we have been doing so far. Our next step is to find out, from the people who we think might be qualified, which ones have what it takes. The selection process will be much more thorough from here on. We will bring our candidates together, we will put them through team and individual challenges, there will be much longer interviews, and there will be much a bigger selection committee. This is the way we will determine who are good enough to enter our training process.

Will there be a revenue share between the candidates and Mars One when candidates participate in Mars One related commercial activities?

We are preparing a contract that our Round Three candidates will need to sign that deals with commercial activities. It is very important that Mars One controls which Mars One related commercial activities our candidates can participate in because we need to make sure that the different activities do not conflict with each other. There will be a revenue share because our candidates do not receive a salary from Mars One yet. That's why it is fair that our candidates get a part of what Mars One receives for those commercial activities. It is very different in my case because I get a salary from Mars One. When I do a keynote speech, the entire speaking fee goes to Mars One.

Actually, a lot of our candidates have indicated that they are not interested in receiving part of those revenues. Many want all the money to go to Mars One’s mission - but that is really up to them.

Does Mars One have a production company and a broadcaster for the astronaut selection documentary series?

We were very close to a deal with Endemol owned Darlow Smithson productions but in the end the deal fell apart on final details in the contract and therefore Mars One ended that cooperation. We have worked with a new production company since November of last year. They are currently selling the documentary series to an international broadcaster. There is no deal in place yet but it is looking very promising and there is a lot of interest.

Is a $6 billion budget enough for such a complex mission?

NASA’s lowest cost estimate that I have ever seen was about $35 billion but let’s not forget that the Mars One mission is very different. We are organizing a mission of permanent settlement where we do not need to worry about the return trip, which is where most of the complexity lies. The return trip involves developing bigger rockets that can get the systems to Mars, developing a bigger landing system to land the large components for the return mission on Mars, and developing a whole new launch system that can launch from Mars while even from Earth a launch is very difficult. Our $6 billion cost figure comes from good discussions that we have had with established aerospace companies from around the world. They have already been building systems for the ISS and for unmanned missions to Mars, which are similar to the ones we need. We are very confident that our budget will be enough.

How is the funding of the mission progressing?

The Mars One mission will primarily be funded through investments. We have had a very successful investment round in 2013, which has financed all the things that we have done up to now. We have actually come to an agreement with a consortium of investors late last year for a much bigger round of investment. Unfortunately, the paper work of that deal is taking much longer than we expected. I now think that it will be completed before the summer of this year, which means that we will not be in time to finance the follow up studies that Lockheed Martin needs to do for our first unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

So there is a two year delay, what does that mean for Mars One?

Going to Mars is very difficult, for example NASA has been talking about going to Mars in 20 years for more than 45 years now. Of course, NASA needs a return mission which is much more complex than our one way mission but it shows how difficult Mars exploration is. At the same time, Mars One has already achieved a lot. We have had our first contract with Paragon Space Development Corporation for the suits and life support systems, our first contract with Lockheed Martin for our unmanned mission, we have a very impressive board of ambassadors with a nobel prize laureate, and a great advisory board with people like Mason Peck, NASA’s former Chief Technologist. I believe we are on track and moving in the right direction. We may have a two year delay now but we show that people are interested in Mars One and in Mars exploration. People want this to happen and it is my conviction that as long as we can show that we are moving in the right direction, that we are getting the right companies under contract, and we are getting these contracts done, then the world will accept that we have a delay in getting our humans to Mars. Additionally, is it really a failure if we land our first crew two, four, six, or even eight years late? I would be extremely proud if we could make that happen and Mars One is still fully committed to keeping that on track.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Dalhousie on 03/20/2015 01:24 am
Here is an interesting article regarding Mars One:
http://laurasspaceonspace.blogspot.com/2015/03/mars-or-bust-mars-one-busted-and-other.html

I thought this was interesting for couple reasons:
"When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad."

I have no idea where that is coming from because I have scanned pretty much every Mars mission study to date, and not one has suggested making a landing pad beforehand.

Yes.
As said I also had not read anything before about such a need in regards to Mars- before Laura Seward Forczyk mentioned it.

Thank you all for your interest! I didn't expect my little blog post to be included in the discussion here. I hope it helps to further the conversation.

I did a quick search and found one of Dr. Phil Metzger's papers here: http://enu.kz/repository/2009/AIAA-2009-1204.pdf. I'm sure there are others. Hope it helps!

Thanks Laura (and welcome).

I had seen the paper before, it is important, but I don't think it means that landing on Mars requires a prebuilt landing pad.

I note that is a first study.  For example they look at a worst case scanario, essentially non-cohesive sand.  While that places bounds on the problem and is easy to model both pjysically and mathematically, it itsn't particularly realistic.  Nobody is going to put a large lander down on a sand dune.  They will land places with solid rock or ice just beeneath the surface.  It becomes another site constraint among many.

There are many other ways of addressing the problem, Muitple smaller landing engines rather than a few larger ones, for example.  Muirple nozzles to each engine to diffuse the exhaust, as was done with Viking.  Mounting the engines hiugher on the spacecraft, rather than underneath it.  Retaining the heat shield on at least the underside of the lander rather than disposing of it prior to landing would also provide some protection (this was a feature of the earliest detailed Mars lander study, back in 1968).

The risk posed by entrained debris to other surface equipment is interesting, I have corresponded with Brain O'Brien who studied the Apollo 12 issues.  Clearly osme sot of safety buffer will be needed between landing spacecraft and other landed equipment.  Air resistannce and higher surface gravity will partly offset the greater energy of ejection, I would have thought.

But certainly something that needs more work.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Darkseraph on 03/20/2015 03:30 am
I am suspicious of the sales pitch of "it will be cheaper if we don't bring them back"...as if this really solves all your problems. The amount of mass needed to keep people on Mars alive for 20 or more years would probably dwarf the amount needed to to just return 4 people from a one off ~3 year mission.


That has been floated for government missions too...but I've hard time believing that if the government won't pony up the dough for a one time return mission to Mars, it's mind will be changed by an initially cheaper mission that ends up as a lifelong commitment to keeping people alive there that could result in terrifying lonely deaths. In fact, I'd imagine that would be the worst publicity that could ever land on the doorstep of any politician. At least initially, we're bringing people back!`
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/20/2015 03:34 am
Some comments on Bas' statement
Quote
The article also states that there were only 2,700 applications for Mars One which is not true. We offered the reporter, the first journalist ever, access to our list of 200,000 applications but she was not interested in that. It seems that she is more interested in writing a sensational article about Mars One than in the truth.
To count applications that weren't completed and didn't pay the fee as "applicants" is extremely disingenuous. To then accuse the reporter of lying is well... incorrect.

Quote
It is very different in my case because I get a salary from Mars One. When I do a keynote speech, the entire speaking fee goes to Mars One.
My bold. Bas may not be getting rich off the project, but it's paying his bills.

Quote
They are currently selling the documentary series to an international broadcaster. There is no deal in place yet but it is looking very promising and there is a lot of interest.
So they have a contract with production company, but actually producing anything is contingent on convincing a broadcaster to buy in.

Quote
Our $6 billion cost figure comes from good discussions that we have had with established aerospace companies from around the world. They have already been building systems for the ISS and for unmanned missions to Mars, which are similar to the ones we need. We are very confident that our budget will be enough.
"Very good discussions" are not engineering. Unless they have done the engineering, they don't know the actual cost. To claim otherwise is either extreme naivete or deception.

Quote
The Mars One mission will primarily be funded through investments. We have had a very successful investment round in 2013, which has financed all the things that we have done up to now.
Note their Indigogo crowdfunding ran from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014. An update from Bas on their Indigogo said
Quote
As you know, our campaign is coming to a close. So far, we have raised an impressive 290,000 dollars. As a community, we’ve actually raised more money during this two-month campaign than we raised from private donations over the past two years.
Is this the "very successful round"? Perhaps not, since one refers to "investors" and the other refers to "private donations". OTOH, given the games they've played with applicant numbers, I wouldn't be hugely surprised.

Quote
This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.
My prediction (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1347386#msg1347386) was wrong. They slipped the date, as they obviously had to, but did not change the goalposts for the mission.

This marks 4 years of 1:1 slippage without any significant hardware development.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Burninate on 03/20/2015 04:11 am
Lansdorp also showed up in a recent FISO telecon (http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Do_2-11-15/), and almost hijacked the presentation in an attempt to respond not only to the presenter (who had requested help from Mars One to do the analysis but had not recieved it), but to general criticism.  He came off a touch bitter, and complained that the presentor was being irresponsible for trying to kill his dream by giving a hostile press linkbait-worthy headlines with which to attack Mars One.

He had a few points I concurred with, but still it was a hell of a poor way of dealing with criticism.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Burninate on 03/20/2015 04:51 am
I am suspicious of the sales pitch of "it will be cheaper if we don't bring them back"...as if this really solves all your problems. The amount of mass needed to keep people on Mars alive for 20 or more years would probably dwarf the amount needed to to just return 4 people from a one off ~3 year mission.

The *seed of the idea* does have a legitimate case: Full chemical propulsion options with no ISRU, SEP, or NTR, are extravagantly expensive.   It costs more than 11km/s* to send mass to the Martian surface and return it to Earth over a 1000-day mission, and significantly more for a shorter mission; Wet to dry mass ratios of 50:1 IMLEO are necessary to do this with conventional hydrazine propellant at 300s Isp, and the mass inside the habitat is enormous for a 1000-day mission, moreso if it does meaningful amounts of work on the ground.  For high speed radiation-friendly transits the ratio can be ten times that.  In contrast, to get to the Moon and back it costs you about 16:1 wet to dry mass ratio.  Mass to the Martian surface without return is more like 5:1*.  That means for every kilogram you bring back, you could have sent and left around 10 kilograms.

Looking at this, and at NASA's pathetically conservative attitudes towards risk and expense, and pathetic rate of progress towards any sort of Mars mission, Bas Lansdorp's proposed action is pretty reasonable.  The problems are that he has proposed no meaningful way to secure the funds, much less an ironclad source of continued funding to provide logistics for Mars, and that developing new tech to get to Mars and back is not so difficult that it couldn't be done, only difficult enough that cash-starved NASA has not been able to do it.

Without money, Lansdorp's plan is illustrative and provocative - 'why aren't we doing *anything*?' rather than a literal proposal.  It's a stunt.  That's not necessarily a bad thing unless you're a true believer who's breaking up with his girlfriend to prepare yourself for the application process.

With money...  If (X people) wanted to retire to Mars using Bas Lansdorp's plan, they probably could.  There are a lot of details to work out, a lot of tech to implement (rather than develop/invent), and a lot of concerns, but they could probably get through them.  And they could probably do it within ten years.

*Arbitrarily assuming 1km/s for SSRP EDL
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Darkseraph on 03/20/2015 05:22 am
I'm betting the Koch Brother amassed their massive wealth precisely by avoiding ideas like this. Not that daring ideas aren't venerable, but they do have a way of exploding in your face. If they had wanted to blow a few billion dollars, it would be nearly just as effective to pile it up in bundles and throw the kerosene on it, Joker style! You'd even get the fireworks display from it. :D


Now I don't think human space settlement is a wasteful idea in the long term. I think it is a sort of social investment and Mars is just one potential place amongst many to achieve it. But the tech isn't here yet to make it practical and i believe it will be a long time before it is. For a private company, I don't think it really makes sense, since they have to make a profit to survive (something a government isn't so bound by, it's more restricted by political cycles than business cycles). What the private sector can do in the mean time is help get the cost down for government missions or by extension, university/non profit ngos. MIT (or some other similar uni) putting a robot on the Moon in the next couple of decades or even an astronaut into space to test some tech on a private space station, is not entirely unrealistic. Not saying it will happen, but making exploration small enough to be done by such organizations might insulate it from governmental whims and fickleness.

Even doing a televized mission to the ISS on Soyuz (or CC when they're ready) followed by a Moon One program and buying the ride of the Golden Spike, would be much more realistic. That could be done with return, televised for as long as people's attention span these days. And when revenue falls so much you can't keep it up, returning people doesn't result in accusations of, eh murder.  Because it will be possible to return them. People will take some space selfies and so on. There might be more opportunity to monetize that, because even though rich people have bought their tourist rides into space before...it's harder for the public to identify with someone they really can't be. If there was some X-Factor/American Idol like selection process where an ordinary person ends up winning the trip (I've a feeling this is a Simpson episode)..people might follow that emotionally. Might! The fact that they win it in a gruelling sort of fake selection process, with all the boring bits edited out, might make it more engaging than someone just buying their way into space because they're loaded :/

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Beittil on 03/20/2015 07:18 am
Some comments on Bas' statement
Quote
The article also states that there were only 2,700 applications for Mars One which is not true. We offered the reporter, the first journalist ever, access to our list of 200,000 applications but she was not interested in that. It seems that she is more interested in writing a sensational article about Mars One than in the truth.
To count applications that weren't completed and didn't pay the fee as "applicants" is extremely disingenuous. To then accuse the reporter of lying is well... incorrect.

Funny thing is that the reporter declined because she didn't feel like coughing up the plane ticket on her own dime and I guess the terms for viewing the list :P

Quote from: Elmo Keep
He emails later, with an invitation to come at my own expense to Mars One’s office in the Netherlands and see the list in person, though cameras will not be allowed. “I will need to read your article before publication and reserve the right to deny you access to the list if I don’t like what you wrote.”

I tell him that of course that won’t be possible.
Ok, he offered her to come over and have up close and personal insight into that list... but she declined.

Then again, I would also decline to cough up a few hunderd dollars for a plane ticket just to go over there and look at a list of people who had ever subscribed to their newsletter and were subsequently counted as 'applicants'. Which, I guess, makes me an 'applicant' on that list as well.

(Ignoring the fact here that in reality it would actually only be a 30 minute drive to their HQ for me :P)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/20/2015 01:58 pm
The "half a billion" is for the unmanned 2018 mission.

And it would be quite a bit more than that. You're talking about two launch vehicles at $100+ million apiece. Plus an orbiter that's going to cost a couple hundred million. And the lander is essentially a clone of Phoenix, so figure ~$400 million for that. Those two missions are going to cost $750+ million, being generous.

They're likely to use the Falcon 9 to launch this mission, so $60 million for the launcher.

The cost of the lander for the Mars Polar Lander, Phoenix, and InSight, all of which use the same basic landing bus, was / is about $110 million.

The TOTAL cost of the Phoenix mission, including the launch costs, lander, and operations, was $386 million.

Why do you think that it will cost more money for Mars One??
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/20/2015 03:48 pm
They're likely to use the Falcon 9 to launch this mission, so $60 million for the launcher.
Does that include all the costs that NASA includes in "launch" costs for discovery?
Quote
The cost of the lander for the Mars Polar Lander, Phoenix, and InSight, all of which use the same basic landing bus, was / is about $110 million.
Source? It seems unlikely they were actually the same, since Phoenix was built from actual leftover hardware.

Quote
The TOTAL cost of the Phoenix mission, including the launch costs, lander, and operations, was $386 million.
That number isn't in 2015 dollars, for starters. A source for that price I found was http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-060205.html which is from 2005. $386M in 2005 dollars would be ~$460M today, according to http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/20/2015 04:30 pm
They're likely to use the Falcon 9 to launch this mission, so $60 million for the launcher.
Does that include all the costs that NASA includes in "launch" costs for discovery?
Quote
The cost of the lander for the Mars Polar Lander, Phoenix, and InSight, all of which use the same basic landing bus, was / is about $110 million.
Source? It seems unlikely they were actually the same, since Phoenix was built from actual leftover hardware.

Quote
The TOTAL cost of the Phoenix mission, including the launch costs, lander, and operations, was $386 million.
That number isn't in 2015 dollars, for starters. A source for that price I found was http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-060205.html which is from 2005. $386M in 2005 dollars would be ~$460M today, according to http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

i strongly suspect Mars One would not pay for that. NASA (and the military) pay more because they have greater requirements for traceability. commercial customers for SpaceX launches have paid much closer to 60 million than the 90-100 million NASA / Military launches have been.

the hardware would still cost about the same, regardless of when it was paid for.

that still doesn't answer the question  - why do you think Mars One would end up paying more than that?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/20/2015 07:46 pm
that still doesn't answer the question  - why do you think Mars One would end up paying more than that?
All I've said is that the lander portion of Mars One's 2018 2020 mission will be roughly comparable to InSight, both excluding the launch. The basis for this claim is that they use essentially the same vehicle, and much of the InSight science payload doesn't count against the cost cap because it is provided by foreign partners. Although simpler than InSight, Mars One do have their own payloads to develop and integrate if the mission is going to be of any value to them.

I'm not claiming the cost will be exactly the same, it's only intended to a rough guide. It would be reasonable to expect Mars One could get their lander for a bit less, but if it's $300M instead of $425M, the basic conclusion doesn't change. The total for the mission with launch and orbiter will still be hundreds of times more than Mars One has raised to date, and will be a disproportionate fraction of their supposed total colony budget.

Much is made of NASA paying extra for paperwork, but on the flip side, NASA benefits from a vast experience base, established infrastructure, and established processes with contractors.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/20/2015 09:18 pm
that still doesn't answer the question  - why do you think Mars One would end up paying more than that?
All I've said is that the lander portion of Mars One's 2018 2020 mission will be roughly comparable to InSight, both excluding the launch. The basis for this claim is that they use essentially the same vehicle, and much of the InSight science payload doesn't count against the cost cap because it is provided by foreign partners. Although simpler than InSight, Mars One do have their own payloads to develop and integrate if the mission is going to be of any value to them.

I'm not claiming the cost will be exactly the same, it's only intended to a rough guide. It would be reasonable to expect Mars One could get their lander for a bit less, but if it's $300M instead of $425M, the basic conclusion doesn't change. The total for the mission with launch and orbiter will still be hundreds of times more than Mars One has raised to date, and will be a disproportionate fraction of their supposed total colony budget.

Much is made of NASA paying extra for paperwork, but on the flip side, NASA benefits from a vast experience base, established infrastructure, and established processes with contractors.

$300 million is much more in line with what I'd expect the cost of the Mars One technology testbed lander to be. It might even be less, depending on how long they keep the lander operational.

Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion. What I haven't seen is a good breakdown of what the costs might actually be. I've made my own estimates, but I haven't yet seen anyone else do so for me to compare with.

Yes, Mars One will need a major investor to put up a lot of cash. Bas Lansdorp gave an interview just the other day saying that they are in negotiations with one since late last year, but so far the negotiations are taking longer than they had hoped. Since they are now missing the 2018 launch window, they will have to wait until 2020 to send it to Mars. This does give them a bit more breathing room for the lander's hardware construction.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/21/2015 01:30 am
Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion.
Except Mars One, apparently. Surely you don't mean to suggest they are fibbing? ;)
Quote
What I haven't seen is a good breakdown of what the costs might actually be. I've made my own estimates, but I haven't yet seen anyone else do so for me to compare with.
We can be confident Mars One's number is low just by comparing to other missions, but as I keep saying, a realistic cost estimate would require a lot of engineering. Something at the level of NASA's DRMs would be a starting point to figure out which questions need real R&D to answer. As far as we know, Mars One hasn't even gotten that far.

NASA spends millions on preliminary studies before they even approve a mission. They still blow their budgets pretty often, and projects that are bigger and/or push the envelope further tend to blow it by a larger fraction. You can't blame this all on "big government" either, commercial aerospace projects show the same pattern.

Mars One claims they aren't pushing the envelope because everything can be done with "existing technology", but this is deeply misleading. It's true in the trivial sense they don't need warp drives or Mr. Fusion, but many of the major systems simply do not exist, and there are very large unknowns in many areas.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/21/2015 02:41 am
Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion.
Except Mars One, apparently. Surely you don't mean to suggest they are fibbing? ;)
It would be fabulous to pull something like this off for $6 billion, it's unlikely, but might still be possible. I think it would at least be possible to get the habitats on Mars for less than $6 billion. Of course, biggest variable is how much launches to Mars will cost in (now) 2020+... As I've said before, what SpaceX is doing could enable Mars One to accomplish their goals within a (relatively) small budget, particularly if the launch cost is quite low compared to current prices.

Quote
What I haven't seen is a good breakdown of what the costs might actually be. I've made my own estimates, but I haven't yet seen anyone else do so for me to compare with.
We can be confident Mars One's number is low just by comparing to other missions, but as I keep saying, a realistic cost estimate would require a lot of engineering. Something at the level of NASA's DRMs would be a starting point to figure out which questions need real R&D to answer. As far as we know, Mars One hasn't even gotten that far.

NASA spends millions on preliminary studies before they even approve a mission. They still blow their budgets pretty often, and projects that are bigger and/or push the envelope further tend to blow it by a larger fraction. You can't blame this all on "big government" either, commercial aerospace projects show the same pattern.

Mars One claims they aren't pushing the envelope because everything can be done with "existing technology", but this is deeply misleading. It's true in the trivial sense they don't need warp drives or Mr. Fusion, but many of the major systems simply do not exist, and there are very large unknowns in many areas.
[/quote]

I've never seen anyone do a cost breakdown even with estimates to similar missions. I'm really interested in seeing the theoretical cost breakdown.

The "major systems" don't exist as in they are not on a shelf somewhere waiting to be bolted into a spaceship. However, the technology necessary to do everything they want to do does exist. It just needs to have a reason to be put together all in one place... such as, say, sending people to Mars. Without someone trying to go to Mars, that technology will never be assembled into systems or integrated into spacecraft.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/21/2015 07:03 am
Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion.
Except Mars One, apparently. Surely you don't mean to suggest they are fibbing? ;)
It would be fabulous to pull something like this off for $6 billion, it's unlikely, but might still be possible. I think it would at least be possible to get the habitats on Mars for less than $6 billion. Of course, biggest variable is how much launches to Mars will cost in (now) 2020+... As I've said before, what SpaceX is doing could enable Mars One to accomplish their goals within a (relatively) small budget, particularly if the launch cost is quite low compared to current prices.
It seems you put one BA 330 on Mars for less than 1 billion.
So BA 330:
"Another version known as the BA 330-MDS is configured to allow landing on another celestial body, such as the Moon. It would come with propulsion systems which would allow it to land on the surface and modifications to the structure to allow it to reside on the surface. With its large size, the BA 330-MDs would essentially be its own Lunar Base once landed on the surface of the Moon."
http://www.rocketstem.org/2014/03/12/bigelow-promises-more-space-at-less-cost-with-inflatable-space-habitats/
Not with such propulsion or a BA 330 rather than BA 330-MDs is about 20,000 kg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BA_330
And Falcon Heavy is suppose to lift 21,200 kg to GTO. So falcon Heavy plus the BA 330-MDs propulsion
should allow it to get to high earth orbit.
Then use another Falcon Heavy to refuel the BA 330-MDs and add booster, should allow to get to Mars orbit. And repeat with another refuel/booster delivered by Falcon Heavy [or two Falcon heavy launches] to Mars orbit. Should be enough to land on Mars surface.
[edit: And allowing for use of storable rocket fuel rather more efficient rocket fuel. If could more easily use more efficient rocket fuel [cryogenic LOX, ect] then it should only need 3 falcon heavy rather than perhaps needing 4. I mean payload boosters which would dock and are lifted by Falcon heavy and the BA 330 would using Monomethylhydrazine rocket fuel. And maybe one use modified boosters currently used on ISS. Oh didn't include that cost- so maybe another 100 million in total- just for the tugs [we already buying their earth launch with the falcon heavy.]]

So BA 330-MDs is about 100 million. And at most use 4 heavy which is 140 million each or 560 million in total. So 660 million and add 100 million or so for mission operational control and stuff.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Arb on 03/21/2015 10:46 pm
A few thoughts triggered by the recent discussion:

1) Mars One was started several years before Musk announced MCT. Since then it's seemed rather less interesting; it's almost certainly going to be overtaken by events. At the very best it's a backup in case BFR/MCT don't happen.

2) The original plan was to use enlarged Dragon capsules (5m diameter if memory serves) and a Red Dragon like EDL. The 2018 pathfinder mission was supposed to prove the safety of the approach and cache required stores and equipment. Now the plan is to use LM's Mars Polar Lander/Phoenix/InSight landing bus (does it have a name?) but there has been no explanation how that maps onto future missions except to look for ice. Or how they now plan to land crews; they certainly aren't going to land humans on the LM bus.

3) As for BA330 speculation. How does EDL for that work? Curiosity was one ton of useful landed payload (if memory serves). Red Dragon might manage two tons. BA330 is 20 tons.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Burninate on 03/21/2015 11:01 pm
Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion.
Except Mars One, apparently. Surely you don't mean to suggest they are fibbing? ;)
It would be fabulous to pull something like this off for $6 billion, it's unlikely, but might still be possible. I think it would at least be possible to get the habitats on Mars for less than $6 billion. Of course, biggest variable is how much launches to Mars will cost in (now) 2020+... As I've said before, what SpaceX is doing could enable Mars One to accomplish their goals within a (relatively) small budget, particularly if the launch cost is quite low compared to current prices.
It seems you put one BA 330 on Mars for less than 1 billion.
So BA 330:
"Another version known as the BA 330-MDS is configured to allow landing on another celestial body, such as the Moon. It would come with propulsion systems which would allow it to land on the surface and modifications to the structure to allow it to reside on the surface. With its large size, the BA 330-MDs would essentially be its own Lunar Base once landed on the surface of the Moon."
http://www.rocketstem.org/2014/03/12/bigelow-promises-more-space-at-less-cost-with-inflatable-space-habitats/
Not with such propulsion or a BA 330 rather than BA 330-MDs is about 20,000 kg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BA_330
And Falcon Heavy is suppose to lift 21,200 kg to GTO. So falcon Heavy plus the BA 330-MDs propulsion
should allow it to get to high earth orbit.
Then use another Falcon Heavy to refuel the BA 330-MDs and add booster, should allow to get to Mars orbit. And repeat with another refuel/booster delivered by Falcon Heavy [or two Falcon heavy launches] to Mars orbit. Should be enough to land on Mars surface.
[edit: And allowing for use of storable rocket fuel rather more efficient rocket fuel. If could more easily use more efficient rocket fuel [cryogenic LOX, ect] then it should only need 3 falcon heavy rather than perhaps needing 4. I mean payload boosters which would dock and are lifted by Falcon heavy and the BA 330 would using Monomethylhydrazine rocket fuel. And maybe one use modified boosters currently used on ISS. Oh didn't include that cost- so maybe another 100 million in total- just for the tugs [we already buying their earth launch with the falcon heavy.]]

So BA 330-MDs is about 100 million. And at most use 4 heavy which is 140 million each or 560 million in total. So 660 million and add 100 million or so for mission operational control and stuff.
Your math is rather lacking in detail and citations, and you are assuming a lot of things that don't exist yet (like EDL).  And BA-330-MD exists only as a concept and AFAIK has not been attached to a price tag in any firsthand accounts.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Bob Shaw on 03/21/2015 11:27 pm
Despite the somewhat unlikely basis of Mars One's economics and technology, and their reversion from the upsized Dragon to a downsized INSIGHT, I wonder...

...remember the old Langley one-man Lunar lander?

If there are insurmountable issues (at least with reasonable expenditure) in reliably getting a human on the surface of Mars using Dragon-ish technology (too heavy for one thing, not big enough for the other) then why not look at an utterly minimal way of dropping people, one-way, onto the surface of Mars?

I'm thinking of a MPL/Phoenix/INSIGHT lander with not much more than a spacesuited passenger on a seat and an Apollo 14 style MET packed with supplies. Or, depending on the landing area, a foldable bicycle and trailer. The passenger lands within 20Km of the upsized Dragon habitat, and just gets off the taxi and walks, or rides. I realise that this reeks of 'The Pilgrim Project', but why not, if it's a one-way mission with dedicated volunteers?

You're looking at a tested and reliable EDL system for the manned landing; no more need to man-rate the habitat landing system (send multiple vehicles a la Soviet practice until one lands safely); and, by golly, it'd be dramatic!

There *is* the minor matter of getting to Mars orbit, though...

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/21/2015 11:37 pm
2) The original plan was to use enlarged Dragon capsules (5m diameter if memory serves) and a Red Dragon like EDL.
Slight correction, that was the 2016 launch plan. The LM lander has been the plan of record since the 2013 press event / Indigogo announcement. It was originally targeted for 2018, and has now slipped to 2020.

IIRC, prior to the original switch, SpaceX disavowed any relationship with Mars One, which obviously raised questions about how realistic the 2016 mission was.

Quote
Now the plan is to use LM's Mars Polar Lander/Phoenix/InSight landing bus (does it have a name?) but there has been no explanation how that maps onto future missions except to look for ice. Or how they now plan to land crews; they certainly aren't going to land humans on the LM bus.
Their technology page http://www.mars-one.com/mission/the-technology says
"Mars One will secure the landing capsule from one of the experienced suppliers in the world, for example Lockheed Martin or SpaceX. The SpaceX capsule under consideration is a variant of the Dragon Capsule..."

So Dragon is still a notional option, but having no contract with SpaceX they can't say it's the plan.

Your point about the LM lander not advancing their EDL development is a good one. Considering it's something on the order of 1/10th of their supposed colony budget, it doesn't advance their program very much. Mars One likely don't have any choice in the matter though, without cash in hand for actual Red Dragon development, it's unlikely SpaceX will have anything to do with them.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/21/2015 11:57 pm
2) The original plan was to use enlarged Dragon capsules (5m diameter if memory serves) and a Red Dragon like EDL.
Slight correction, that was the 2016 launch plan. The LM lander has been the plan of record since the 2013 press event / Indigogo announcement. It was originally targeted for 2018, and has now slipped to 2020.

IIRC, prior to the original switch, SpaceX disavowed any relationship with Mars One, which obviously raised questions about how realistic the 2016 mission was.

Quote
Now the plan is to use LM's Mars Polar Lander/Phoenix/InSight landing bus (does it have a name?) but there has been no explanation how that maps onto future missions except to look for ice. Or how they now plan to land crews; they certainly aren't going to land humans on the LM bus.
Their technology page http://www.mars-one.com/mission/the-technology says
"Mars One will secure the landing capsule from one of the experienced suppliers in the world, for example Lockheed Martin or SpaceX. The SpaceX capsule under consideration is a variant of the Dragon Capsule..."

So Dragon is still a notional option, but having no contract with SpaceX they can't say it's the plan.

Your point about the LM lander not advancing their EDL development is a good one. Considering it's something on the order of 1/10th of their supposed colony budget, it doesn't advance their program very much. Mars One likely don't have any choice in the matter though, without cash in hand for actual Red Dragon development, it's unlikely SpaceX will have anything to do with them.

OK, misconceptions to clear up here (this is the biggest problem I deal with when talking about Mars One... many of the people arguing about it know very little about what their plans even are).

The LM lander is a technology testbed / demonstration mission only. it's not meant to scale up for the eventual sending of people and so on. Primarily it is to test their ISRU methods and how well their thin-film solar panels work on Mars.

There's a lot more information about the 2018 (now 2020) lander here, in the Lockheed Martin proposal from May of 2014. It covers basic lander design, mission planing, Mars surface operations, etc.:

http://www.mars-one.com/images/uploads/MarsOne_PIP.pdf

Contracting with SpaceX is still the notional plan for sending people to Mars. Everyone here should be aware of SpaceX's ambitions in this regard, so their mutual interests may dovetail quite nicely.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/22/2015 12:52 am
OK, misconceptions to clear up here (this is the biggest problem I deal with when talking about Mars One... many of the people arguing about it know very little about what their plans even are).
Since you quoted my post, I guess that's aimed at me. I am quite familiar with Mars One's supposed plans, and well aware that the LM lander is just a technology demonstrator. I'm certainly not under the impression they would try to scale the Phoenix system up for the later missions, that would be insane even by Mars One standards.

My point is that as a technology demonstrator, it only advances their program a very small amount in proportion to the cost. For 5-10% of their total budget, they get a couple of very small, preliminary experiments.

The original plan to have the first lander be Dragon based would have made much more sense, because crew + cargo EDL is one of their major unsolved challenges. SpaceX saying that a Dragon type vehicle can in principle land on Mars is a very different from actually doing all the engineering to make it happen. Until one actually does a successful Mars EDL, it's going to be a high risk item.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/22/2015 02:21 am
Everyone knows what Mars One wants to do will cost more than $6 billion.
Except Mars One, apparently. Surely you don't mean to suggest they are fibbing? ;)
It would be fabulous to pull something like this off for $6 billion, it's unlikely, but might still be possible. I think it would at least be possible to get the habitats on Mars for less than $6 billion. Of course, biggest variable is how much launches to Mars will cost in (now) 2020+... As I've said before, what SpaceX is doing could enable Mars One to accomplish their goals within a (relatively) small budget, particularly if the launch cost is quite low compared to current prices.
It seems you put one BA 330 on Mars for less than 1 billion.
So BA 330:
"Another version known as the BA 330-MDS is configured to allow landing on another celestial body, such as the Moon. It would come with propulsion systems which would allow it to land on the surface and modifications to the structure to allow it to reside on the surface. With its large size, the BA 330-MDs would essentially be its own Lunar Base once landed on the surface of the Moon."
http://www.rocketstem.org/2014/03/12/bigelow-promises-more-space-at-less-cost-with-inflatable-space-habitats/
Not with such propulsion or a BA 330 rather than BA 330-MDs is about 20,000 kg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BA_330
And Falcon Heavy is suppose to lift 21,200 kg to GTO. So falcon Heavy plus the BA 330-MDs propulsion
should allow it to get to high earth orbit.
Then use another Falcon Heavy to refuel the BA 330-MDs and add booster, should allow to get to Mars orbit. And repeat with another refuel/booster delivered by Falcon Heavy [or two Falcon heavy launches] to Mars orbit. Should be enough to land on Mars surface.
[edit: And allowing for use of storable rocket fuel rather more efficient rocket fuel. If could more easily use more efficient rocket fuel [cryogenic LOX, ect] then it should only need 3 falcon heavy rather than perhaps needing 4. I mean payload boosters which would dock and are lifted by Falcon heavy and the BA 330 would using Monomethylhydrazine rocket fuel. And maybe one use modified boosters currently used on ISS. Oh didn't include that cost- so maybe another 100 million in total- just for the tugs [we already buying their earth launch with the falcon heavy.]]

So BA 330-MDs is about 100 million. And at most use 4 heavy which is 140 million each or 560 million in total. So 660 million and add 100 million or so for mission operational control and stuff.
Your math is rather lacking in detail and citations, and you are assuming a lot of things that don't exist yet (like EDL).  And BA-330-MD exists only as a concept and AFAIK has not been attached to a price tag in any firsthand accounts.
Well the addition totals 880 million leaving 119 million to be less than 1 billion. Though it might cost 1.5 billion, but doesn't seem like much risk of being over 1.5 billion and seems possible to be less than 1 billion. There are risks and might better off doing a prototype mission to reduce them**. And/or by time one did it, SpaceX might charging more for a launch. Though an advantage is that by time one does it, one could have as much or more competition then we currently have. At moment one could use Russian launch, Bigelow already used Russian launch, to put prototype spacestation in orbit, so the trouble and risk of dealing with Russians could be imagined to be less with Bigelow in the mix. Of course Russia could also continue it's warmongering, and could make it much worse than it is at the moment.
In addition to Russia, if looking at near future, you Europe's launch capability [and maybe China], then also got Delta-4 heavy, and finally SLS.
Both Delta-v heavy and SLS are hideously expensive. But their high cost, does not necessarily mean one has to have a high price for a launch. In this situation one has huge advantage of a cheap payload which effective makes these payload "test payloads". Or a billion dollar bird is not lost if the launch fails.

And even if the Falcon Heavy launches by end of 2015, it still would need to prove it was a reliable launch vehicle- and 4 launches does that. Also Something like Delta 4 could want to modify their launch vehicle and thereby also might need to prove it's reliable. And this applies to all launchers, existing or yet to exist.

Now SpaceX is particularly attractive, because they want to significantly increase their launch rate. All launch companies generally want this, but SpaceX seems more aggressive at this point in time. But this doesn't mean other launch companies may not become more similar to SpaceX and be looking for a breakout plan to do this.

As for Mars EDL. Yeah, a lot of details I didn't mention. First we have BA large cross section. I did not look at the numbers but I imagine is something around a Shuttle ET tank, generally speaking. Or large volume with overall low density per cubic meter.
In terms entering high mars atmosphere, would want it to hit broadside or with lowest drag coefficient. don't know, but it seems one has the option looking at either.
So maybe the BA 330 would not need to use rocket power for orbital capture  or at least may not require as much.
Also I tend to think of going to Mars from Earth L-points to Mars L-points. Or I don't necessarily want an apoapsis of 50,000 km or less, as used some of Mars spacecraft. Instead somewhere around an apoapsis
of 100,000 km or more. So docking with boosters sent by Falcon heavy would occur at high mars orbit.
Once docked, then could use the large cross section of  BA 330  to areobrake to lower apoapsis. Say 1000 km. Then use rockets to cut the velocity and not going to enter Mars denser atmosphere at velocity requiring a heat shield.
One say it will be similar to how SpaceX recovers it's first stage rockets, though entering the mars atmosphere at lower velocity, and one can't rely on mars atmosphere to give low terminal velocity as one gets on Earth, but since it's blimp like it could help, and need rocket power do rest braking, and finally allow the BA-330-MD land as it designed to land on the moon. So assume it land from point of around mach 1 velocity.
So it will be mostly a full propulsive landing from low orbit, though expect the atmosphere to lower the amount needed by say as much as 1 km/sec in total. So total aerobraking may amount to more braking than then the actual atmospheric re-entry.


** edit in regards to SLS and prototype mission- this general plan could seen as a NASA prototype mission. Or NASA could use BA-330-MD for it's Mars manned program. So using SLS at discount for this NASA prototype base landing [paid largely by private sector- if don't include hideous NASA cost of SLS].
Or one have 1 SLS launch and rest SpaceX or whomever.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/22/2015 01:07 pm
Lansdorp also showed up in a recent FISO telecon (http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Do_2-11-15/), and almost hijacked the presentation in an attempt to respond not only to the presenter (who had requested help from Mars One to do the analysis but had not recieved it), but to general criticism.  He came off a touch bitter, and complained that the presentor was being irresponsible for trying to kill his dream by giving a hostile press linkbait-worthy headlines with which to attack Mars One.

He had a few points I concurred with, but still it was a hell of a poor way of dealing with criticism.

I was going to post exactly this same thing. Normally he comes off as pretty slick, but during the telecon he started to get rather snarky. He was offered an opportunity to appear on the telecon in the future. We'll see if that happens.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/22/2015 02:57 pm
OK, misconceptions to clear up here (this is the biggest problem I deal with when talking about Mars One... many of the people arguing about it know very little about what their plans even are).
Since you quoted my post, I guess that's aimed at me. I am quite familiar with Mars One's supposed plans, and well aware that the LM lander is just a technology demonstrator. I'm certainly not under the impression they would try to scale the Phoenix system up for the later missions, that would be insane even by Mars One standards.

My point is that as a technology demonstrator, it only advances their program a very small amount in proportion to the cost. For 5-10% of their total budget, they get a couple of very small, preliminary experiments.

The original plan to have the first lander be Dragon based would have made much more sense, because crew + cargo EDL is one of their major unsolved challenges. SpaceX saying that a Dragon type vehicle can in principle land on Mars is a very different from actually doing all the engineering to make it happen. Until one actually does a successful Mars EDL, it's going to be a high risk item.

I think it has much more value than that, since it will validate their planned life support systems, which will depend on ISRU, and their power generation, with the thin film solar panels.

Even if Mars One never successfully raises funds for any other trip to Mars, I sincerely hope that they at least do this. ISRU testing on Mars is something that should be done, and could potentially be useful for any future manned trip to Mars.

They will have plenty of time and opportunities to validate their EDL systems. Their plan is to send 4 capsules of supplies, 2 capsules for life support and 2 habitat capsules before ever sending people.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/22/2015 10:59 pm
A few thoughts triggered by the recent discussion:

1) Mars One was started several years before Musk announced MCT. Since then it's seemed rather less interesting; it's almost certainly going to be overtaken by events. At the very best it's a backup in case BFR/MCT don't happen.

2) The original plan was to use enlarged Dragon capsules (5m diameter if memory serves) and a Red Dragon like EDL. The 2018 pathfinder mission was supposed to prove the safety of the approach and cache required stores and equipment. Now the plan is to use LM's Mars Polar Lander/Phoenix/InSight landing bus (does it have a name?) but there has been no explanation how that maps onto future missions except to look for ice. Or how they now plan to land crews; they certainly aren't going to land humans on the LM bus.

3) As for BA330 speculation. How does EDL for that work? Curiosity was one ton of useful landed payload (if memory serves). Red Dragon might manage two tons. BA330 is 20 tons.

Well, a general assumption I would have is the  BA330 is not carrying payload to Mars surface. And since unmanned not going to have water shielding on it's wall- or it could not be 20 tons and have 6" of water in it's walls. You talking about Red Dragon carrying payload of 2 tons, it gross mass can't be 2 tons.

And BA330 has 300 cubic meters of interior volume- dragon has 11 cubic meters of interior.
A heat shield works by getting hot- hence the term heat shield. With heat shield flying thru thin atmosphere at high velocity it gets high pressure and high temperature on it's leading edge. The high pressure or dynamic load requires structural strength. The BA330 can not handle high temperature, nor much structural load particularly when consider it's large cross section. So not going to use heat shield- if were to add heat shield, the size of it probably have more mass than the BA330, or one would be requiring the BA330 to carry a large payload which needs to lifted to earth orbit then deliver to Mars orbit and discarded at around 20 km elevation.
Instead of using a heat shield, with the BA330 one going to brake with areobraking and use rocket power  to get rid of a large part of the  velocity.
Mars escape is 5 km/sec, Mars low orbit is about 3.5 km/sec.
If using heat shield one wants fairly low angle to hit the atmosphere- or if choose a steep angle you have high dynamic load in your entry- high gees- and need lots of structural strength [and get some heat], which is due to high velocity [with earth it's 7.8 km/sec and with Mars 3.5 km/sec].

If you in an elliptical orbit one goes faster at  periapsis than at apoapsis, or go faster than  3.5 and slower
than 3.5 km km/sec. Normally, one areobrakes until  apoapsis at right height then you lift the periapsis.
Not going to do that.
Instead may have to lift the height of periapsis depending on how quickly want lower the orbit, the velocity is also lowering at periapsis as lower the apoapsis, or the drag on each pass lowers because the velocity is lowered. So complicated, so might use some rocket power to lift the periapsis, but I mean as final thing one is not trying to circularize the orbit by lifting the periapsis.
Instead at last pass thru atmosphere at periapsis, you apply rocket power to brake at apoapsis, so around 3.5 and will cut it to around 1.5 km/sec, which gives you fairly steep trajectory, and before hitting the atmosphere, apply more rocket thrust.**** And whole idea is not to have too steep of re-entry, but to get as low as you can as fast as you can. Or one could say you apply thrust so the trajectory doesn't become even steeper, or want to get significant drag, and be at about 30 degree angle. And what this resembles is a sub-orbital reentry. And you are gliding like a brick.
And without any other thrust one would hit the surface at around mach 1 [or more]. Or without any power the BA330  should terminal velocity of around 500 mph, so if hit ground at over mach 1 in would be slowing down [but not slowing down fast enough].

I suppose should find out what terminal velocity would be on Earth:
http://www.calctool.org/CALC/eng/aerospace/terminal
[Oh,it has gravity option:)] So 20,000 kg, CS: 35 square meters, Drag coefficient .47 and .02 kg cubic air density, at 1 gee gives:
1091.92 m/s [2660 mph]. And 3.71 m/s/s Mars gravity is  671.613 m/s [ 1500 mph].

Which roughly what I thought. It would have higher Drag coefficient**, but we can say it's not going to be less. So it at say 10 km and going 2000 mph and flying at angle the air resistance will be slowing it down.
Though It has to be able to fly somewhat. But we are assuming BA330 has been modified.

**Edit cross section was diameter of cylinder of BA330. So a sphere weighing 20,000 kg with diameter of
6.7 meter is exactly what's calculated. And BA330 would be more like two such spheres connected, but I don't think one would fly like shuttle- with it's belly being the cross section, except when say 100 feet above the ground and going slower.

**** Edit: Considering these rockets will not have much thrust, it could be near continuous thrust- though one will have more thrust as get nearer to Mars, as would have used up rocket propellent mass.
And if has even less thrust it might earlier- or could more resemble a spiral rather than a more instantaneous burn times. It seems it could be rather short burn times [10 to 20 mins] and that would be better. Let's see, 10 mins at say 2 m/s/s is 1.2 km/sec. So somewhere around that would good, but it could be much less thrust, also. {I was looking around a bit and looks like two  AJ10-118K, each with 43.7kN would seem to have enough thrust for this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJ10 }
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/23/2015 09:10 pm
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/24/2015 03:33 am
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.

And?

The JWST was originally supposed to launch in 2011, you know... even high-priority projects with enormous budgets have schedule slips...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/24/2015 05:16 am
Honestly, the word "slip" is misused here.

Slip implies that there's a plan, and due to any of a thousand reasons the plan has been modified.  To slip (physically) means to slide a limited amount along a certain direction...

With M1, there's no mission plan, there's no vehicle(s) design, there's no anything.  There's a vague funding model through a non-existent TV show, and there's a target date.

And now, there's a new target date.

Nothing has slipped, it's just that there's an equally (im)plausible new number.  They could have originally aimed at 2037, and now have "move up their schedule" to 2027.

It's the old saying.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Well extraordinary goals require at least some sort of demonstrated competence.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 03/24/2015 06:28 am
I still remember when they pegged their first cargo dragon landing for 2016. This is meaningless, and they will continue this backpedaling until they cease to exist.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/24/2015 06:41 am
I still remember when they pegged their first cargo dragon landing for 2016. This is meaningless, and they will continue this backpedaling until they cease to exist.

And the whole time they'll be raising money and spending it on getting young people interest in space.. the bastards.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/24/2015 02:55 pm
And the whole time they'll be raising money and spending it on getting young people interest in space.. the bastards.

Will the young Mars One space cadet remain interested in space when he/she begins to realize it was all balderdash?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/24/2015 03:31 pm
And the whole time they'll be raising money and spending it on getting young people interest in space.. the bastards.

Will the young Mars One space cadet remain interested in space when he/she begins to realize it was all balderdash?

Probably no more or less disinterested than those who were interested in the X-33, the NASP, or any of the scores of failed or unrealized aerospace projects that litter the history pages of the past few decades.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/24/2015 03:44 pm
I still remember when they pegged their first cargo dragon landing for 2016. This is meaningless, and they will continue this backpedaling until they cease to exist.

And the whole time they'll be raising money and spending it on getting young people interest in space.. the bastards.

The end justifies the means?

You can slap the "space education and outreach" label on anything.

If they want to do such a program, then they can call it that.  "The Mars Enthusiasm Program for Kids who can't Read Good" or some such.

But they are raising money under the premise that they're really going to Mars.  That's not a good lesson to be teaching.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/24/2015 09:27 pm
Honestly, the word "slip" is misused here.

Slip implies that there's a plan, and due to any of a thousand reasons the plan has been modified.  To slip (physically) means to slide a limited amount along a certain direction...

With M1, there's no mission plan, there's no vehicle(s) design, there's no anything.  There's a vague funding model through a non-existent TV show, and there's a target date.

And now, there's a new target date.

Nothing has slipped, it's just that there's an equally (im)plausible new number.  They could have originally aimed at 2037, and now have "move up their schedule" to 2027.

It's the old saying.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Well extraordinary goals require at least some sort of demonstrated competence.

And this also related to problem of having large "X-prize". Such as Newt Gingrich "specifically suggesting a $10 billion prize for sending people to Mars"
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/gingrich-wants-moon-base-by-2020-mars-colony-new-propulsion-private-investment-UPDATE
For prizes one needs small steps, such as Google Xprize as example. So something like a 1 billion dollar prize for Mars greenhouse would better prize, though even that is perhaps too big, and also not focused on the right thing. But to fair to Newt, he could had in mind, a pot of money with many  different prizes which lead to sending people to Mars. So of the 10 billion, one prize could be 1 billion to put Mars hab on the Mars surface.

Anyways it seems Mars One is aware that it has to do smaller steps before it can send people to Mars.

But is NASA also aware that the 18 billion dollar agency also should follow these same rules?

I would say this part of idea of using the Moon as step to going to Mars. And that people who don't like it, instead want what amounts to a 1 trillion dollar prize to go to Mars.

It also applies to lunar water mining, one has to start with a small operation requiring about couple billion
dollars of investment, and prove that one can do a larger operation and then grow into tens of billion dollar company.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/24/2015 09:47 pm
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.

And?

The JWST was originally supposed to launch in 2011, you know... even high-priority projects with enormous budgets have schedule slips...

Here's the relevance: Mars One announced a date and got people interested. They signed up people to be selected to fly. In the two years since they set that initial date, it has slipped four years. That's a pretty easy curve to visualize--it's a receding horizon.

But it's also relevant because they've got 100 (well, now 99) people who say that they want to go to Mars, and they thought (or at least they were told) that this opportunity was less than a decade away. Now--only a few weeks after this announcement--it's 12 years away. And if it slips more, then they'll be even older when that opportunity is supposed to happen. That's kinda relevant because aging bodies don't get more nimble. It does highlight the fact that they might have been better waiting until perhaps five years before launch before they selected their candidates instead of a decade or more.

Or is there a positive interpretation to this four-year slip that I'm missing?

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/24/2015 09:53 pm
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.

And?

The JWST was originally supposed to launch in 2011, you know... even high-priority projects with enormous budgets have schedule slips...

Here's the relevance: Mars One announced a date and got people interested. They signed up people to be selected to fly. In the two years since they set that initial date, it has slipped four years. That's a pretty easy curve to visualize--it's a receding horizon.

But it's also relevant because they've got 100 (well, now 99) people who say that they want to go to Mars, and they thought (or at least they were told) that this opportunity was less than a decade away. Now--only a few weeks after this announcement--it's 12 years away. And if it slips more, then they'll be even older when that opportunity is supposed to happen. That's kinda relevant because aging bodies don't get more nimble. It does highlight the fact that they might have been better waiting until perhaps five years before launch before they selected their candidates instead of a decade or more.

Or is there a positive interpretation to this four-year slip that I'm missing?

So saying Mars One has made and is making the same mistake that NASA made and is making?
And we don't need more then one entity making the same error?

Edit: "TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A woman who was among 13 selected for training as possible astronauts in the early 1960s has died at her northern Michigan home. She was 89."
http://www.app.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/20/bernice-steadman-part-nasas-mercury-dies/25105845/
Linked from:  http://www.nasawatch.com/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/24/2015 11:50 pm
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.

And?

The JWST was originally supposed to launch in 2011, you know... even high-priority projects with enormous budgets have schedule slips...

Here's the relevance: Mars One announced a date and got people interested. They signed up people to be selected to fly. In the two years since they set that initial date, it has slipped four years. That's a pretty easy curve to visualize--it's a receding horizon.

But it's also relevant because they've got 100 (well, now 99) people who say that they want to go to Mars, and they thought (or at least they were told) that this opportunity was less than a decade away. Now--only a few weeks after this announcement--it's 12 years away. And if it slips more, then they'll be even older when that opportunity is supposed to happen. That's kinda relevant because aging bodies don't get more nimble. It does highlight the fact that they might have been better waiting until perhaps five years before launch before they selected their candidates instead of a decade or more.

Or is there a positive interpretation to this four-year slip that I'm missing?

So saying Mars One has made and is making the same mistake that NASA made and is making?
And we don't need more then one entity making the same error?

Edit: "TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A woman who was among 13 selected for training as possible astronauts in the early 1960s has died at her northern Michigan home. She was 89."
http://www.app.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/20/bernice-steadman-part-nasas-mercury-dies/25105845/
Linked from:  http://www.nasawatch.com/

NASA has made a lot of mistakes, but NASA has a body of work behind it, a track record, that easily eclipses them. 

NASA landed a man on the moon and brought him back safely to earth.  In bloody 1969.

So while I'm pretty opinionated about NASA loss of direction afterwards, it is completely irrelevant to Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 12:31 am
NASA has made a lot of mistakes, but NASA has a body of work behind it, a track record, that easily eclipses them. 

NASA landed a man on the moon and brought him back safely to earth.  In bloody 1969.

So while I'm pretty opinionated about NASA loss of direction afterwards, it is completely irrelevant to Mars One.

We're talking about Mars missions aren't we? How much money has NASA raised by promising a Mars mission? Where'd it go? How many little kiddies has NASA tricked into doing their math homework with an ever receding horizon?

This is the damn game, I really can't understand why people are suddenly all upset about it now, just because a new player has joined. If ya don't like it, go raise billions of dollars in secret - like a James Bond villain or something - and do your own mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 12:35 am
NASA has made a lot of mistakes, but NASA has a body of work behind it, a track record, that easily eclipses them. 

NASA landed a man on the moon and brought him back safely to earth.  In bloody 1969.

So while I'm pretty opinionated about NASA loss of direction afterwards, it is completely irrelevant to Mars One.

We're talking about Mars missions aren't we? How much money has NASA raised by promising a Mars mission? Where'd it go? How many little kiddies has NASA tricked into doing their math homework with an ever receding horizon?

This is the damn game, I really can't understand why people are suddenly all upset about it now, just because a new player has joined. If ya don't like it, go raise billions of dollars in secret - like a James Bond villain or something - and do your own mission.

I know, I've opined on today's NASA often. (And it's equally the political setup NASA's in)

But even NASA didn't say they'll put a man on Mars in 2025 and then "slipped" it to 2027.  Because NASA does not have a flashed-out plan, and so they're honest enough not to attach a date to it.  They are working on capabilities, and say they think it can be done "in 20 years or so". 

It may not be satisfactory, but it is at least an honest assessment - so not comparable to Mars One, that without any technology, have already got a data and an almost-crew.  I mean, seriously.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/25/2015 12:37 am
Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility
 

Amersfoort, 19th March 2015 - Mars One recently published a video in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human mission to Mars. The video and the transcript of the interview can be found below.

SNIP

unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.

Okay, I did a quick look and found an article from May 2013 indicating that Mars One was planning their first human landing "as early as 2023." Now, two years later, it looks like their first landing has slipped to 2027.

And?

The JWST was originally supposed to launch in 2011, you know... even high-priority projects with enormous budgets have schedule slips...

Here's the relevance: Mars One announced a date and got people interested. They signed up people to be selected to fly. In the two years since they set that initial date, it has slipped four years. That's a pretty easy curve to visualize--it's a receding horizon.

But it's also relevant because they've got 100 (well, now 99) people who say that they want to go to Mars, and they thought (or at least they were told) that this opportunity was less than a decade away. Now--only a few weeks after this announcement--it's 12 years away. And if it slips more, then they'll be even older when that opportunity is supposed to happen. That's kinda relevant because aging bodies don't get more nimble. It does highlight the fact that they might have been better waiting until perhaps five years before launch before they selected their candidates instead of a decade or more.

Or is there a positive interpretation to this four-year slip that I'm missing?

So saying Mars One has made and is making the same mistake that NASA made and is making?
And we don't need more then one entity making the same error?

Edit: "TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A woman who was among 13 selected for training as possible astronauts in the early 1960s has died at her northern Michigan home. She was 89."
http://www.app.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/20/bernice-steadman-part-nasas-mercury-dies/25105845/
Linked from:  http://www.nasawatch.com/

NASA has made a lot of mistakes, but NASA has a body of work behind it, a track record, that easily eclipses them. 

NASA landed a man on the moon and brought him back safely to earth.  In bloody 1969.

So while I'm pretty opinionated about NASA loss of direction afterwards, it is completely irrelevant to Mars One.

Well Apollo was a Cold War PR stunt. And damn good one, I will add.

But it is after 1969 which one is capable of relating to Mars, which is what I am talking about- or over 40
years of lets send human beyond the Moon to Mars.
And it can be argued we are still not ready to do this.
Or 2035 manned mars is 20 years into the future and it's further into the future than it was.
Now, I would add that  2035 might be a reasonable guess.

I would prefer that in 10 years NASA starts a major lunar program, and ends it by 2025, and send crew to Mars before 2030.  Maybe as soon as 2025 while lunar program is winding down. That would be hard or require significant bump in funding starting at 2020- which could be possible.
Said differently a increase NASA budget during this 5 year period by a total of say 5 billion dollars, could sold on basis to have smooth transition from Lunar to Mars program. Which I would argue is cheap price to pay considering what we spent in terms of the Shuttle transition to alternative ways to service ISS and way to get beyond LEO [which we have yet to actually begin]. So 5 billion would be low ball estimate of this cost, and one could say it's on the order of tens of billions to date- and being added to, yearly.

Edit: Btw, The Xprize was failing longer [and more of a joke than Mars One- in sense that few thought it was possible or credible.]
"Created in May 1996 and initially called just the "X Prize", it was renamed the "Ansari X Prize" on May 6, 2004 following a multi-million dollar donation from entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari.

The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne."**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansari_X_Prize
And wiki, Mars One:
Program history
Program duration    2010–present
First flight    January 2018 (planned)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One

** wiki, continue: "$10 million was awarded to the winner, and more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize."
That 100 million in total was spent to get 10 million prize was an aspect that explains why many knowledgeable people thought a 10 million prize would not work.
Plus Virgin is reported to have already spend 500 million. Which adds evidence or explanation of why people thought it was unlikely.
Or they were correct, that it would cost more than 10 million, but were wrong about The X Prize actually "working".
In summary I would not say that Mars One will not lead to something, but can't say whether it will be directly related to first crew landing on Mars. Maybe it's second crew. Maybe it's connected in someway to to first crew. Maybe it related to going to the Moon:).
Maybe it fails, but it's unlikely to completely fail.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 12:44 am
But even NASA didn't say they'll put a man on Mars in 2025 and then "slipped" it to 2027.  Because NASA does not have a flashed-out plan, and so they're honest enough not to attach a date to it.  They are working on capabilities, and say they think it can be done "in 20 years or so". 

It may not be satisfactory, but it is at least an honest assessment - so not comparable to Mars One, that without any technology, have already got a data and an almost-crew.  I mean, seriously.

Ya kidding right? I've lost count of the number of target dates NASA has said for a Mars landing. They've been going to Mars since 1982.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 12:46 am
But even NASA didn't say they'll put a man on Mars in 2025 and then "slipped" it to 2027.  Because NASA does not have a flashed-out plan, and so they're honest enough not to attach a date to it.  They are working on capabilities, and say they think it can be done "in 20 years or so". 

It may not be satisfactory, but it is at least an honest assessment - so not comparable to Mars One, that without any technology, have already got a data and an almost-crew.  I mean, seriously.

Ya kidding right? I've lost count of the number of target dates NASA has said for a Mars landing. They've been going to Mars since 1982.

Please show them then - a plan of record, like Mars One is purporting to have - because as far as I remember, it was at best something they wanted to get money to plan, and most of the time something they were specifically forbidden to even mention.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 12:51 am
Please show them then - a plan of record, like Mars One is purporting to have - because as far as I remember, it was at best something they wanted to get money to plan, and most of the time something they were specifically forbidden to even mention.

So, you're saying it's better to collect money to plan to maybe one day kinda sorta do a Mars mission, if they can figure it out and get the money after they have, than it is to actually try?

I really don't know what you expect here.. *Poof* instant money *Poof* fully worked out plan *Poof* instant public support.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Jim Davis on 03/25/2015 01:54 am
So, you're saying it's better to collect money to plan to maybe one day kinda sorta do a Mars mission, if they can figure it out and get the money after they have, than it is to actually try?

I see what you're saying here, Trent, and I agree to a large extent. But at some point the heroic struggle against long odds ceases to be inspiring and descends into farce. I don't think it really needs to slide to the point where Mars One is signing billion dollar contracts with Interorbital Systems or some such. When it gets to the point where nothing you say is being taken seriously it's past time to pull the plug, step back, reevaluate, learn from your mistakes, and if your heart's still in it, try again.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 02:03 am
When it gets to the point where nothing you say is being taken seriously it's past time to pull the plug, step back, reevaluate, learn from your mistakes, and if your heart's still in it, try again.

Neither Mars One nor NASA are at that point. If Mars One were to raise a million and launch a cubesat mission to Mars, many here would deride it as a farce. I will celebrate it as a group that actually did something.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 02:33 am
Please show them then - a plan of record, like Mars One is purporting to have - because as far as I remember, it was at best something they wanted to get money to plan, and most of the time something they were specifically forbidden to even mention.

So, you're saying it's better to collect money to plan to maybe one day kinda sorta do a Mars mission, if they can figure it out and get the money after they have, than it is to actually try?

I really don't know what you expect here.. *Poof* instant money *Poof* fully worked out plan *Poof* instant public support.

First, you're ignoring the question - you said NASA has said countless times they'll be on Mars at a certain date - so please list at list a few.

Second, being frustrated with the dead-end cycle NASA is stuck in does not mean that anything else is better.  What Mars One is doing is worse. They are not "at least trying".  They are are being dishonest about their capabilities and realistic plans.  If they want to do an outreach program, they should label it as such, and you won't hear me complaining.  If they want to do a motivational cubesat, fine.  That's a worthy goal.

But these things lead to a manned landing on Mars just like VG leads to manned orbital flight - It does not.

(And I'll credit VG at least for not saying they'll have man in orbit by 20xx.  And they are 100 times closer to such a goal than Mars One is to landing people on Mars)

[100x0 = 0]
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 02:45 am
First, you're ignoring the question - you said NASA has said countless times they'll be on Mars at a certain date - so please list at list a few.

You was serious? Here's a brief list. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manned_Mars_mission_plans_in_the_20th_century) Surely you've been alive for at least half of them.

Quote from: meekGee
Second, being frustrated with the dead-end cycle NASA is stuck in does not mean that anything else is better.  What Mars One is doing is worse. They are not "at least trying".

Who cares if it is worse? It's something more.

Quote from: meekGee
They are are being dishonest about their capabilities and realistic plans.

Oh really? What proof do you have of that claim? I really do think you're assigning to malice what can adequately be explained by ignorance or just plain ambition. Remember when NASA had ambition?

Quote from: meekGee
If they want to do an outreach program, they should label it as such, and you won't hear me complaining.

They're doing that! I'm so glad they have your permission.

Quote from: meekGee
If they want to do a motivational cubesat, fine.  That's a worthy goal.

They want to do more than that.

Quote from: meekGee
But these things lead to a manned landing on Mars just like VG leads to manned orbital flight - It does not.

Huh? VG has orbital ambitions too. So does XCOR. Are you seriously suggesting these organizations are also "dishonest"?

Quote from: meekGee
(And I'll credit VG at least for not saying they'll have man in orbit by 20xx.  And they are 100 times closer to such a goal than Mars One is to landing people on Mars)

Now I'm confused. Didn't you just say VG is akin to Mars One? As far as I can tell, you don't think anyone should be attempting anything until after they've done it.


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 03:21 am
No, I'm perfectly content with the view of incompetence rather than malice. But quite often dishonesty starts with fervor - I'm thinking of an electric monk just right now...  :)   

I don't think Bas is Dr. Evil, scheming to diverst people of their hard-earned cash.  I think he is deceiving himself at least as much as he's deceiving his followers.

---

The list of plans you showed - many of them had a lot more merit than the M1 plan.  The ones labeled "NASA" were proposals that never became plans of record.  And as the years progressed they became less and less ambitious, and more and more expensive.  I share the frustration.  I honestly don't think NASA can really put a man on Mars today.  But at least they have a technical foundation.

M1 has none.  You ask for proof?  I don't know what Bas has in his basement.  But as I said before extraordinary goals require some, at least some, demonstration of competence.  Otherwise, what do YOU think he's hiding?  All we've seen so far is a photoshop of a bunch of previous generation Dragons and some clip art.


First, you're ignoring the question - you said NASA has said countless times they'll be on Mars at a certain date - so please list at list a few.

You was serious? Here's a brief list. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manned_Mars_mission_plans_in_the_20th_century) Surely you've been alive for at least half of them.

Quote from: meekGee
Second, being frustrated with the dead-end cycle NASA is stuck in does not mean that anything else is better.  What Mars One is doing is worse. They are not "at least trying".

Who cares if it is worse? It's something more.

Quote from: meekGee
They are are being dishonest about their capabilities and realistic plans.

Oh really? What proof do you have of that claim? I really do think you're assigning to malice what can adequately be explained by ignorance or just plain ambition. Remember when NASA had ambition?

Quote from: meekGee
If they want to do an outreach program, they should label it as such, and you won't hear me complaining.

They're doing that! I'm so glad they have your permission.

Quote from: meekGee
If they want to do a motivational cubesat, fine.  That's a worthy goal.

They want to do more than that.

Quote from: meekGee
But these things lead to a manned landing on Mars just like VG leads to manned orbital flight - It does not.

Huh? VG has orbital ambitions too. So does XCOR. Are you seriously suggesting these organizations are also "dishonest"?

Quote from: meekGee
(And I'll credit VG at least for not saying they'll have man in orbit by 20xx.  And they are 100 times closer to such a goal than Mars One is to landing people on Mars)

Now I'm confused. Didn't you just say VG is akin to Mars One? As far as I can tell, you don't think anyone should be attempting anything until after they've done it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 03:31 am
I honestly don't think NASA can really put a man on Mars today.  But at least they have a technical foundation.

Huh? What's that got to do with the fact that they've obviously not trying and they'll still taking people's money?

Quote from: meekGee
M1 has none.  You ask for proof?  I don't know what Bas has in his basement.  But as I said before extraordinary goals require some, at least some, demonstration of competence.  Otherwise, what do YOU think he's hiding?  All we've seen so far is a photoshop of a bunch of previous generation Dragons and some clip art.

They've shown amble proof that they're trying. Why do you insist on a fully worked out plan from the beginning? Nothing in the history of anything worth doing has ever been done that way. It's the lack of a master plan that has NASA sitting on their thumbs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 06:19 am
I honestly don't think NASA can really put a man on Mars today.  But at least they have a technical foundation.

Huh? What's that got to do with the fact that they've obviously not trying and they'll still taking people's money?

Quote from: meekGee
M1 has none.  You ask for proof?  I don't know what Bas has in his basement.  But as I said before extraordinary goals require some, at least some, demonstration of competence.  Otherwise, what do YOU think he's hiding?  All we've seen so far is a photoshop of a bunch of previous generation Dragons and some clip art.

They've shown amble proof that they're trying. Why do you insist on a fully worked out plan from the beginning? Nothing in the history of anything worth doing has ever been done that way. It's the lack of a master plan that has NASA sitting on their thumbs.

Every tiny corner project that NASA does that has any relevance to Mars is already infinitely more than M1 is doing.

Every mission flown to Mars.  Every mission planned for Mars.  All R&D into EDL.  All R&D into surface power systems. All R&D into ground locomotion systems.  All R&D into ECLSS.  Space suits.  Mars habitats.  Radiation mitigation. Interplanetary communication and navigation. 

... and failing at putting together a coherent Mars program, as much Congress's fault as NASA's.  But THAT is at least trying.

M1 is not "trying".  M1 is just saying stuff. 

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 06:33 am
Every tiny corner project that NASA does that has any relevance to Mars is already infinitely more than M1 is doing.

.. and yet NASA's still not trying.

Quote from: meekGee
Every mission flown to Mars.  Every mission planned for Mars.  All R&D into EDL.  All R&D into surface power systems. All R&D into ground locomotion systems.  All R&D into ECLSS.  Space suits.  Mars habitats.  Radiation mitigation. Interplanetary communication and navigation.

Yep, their resources dwarf the efforts of Mars One and Golden Spike and VG and XCOR and every other space agency in the world, and yet they're still not trying to put anyone on Mars.

Quote from: meekGee
... and failing at putting together a coherent Mars program, as much Congress's fault as NASA's.  But THAT is at least trying.

Oh, the old gag of "it's not the government's fault, it's the government's fault!"

Quote from: meekGee
M1 is not "trying".  M1 is just saying stuff.

Hey, talk is cheap.. and if it's all you can afford.. but they've done more than that. They're trying, they're just finding out that people think it's NASA's job.. and NASA isn't carrying the water.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/25/2015 07:00 am
Shrug.

You're frustrated with the modern medicine not even trying to eliminate cancer, and so are getting excited over someone who says they can do it with crystal energy, and for a lot less money.

You believe in M1 - and I can't argue against that.

I'm out.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/25/2015 07:06 am
You're frustrated with the modern medicine not even trying to eliminate cancer, and so are getting excited over someone who says they can do it with crystal energy, and for a lot less money.

No.. modern medicine is trying to cure cancer. NASA isn't trying to send anyone to Mars.. and I'd hardly say I'm excited over Mars One.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/25/2015 08:47 am
And the whole time they'll be raising money and spending it on getting young people interest in space.. the bastards.

Will the young Mars One space cadet remain interested in space when he/she begins to realize it was all balderdash?

If his interest survives realizing that developing new technology takes time and money, it will surely survive, maybe even be invigorated by any attempt, failure, or potentially realisable vision of the future. MO's, NASA's, VG's, it doesn't matter.

The fact that they ride it out for so long proves two things for me:

1) many people are interested in the idea of a Mars base
2) nobody wants to pay for it

The idea that MO started out with is solving problem 2. By getting a revenue, they hoped to pay for the development of the technology. They made a quick calculation on the back of a napkin, thought it was comparable to a major sports venue, both in terms of cost and people's interest. They convinced themselves it could be done, without checking their numbers from a skeptic point of view. If we would have to stop everybody from doing that, we'd never see the end of it.

But the fact that it gets this much attention, proves to me that enough people care about Mars and other audacious projects. We just need projects that combine being inspiring, having good funding ideas, and have a set of achievable goals early in the project. Those people are more aware that they might fail, and are likely to be scared away by the community cracking down on MO.

IMO, MO only lacked the achievable goals early in the game. The reality show should not have boasted to send the winners to Mars, and the money they raised thus far should be enough to demonstrate the technological readiness of ISRU technology in the show. After that, the money coming in would gradually increase as more and more 'official' organisations support the project.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 03/25/2015 03:13 pm
To add to the discussion: I have been closely following the Mars One initiative for quite some time now. They are waaaaaay over-ambitious and have a tendency to overlook reality. They very much have no clue what they have gotten themselves into. And the Mars One organization is quite unprofessional. Also, from observation and interaction, I've come to the conclusion that the Mars One organization is very naive.


But,


They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.


It is just a pity that so many folks continue to give them attention. If that would stop the whole Mars One concept would wither and die within months. But unfortunately it now continues to struggle on until it takes the final plunge into oblivion.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 03/25/2015 09:33 pm
To add to the discussion: I have been closely following the Mars One initiative for quite some time now. They are waaaaaay over-ambitious and have a tendency to overlook reality. They very much have no clue what they have gotten themselves into. And the Mars One organization is quite unprofessional. Also, from observation and interaction, I've come to the conclusion that the Mars One organization is very naive.


But,


They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.


It is just a pity that so many folks continue to give them attention. If that would stop the whole Mars One concept would wither and die within months. But unfortunately it now continues to struggle on until it takes the final plunge into oblivion.

... unless they manage to secure funding from a large investor.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/25/2015 10:21 pm
To add to the discussion: I have been closely following the Mars One initiative for quite some time now. They are waaaaaay over-ambitious and have a tendency to overlook reality. They very much have no clue what they have gotten themselves into. And the Mars One organization is quite unprofessional. Also, from observation and interaction, I've come to the conclusion that the Mars One organization is very naive.


But,


They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.


It is just a pity that so many folks continue to give them attention. If that would stop the whole Mars One concept would wither and die within months. But unfortunately it now continues to struggle on until it takes the final plunge into oblivion.

... unless they manage to secure funding from a large investor.

So, Mars One is  non-profit organization and Mars One is "controlling stockholder of the for-profit Interplanetary Media Group". Wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One

So, a investor can invest in Interplanetary Media Group?
Though I suppose a investor or anyone  could donate to Mars One.

Can anyone explain how that works in terms of different these different organizations in general and how it relates to their Kickstarter type investment?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 03/26/2015 12:22 am
I am suspicious of the sales pitch of "it will be cheaper if we don't bring them back"...as if this really solves all your problems. The amount of mass needed to keep people on Mars alive for 20 or more years would probably dwarf the amount needed to to just return 4 people from a one off ~3 year mission.

I dunno... with the right bio-tech (and that will probably advance a lot by 2025-2029 or whatever) I think you can provide food/oxygen/water purification from a very small mass.

It would take some development (probably very cheap development by "space" standards) but I don't think it's at all beyond modern tech.

That MIT study a while back had very pessimistic assumptions on this stuff (soy/wheat based agriculture, which is terrible for high density production). With something like a potatoes/yeast/algae/fish/shrimp setup...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/26/2015 02:40 am
I am suspicious of the sales pitch of "it will be cheaper if we don't bring them back"...as if this really solves all your problems. The amount of mass needed to keep people on Mars alive for 20 or more years would probably dwarf the amount needed to to just return 4 people from a one off ~3 year mission.

I dunno... with the right bio-tech (and that will probably advance a lot by 2025-2029 or whatever) I think you can provide food/oxygen/water purification from a very small mass.

It would take some development (probably very cheap development by "space" standards) but I don't think it's at all beyond modern tech.

That MIT study a while back had very pessimistic assumptions on this stuff (soy/wheat based agriculture, which is terrible for high density production). With something like a potatoes/yeast/algae/fish/shrimp setup...

It seems to me that in regards to NASA exploration in the first couple year of crewed presence, one should not be focus food production etc.
Before crew goes to Mars, one could focus on way to generate water and oxygen. And question one has to ask is do want crew to be able to leave Mars surface, once they arrive at the surface. So it seems to me one want an abort option at point crew arrival at Mars orbital space, but less obvious is need to have abort option from Mars surface. And if choose not to have abort option from the surface, then one need to make "added" allowances to address emergency situations.
One such allowance is to have an existing proven life support system for crew before the crew land and system ensuring crew will get to such a proven life support system upon landing on Mars.

Now it seems with NASA exploration, one has some ideas about what the crew are going to do, once they
get to Mars surface- the purpose of exploring Mars, helps frame the general direction.

With Mars One, it not clear to me what the people are going to do. It seems one thing they could do would be geared towards allowing addition people to land on Mars.
Which is also generally the approach I would suggest in terms NASA exploration. With NASA exploration
I would have first crew on the surface to enable additional landing of "stuff" that going to related to enhancing exploring Mars.
And with Mars One the first crew could landing stuff that allow more people on Mars.
Both NASA and Mars One would seem to indicate starting with small crew size.

So one could have metric of number of people related to when one has functioning greenhouse and also size of greenhouse- start small experimental or small garden which gives "salad greens" stuff to make eating shipped food more interesting/fun.
And with larger numbers of people, have food production that reduces amount of food shipped. But well before such food production one needs system that at least stores human waste, and this human waste would used for later food production.
Related to this, is one might ship things like chickens/goats before the second landing of crew- particularly in terms of Mars One rather than NASA exploration. Having animals on Mars at least gives something for Mars One people to do, which conversely might be reason to delay sending animals because NASA crew may have too much to do and not have the time for it.

Of course one possibility is Mars One serves as base camp for NASA exploration. Of course it could be exploration done by people other than NASA.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/26/2015 07:15 am
To add to the discussion: I have been closely following the Mars One initiative for quite some time now. They are waaaaaay over-ambitious and have a tendency to overlook reality. They very much have no clue what they have gotten themselves into. And the Mars One organization is quite unprofessional. Also, from observation and interaction, I've come to the conclusion that the Mars One organization is very naive.


But,


They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.


It is just a pity that so many folks continue to give them attention. If that would stop the whole Mars One concept would wither and die within months. But unfortunately it now continues to struggle on until it takes the final plunge into oblivion.

... unless they manage to secure funding from a large investor.

So, Mars One is  non-profit organization and Mars One is "controlling stockholder of the for-profit Interplanetary Media Group". Wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One

So, a investor can invest in Interplanetary Media Group?
Though I suppose a investor or anyone  could donate to Mars One.

Can anyone explain how that works in terms of different these different organizations in general and how it relates to their Kickstarter type investment?

That pretty much covers it. The idea is that 6 billion dollars is incredibly hard to gather in donations, but not that much for investors. There are plenty of projects with much higher investments. Everyone who believes MO can make money, can invest in IMG. But according to Dutch law, you can't 'give' money to a commercial company. So in order not to miss out on what they estimated was going to be a large sum from all those space enthousiasts supporting them, they turned MO itself into a not-for-profit organization.

The interplanetary group would organize all activities that bring in money: the reality show, patents (for all those off the shelf technologies they were going to use...), and whatever else they came up with. Investors would get some of the profit. MO, as the controlling shareholder, receives most of the money. MO focuses on doing what's necessary to get to Mars. To them, that means paying LM, SpaceX etc. for the development of the spacecraft.

The Kickstarter project was the realisation that, without credible short term goals, they could attract no investors, nor the support of the informed space enthousiast. So they tried to copy the success of Planetary Resources, by proposing a smaller mission. IIRC, the money would go directly to MO, as there's no profit involved. But I could be wrong. Crowdfunding is still in a legal grey area around here.

Unfortunately, they kept their unrealistic required budget, so they still didn't get the support of the informed space enthousiast. Although the Kickstarter showed they were on the right track: they need an even smaller project. IMO, the best way to do that is to not launch something into space. Not only does that save you launch costs, but also the billions of dollars required to turn perfectly working technology into perfectly working technology that can be launched in space. That can be done after they have proved they kan keep people alive indefinitely without going out of sim to supply them with oxygen, power, food, do maintenance, etc. MDRS doesn't quite attain that level of realism. It would be really beneficial to galvanise future Mars efforts. 'all' that's left to do is miniaturize the technology used to fit on a realistic spacecraft. That can be done in smaller, government funded projects, until the remaining cost of the entire project has come down enough to get it past congress (or whoever's paying the bill at that point).

So while I have no confidence MO will ever get in touch with reality enough to go for this approach, i think there is a big role they might play to get us closer to Mars. And it would be a great format for a television show. As long as you remind the candidates that this is about as close to Mars as they will ever get.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 03/26/2015 08:04 am
To add to the discussion: I have been closely following the Mars One initiative for quite some time now. They are waaaaaay over-ambitious and have a tendency to overlook reality. They very much have no clue what they have gotten themselves into. And the Mars One organization is quite unprofessional. Also, from observation and interaction, I've come to the conclusion that the Mars One organization is very naive.


But,


They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.


It is just a pity that so many folks continue to give them attention. If that would stop the whole Mars One concept would wither and die within months. But unfortunately it now continues to struggle on until it takes the final plunge into oblivion.

... unless they manage to secure funding from a large investor.

IMO they won't.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 03/26/2015 03:36 pm
That pretty much covers it. The idea is that 6 billion dollars is incredibly hard to gather in donations, but not that much for investors. There are plenty of projects with much higher investments.

6 billion dollars is still an enormous amount for an investment in a single project.  The only projects I've ever heard of with that kind of investment are in established industries where they are scaling up something that is known and proven.  A really enormous real estate development, for example, is just scaling up what has already been done and is well-known.

A tech start-up that gets an investment of a few hundred million is considered very, very expensive.  I've never heard of a start-up ever getting a $6 billion investment.  Ever.

Many space-related start-ups with much better, nearer-term prospects, have failed to get much smaller sums.  Rocketplane-Kistler had a NASA COTS contract signed and in hand and they couldn't get even a few hundred million.  The original Kistler had a half-built launcher and they ran out of money, with a budget far lower than $6 billion.  Musk's SpaceX investment was around $100 million and he had to go to his friends to find an extra $20 million or so after the first several Falcon 1 failures.  Even with the enormous success of SpaceX, they only recently received a $1 billion investment.  SpaceShipOne received about $25 million from Paul Allen.  Virgin Galactic, in spite of its ties to the Virgin Group and investment of Persian Gulf oil riches only received a few hundred million dollars.

The idea that a $6 billion investment in Mars One is "not that much for investors" is wishful thinking not grounded in reality.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/26/2015 04:20 pm
If I had six billion dollars burning my pockets (ha!) and want to make Mars settlement happen why would I bother with infitesimal MO? They aren't a settlement tech startup, they have no substance besides a webpage and couple youtube videos. I can get those with $6B plenty.

Six billion dollars would buy me Elon on speed dial, own production company to sell the media hoopla and real experts to do it.

*checking pockets* couple euros and some lint...*sigh*
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 03/26/2015 04:34 pm
They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.

No reason to run away when you can keep milking the cow. Comfy jobs for a few, trips to give presentations/do interviews. Let the good times roll as long as they can, then give the "oh well space is hard and world wasn't ready for this" and bow out.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 03/26/2015 05:21 pm
They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.

No reason to run away when you can keep milking the cow. Comfy jobs for a few, trips to give presentations/do interviews. Let the good times roll as long as they can, then give the "oh well space is hard and world wasn't ready for this" and bow out.
And that describes a lot of legal endeavours today. A lot of academia falls into this (no disrespect intended and I am not preaching any sort of reform here - it works, not perfectly but it works)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/26/2015 06:09 pm
They are not willingly evil. There is no grand scheme to crowd-source lot's of money for the sole purpose of running away with it.

No reason to run away when you can keep milking the cow. Comfy jobs for a few, trips to give presentations/do interviews. Let the good times roll as long as they can, then give the "oh well space is hard and world wasn't ready for this" and bow out.

'sactly.   Not the first time this is done, and not the last.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/26/2015 09:21 pm
That pretty much covers it. The idea is that 6 billion dollars is incredibly hard to gather in donations, but not that much for investors. There are plenty of projects with much higher investments.
Except that the risk, confidence and potential return dictate how hard it is to raise the money. To pull in billions, Mars One would need a credible plan.

If one were thinking about investing serious money in Mars One, you'd do start by getting some outside experts (e.g. Aerospace corp) to evaluate the plan. Once they stopped laughing and billed you for the keyboard they just spat coffee all over, those experts would tell you that Mars One's $6B wasn't anywhere close to enough, and that their plan wasn't credible or even detailed enough to come up with a reliable cost estimate.

Virgin Galactic is an example of  a space startup that raised substantial outside money. They are reported to have recieved something $390M from Aabar. To do this, they had a flown prototype, a market who existence was pretty well established by reservations, and substantial commitment of internal funds. All in all, it looked like a pretty plausible investment, but... despite doing something undeniably much simpler and less technically demanding than a Mars mission, it turned out to be a lot harder and more expensive than expected. Something people should keep in mind when Mars One claims they can do everything buying from existing suppliers without new tech.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/26/2015 09:34 pm
That pretty much covers it. The idea is that 6 billion dollars is incredibly hard to gather in donations, but not that much for investors. There are plenty of projects with much higher investments.

6 billion dollars is still an enormous amount for an investment in a single project.  The only projects I've ever heard of with that kind of investment are in established industries where they are scaling up something that is known and proven.  A really enormous real estate development, for example, is just scaling up what has already been done and is well-known.

A tech start-up that gets an investment of a few hundred million is considered very, very expensive.  I've never heard of a start-up ever getting a $6 billion investment.  Ever.

Many space-related start-ups with much better, nearer-term prospects, have failed to get much smaller sums.  Rocketplane-Kistler had a NASA COTS contract signed and in hand and they couldn't get even a few hundred million.  The original Kistler had a half-built launcher and they ran out of money, with a budget far lower than $6 billion.  Musk's SpaceX investment was around $100 million and he had to go to his friends to find an extra $20 million or so after the first several Falcon 1 failures.  Even with the enormous success of SpaceX, they only recently received a $1 billion investment.  SpaceShipOne received about $25 million from Paul Allen.  Virgin Galactic, in spite of its ties to the Virgin Group and investment of Persian Gulf oil riches only received a few hundred million dollars.

The idea that a $6 billion investment in Mars One is "not that much for investors" is wishful thinking not grounded in reality.

It's their idea, not mine. If they'd thought this through, we'd never have heard about them. I'm not defending them, I'm just pointing out they're hopelessly deluded, not necessarily with a criminal intent. If they intended to scam people, they would actually do a better job at convincing people, instead of being so frustrated and bewildered why people don't see things as they do. And people love harmless nutcases, so the media keeps using them to fill up an empty half page here and there.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 03/27/2015 03:37 am
Lets look at relative difficulty

TV Show <<<<< Trip to Mars

And MarsOne capabilities

MarsOne <<<< TV Show

And the knowledge level the media has about these things

TV Show: High
Trip to Mars: Low

I could forgive the media for being ignorant of the technological difficulty of the Mars trip.  But to be 'duped' in what is clearly their area of expertise is really quite unforgivable, their was simply no excuse for presenting these guys as plausible if they weren't able to do something as basic as make a TV show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 03/27/2015 10:57 pm
Any potential investors are investing in the media activities. You don't have to believe Mars One has a chance in hell of putting anyone on Mars to think they have a chance to make money on media activities.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 03/28/2015 02:07 am
You don't have to believe Mars One has a chance in hell of putting anyone on Mars to think they have a chance to make money on media activities.
Sure, but if you don't believe they are going to Mars, the potential return is much smaller. To the extent that Mars One's "bigger than the Olympics" argument works at all, it requires actually putting people into space. Mars One isn't going to raise billions from people who believe they are investing in a run of the mill tv show or some other small time media event.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/28/2015 02:09 am
Lets look at relative difficulty

TV Show <<<<< Trip to Mars

And MarsOne capabilities

MarsOne <<<< TV Show


I'd note that there has been talk about a reality TV show associated with spaceflight for a long time now. Here's a source that discusses it:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/165/1

Wow, that source dates from 11 years ago. Imagine that! He noted that the first talk about a reality TV show was for "Destination: Mir" in 2000. And he predicted that there would probably be a reality TV show about space sometime soon! What a doofus!

Fifteen years people have been talking about a space-based reality TV show and it hasn't happened yet. I guess that must mean that it is about to happen.

Any time now.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: KelvinZero on 03/28/2015 02:36 am
Im sort of frustrated by this Mars One thread dominating this forum for so long, especially since the subject is its very obvious lack of substance. We are not even talking about an architecture here. At best we are talking about a TV show so I think it would fit better in the general thread.

Plenty of ways we could have had a spaceflight related tv show. That is pretty broad. There are already interesting characters doing mars analogues and the occasional space tourist funding their own trips. Pity Mars One's contribution to space has been to suck all the air out of the room.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/28/2015 02:43 pm
Im sort of frustrated by this Mars One thread dominating this forum for so long, especially since the subject is its very obvious lack of substance. We are not even talking about an architecture here. At best we are talking about a TV show so I think it would fit better in the general thread.


I understand your frustration. But I'd argue that there is actually more substance to Mars One than a lot of other humans to Mars discussions. That doesn't mean that Mars One is at all realistic, but they regularly make announcements, have discussed some of their technology choices, and even paid a major aerospace contractor for a preliminary study of a Mars lander. The two analogous private activities that we could point to are Inspiration Mars and Golden Spike. Both used some initial seed money to pay for preliminary studies and both had some press conferences and in the case of Inspiration Mars, even a congressional hearing. That said, both flamed out relatively quickly. (I personally thought there were interesting aspects to both of those projects, but they had major holes in their plans that were just as obvious as those for Mars One. The big difference is that they haven't kept making announcements or doing things to keep them in the news.)

Like it or not, there's at least some substance to Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/28/2015 03:15 pm
This article appeared on February 23, but didn't get mentioned in this thread:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/mars-aint-never-gonna-happen

The article states:

"In response, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp told BuzzFeed News that the MIT study “made many wrong assumptions and sub-optimal design solutions.” All of the study’s critiques “were already taken into account,” he wrote by email, and these issues will be addressed in a report in early March. “We hope to have the public report soon after that,” Lansdorp said."

So if I read that right Mars One was preparing a response to the MIT study that they expected to be finished by early March, but it would not be made public until after that, correct? So presumably the report is finished by now. Has anybody seen anything else about this?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 03/28/2015 04:16 pm
The two analogous private activities that we could point to are Inspiration Mars and Golden Spike. Both used some initial seed money to pay for preliminary studies and both had some press conferences and in the case of Inspiration Mars, even a congressional hearing.

Ya know, if someone would just say upfront "we are not going to pay for a trip to Mars, instead we are going to do the STUDIES and DESIGNS to figure out how to make it affordable" that would potentially be of real benefit.

Currently we have only NASA doing Mission design with any real budget and some folks on the internet cobbling Kerbal rockets together.  There is no middle ground of modestly funded but professional mission design, and this means NASA designs really have no competitive pressure to be affordable.  Imagine if 'case 4 Mars' type mission designs were coming out every year what kind of stimulating effect this would have both for the public but also for NASA to keep it's own designs competitive.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 03/28/2015 04:31 pm
Im sort of frustrated by this Mars One thread dominating this forum for so long, especially since the subject is its very obvious lack of substance. We are not even talking about an architecture here. At best we are talking about a TV show so I think it would fit better in the general thread.

Plenty of ways we could have had a spaceflight related tv show. That is pretty broad. There are already interesting characters doing mars analogues and the occasional space tourist funding their own trips. Pity Mars One's contribution to space has been to suck all the air out of the room.

It is attracting attention because it's the most half-baked of them all.  It's almost like a freak show.

I mean, the Mars Society never had a chance of executing a manned Mars mission, but at least there was serious study, there was a Mars analogue, and there was a popular movement.   Just as an example.    Companies like VG may be over-inflated and on the wrong track, but there's definitely real work getting done.

Mars One puts even the flimsiest efforts out there to shame.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/28/2015 04:50 pm
Currently we have only NASA doing Mission design with any real budget and some folks on the internet cobbling Kerbal rockets together.  There is no middle ground of modestly funded but professional mission design, and this means NASA designs really have no competitive pressure to be affordable.

That's not quite true. Boeing and Lockheed Martin have spent internal R&D money on studies. Boeing has done their human Mars mission study that's been ongoing for a few years now. And LM did some other studies, like their "Plymouth Rock" asteroid mission study a few years ago (and they funded a Phobos-Deimos study as well).

I think these things are generally funded at the rate of at most a few million per year, and it is internal money, so that's wobbly accounting. But it happens. Now they are doing it so that they can propose hardware to NASA, or at best say to NASA "Here is what we've done, why don't you pay us some money to explore these concepts further?" Even SpaceX has done some internal studies, like their "Red Dragon" idea. And if they unveil their MCT plans later this year, as Musk has indicated, that will be an example of a private company spending their own money to study Mars concepts. So it is happening.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 03/28/2015 05:45 pm
True, though I would hardly consider our traditional Aerospace contractors to be a source of downward cost pressure on the mission designs (more likely the reverse).  Now SpaceX planning is likely to actually deliver a mission plan that brings costs down.  But even SpaceX is going to release one 'plan' which is going to be the system they intend to deliver to the market, were not going to see all the iterations of that plan, just the final product.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 03/29/2015 04:25 am
Mars 500 cost $15 million. Got some science.
http://www.astrobio.net/topic/exploration/moon-to-mars/lessons-from-mars-500/

If Lansdorp has it really in him, he'll do a contraction to this cost level. Have contestants with some technical or scientific qualifications. Run them through trials, games, tests. Throw surprise wrenches. Have drills. Record and televise. Sponsor with Red Bull and aerospace. Heck, do it elimination and team competition style. Lots of ways for Mars One to show up.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/29/2015 03:31 pm
Another article on Mars One:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-mars-one-fiasco-was-actually-good-humanity/

This one is intended to be humorous and lightweight. I will give the author credit, she makes some good points. For instance, just because you give somebody money and they fail to succeed/deliver on their promises does not make them a scam. Failed investments happen all the time. And as she points out, Mars One has done some of the things they have said they would do with the money, like fund the robotic mission concept studies. They didn't all just go to Hawaii.

That said, this is an article that could have used a little more editing. Note that on page one she says that anybody who gave money to Mars One was "mad." Then on page 2 she writes "If you gave $30 from your grocery money to a group that may or may not be moving us toward Mars, you're on the plus side of history, I promise." This sort of kind of exactly seems to contradict what she just wrote. But never mind, the article still has some good points.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 03/30/2015 12:08 am
Another article on Mars One:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-mars-one-fiasco-was-actually-good-humanity/

This one is intended to be humorous and lightweight. I will give the author credit, she makes some good points. For instance, just because you give somebody money and they fail to succeed/deliver on their promises does not make them a scam. Failed investments happen all the time. And as she points out, Mars One has done some of the things they have said they would do with the money, like fund the robotic mission concept studies. They didn't all just go to Hawaii.

That said, this is an article that could have used a little more editing. Note that on page one she says that anybody who gave money to Mars One was "mad." Then on page 2 she writes "If you gave $30 from your grocery money to a group that may or may not be moving us toward Mars, you're on the plus side of history, I promise." This sort of kind of exactly seems to contradict what she just wrote. But never mind, the article still has some good points.

You could argue about charity being a virtue. Whether one giving money to street begger, donating to political campaign, tithing to one's church, giving money to Greenpeace, or whatever.

Mars One is a non profit organization which owner of for profit business venture which does media stuff.
In terms of investing in something for profit, a wise rule is invest in what you are familiar with rather putting one's money into something you are not familiar with.
Anyhow giving 30 dollars to Mars One sound to me like a donation rather than something one could call
an investment. It's like buying some Girl Scout cookies. Or it's tipping the waiter.

So generally speaking if you appreciate the effort that people are doing, oh say, like the action of begging on the street in order to get money from suckers born every second,  then you might give the beggar some money.
Though some people just give some change to stop the beggar from annoying them.
There are all kinds of perverse ways to do charity which people can obtain satisfaction as the 3.6 trillion dollars spent by Federal government each year indicates.
And in terms a more pure concentration of evil one has the funding that supports numerous terrorist organizations- which other than seed money from direct forms of charity is also generally connected to numerous black market activity and tyrannical governments which are providing financial support.

It seems that a good question is what would be better charity than Mars One?

As example, Planetary Society might something one could argue is better choice.

But also there another  thing to keep in mind, if you donating money to something which is focused on sending people to Mars, and assuming one wants this, and such a charity collects a significant amount of money for doing this, then other charities might also want to get similar potential of funding and so may also focus on sending people to mars. And the opposite also true, if funding specifically about sending people to fails to generate money, then it indicates that such a focus is not a good direction for other non profits to adopt.

So giving a small amount of money and encouraging other to also give small amount of money is both rather painless, and helps generally to determine if people want this sort of thing and other organizations may be affected by this.

But as I said before, I think it's about timing. And I think the Moon should explored to determine whether there is commercial minable water.
And I think NASA should do this, and finish doing it in a short period of time, and then NASA should explore Mars to determine if and how Mars could support human settlement on Mars.
Though I don't believe that Mars One conflicts with this direction. And have tended to think it's possible that non profits and/or religious groups could play a significant role in Mars settlements.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 03/30/2015 08:19 pm
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2720/1

The Ides of Mars One

by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, March 30, 2015

Very few people think that Mars One is ever going to get to Mars. There is equal reason to believe that they will not be able to produce a reality TV show.

There have been at least ten announced space-themed reality TV projects over the past fifteen years, including Mars One’s deal with Endemol. Not one of them ever made it to television.

Publicity is important to Mars One. They need good publicity for fundraising. They got a lot of good publicity when they announced their 100 finalists, including extended segments on the 24-hour news channels. The media, especially news channels and heavily-updated news sites, have voracious appetites and must be fed. They’re generally uninterested in how true a story is than they are in its entertainment value, and Mars One is unusual enough and offers enough opportunity for them to make fun of that it’s perfect fodder for lightweight entertainment, particularly in the mid-morning. But Mars One is getting bad publicity. And they need good publicity because much of their funding model is based on the concept of a reality show.

The long, strange trip of space reality TV
There is actually a long history of people pushing reality television ideas involving spaceflight only to have them fall apart. Believe it or not, that idea goes back at least fifteen years. In 2000, Mark Burnett, the producer of numerous successful reality television shows, most notably “Survivor,” proposed “Destination: Mir.” Burnett wanted to fly the winner of a reality show competition to the Russian space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. NBC actually announced that the show would be on its 2001 schedule. But something happened and apparently Burnett couldn’t really strike a deal with the company then operating Mir, MirCorp. Amsterdam-based MirCorp announced plans for its own show called “Ancient Astronaut,” but nothing ever came of it. MirCorp failed to keep the station aloft (and one of their leaders ended up in federal prison). After the Mir space station was deorbited, Burnett renamed his show “Destination: Space,” featuring a flight to the International Space Station instead. The reputed price tag for the show was $50 million. But Burnett’s project never made it to television.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Alexsander on 03/30/2015 08:56 pm
IMHO the Mars One's main attraction is the "one-way trip" thing. Besides the alleged cost-saving factor, it also pinches a nerve of the masses. People ask eachother: "would you go to another PLANET knowing you would never come back?". This alone can hold a radio or TV show for hours, including viewers' calls and such.

I wonder: if SpaceX succeeds in reuse most of the rocket (1st stage alone is 70% of the cost) and to human-rate the Dragon capsule, how cheap could they sell a Falcon Heavy mission to Mars? After SpaceX's inevitable first mission(s) to Mars, could Elon sell the entire mission off the shelf, as a bundle? Maybe that's what Mars One is hoping for.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/31/2015 06:52 am
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2720/1

The Ides of Mars One

by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, March 30, 2015

Very few people think that Mars One is ever going to get to Mars. There is equal reason to believe that they will not be able to produce a reality TV show.

There have been at least ten announced space-themed reality TV projects over the past fifteen years, including Mars One’s deal with Endemol. Not one of them ever made it to television.

Publicity is important to Mars One. They need good publicity for fundraising. They got a lot of good publicity when they announced their 100 finalists, including extended segments on the 24-hour news channels. The media, especially news channels and heavily-updated news sites, have voracious appetites and must be fed. They’re generally uninterested in how true a story is than they are in its entertainment value, and Mars One is unusual enough and offers enough opportunity for them to make fun of that it’s perfect fodder for lightweight entertainment, particularly in the mid-morning. But Mars One is getting bad publicity. And they need good publicity because much of their funding model is based on the concept of a reality show.

The long, strange trip of space reality TV
There is actually a long history of people pushing reality television ideas involving spaceflight only to have them fall apart. Believe it or not, that idea goes back at least fifteen years. In 2000, Mark Burnett, the producer of numerous successful reality television shows, most notably “Survivor,” proposed “Destination: Mir.” Burnett wanted to fly the winner of a reality show competition to the Russian space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. NBC actually announced that the show would be on its 2001 schedule. But something happened and apparently Burnett couldn’t really strike a deal with the company then operating Mir, MirCorp. Amsterdam-based MirCorp announced plans for its own show called “Ancient Astronaut,” but nothing ever came of it. MirCorp failed to keep the station aloft (and one of their leaders ended up in federal prison). After the Mir space station was deorbited, Burnett renamed his show “Destination: Space,” featuring a flight to the International Space Station instead. The reputed price tag for the show was $50 million. But Burnett’s project never made it to television.

Is this only half the article? I can't open the original link from my location. 'There have been at least ten announced space-themed reality TV projects over the past fifteen years' and 'The long, strange trip of space reality TV', but the only two examples they give is twice the same basic idea with a different name: they both promise to send the winner to one of the most expensive and sensitive science labs at the time. Hard to see why that didn't work out.

Reality shows need to be low cost. The only way you can get low cost and space related in the same show is by not actually going into space. Rather do a simulation on Earth. The team that designs the winning technology might get a contract at JPL or something. A meet and greet with NASA's finest. Or whatever earthly prize that can motivate people to take part. Maybe nothing at all, that wouldn't be the first time either.

I would be very interested to see the rest of the list. Ten ideas for shows not getting funding isn't that bad. Plenty of show ideas never get aired. I'm just interested if any of them ever made it to a pilot.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robert Thompson on 04/01/2015 12:45 am
Hm. Analogue telerobotics operation / robotics competition from "Phobos". Parsimonious hardware doing analogue operations on "Mars" (Canada, Utah). Do a one-off single season / single competition. Keep the scope small.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 04/01/2015 07:21 am
Is this only half the article?

More like 15%.

Feel free to read the rest.

I have done so in the meantime, and my answer still stands: The idea is always 'let's do a show, and the winner/celebrity will be sent to space/get a trip on a suborbital flight'. This is completely the opposite of reality tv, as the article points out. And I can't find ten projects, no matter how I count them.

So basically, there have been several iterations of one single space related show idea. Two, if you count the 'reality show tied to one of the suborbital space providers'. The first one has to fail because it's far too expensive for a reality show, and the second one can't work because there are no commercial manned suborbital flights yet.

Even having the candidates go through astronaut training seems far too expensive to me. But an idea the article lacked, is a survivor-themed show in a Mars-like location. Small compartments, lots of coöperation required, little food, limited budgets required if you set the demand for realism low enough, sounds like a doable show that offers all the conflict reality shows depend on. The level of realism could be stepped up gradually.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 04/01/2015 07:31 am
The first one has to fail because it's far too expensive for a reality show, and the second one can't work because there are no commercial manned suborbital flights yet.

Even having the candidates go through astronaut training seems far too expensive to me.

The secret is to let the participants pay for it. The problem is that the Russians aren't interested in having the media inside their training facilities.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: R7 on 04/01/2015 11:55 am
The problem is that the Russians aren't interested in having the media inside their training facilities.

Shame, as far as drama goes they (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6955149/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/does-mars-need-women-russians-say-no/) have the potential for highest ratings.

Quote
The Institute of Medical and Biological Problems has had difficulties working with non-Russian women in the past, which perhaps explains why none will be invited into the new test program. The most notorious case occurred in 1999-2000, during a 110-day isolation chamber test run with an international crew that included 32-year-old Judith Lapierre, a Ph.D. health sciences specialist sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency.

A handful of Russians and international partners had been isolated in a small spaceship simulator, where their interactions were observed by psychologists on television. Lapierre had been one of the three international test subjects who entered the mock spaceship in Moscow  Dec. 3, 1999. The three foreigners and one Russian joined four Russians who had been inside the three-room complex since early summer.

Less than a month into her run, Lapierre suddenly encountered serious problems. She was twice forcibly French-kissed by the Russian team commander, and soon afterwards witnessed a 10-minute-long fight between two Russians that left blood spattered on the walls.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 04/01/2015 01:36 pm
And I can't find ten projects, no matter how I count them.


Destination Mir
Destination Space
Ancient Astronaut
Celebrity Mission (the Lance Bass one)
Space Commander
Russia TV1 project
Space Adventures 2-person Soyuz project
Space Race
Milky Way Mission
Mars One deal with Endemol
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: WmThomas on 04/01/2015 06:25 pm
There are many critics of Mars One on this forum. But the criticisms are mostly rude and not based in fact.

It seems to me that Bas Landorp is trying as hard as he can to get his concept off the ground. He has a Mars mission concept (colonization with no certainty of return*) and he has a business model (TV rights**).

(*Mars One doesn't plan on anyone returning. But it's quite likely that within 10 years of the first colonists landing some kind of ISRU-based, MCT-like return option could become available.)

(**Think Olympics, not Kardashians).

What Landorp doesn't have is money. So he is trying as hard as he can to keep the ball rolling and convince enough people that it's real, so that the investors will come and so it can be real. He may well fail. We're still waiting for that big investment round to close, and it may be like Hollywood movie plans--always about to happen.

How many of you all would have invested with SpaceX in 2006 after the first Falcon 1 failure?

Mars One gives you a chance to invest in a realistic project that could work.

My $.02.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 04/02/2015 05:05 am
There are many critics of Mars One on this forum. But the criticisms are mostly rude and not based in fact.

It seems to me that Bas Landorp is trying as hard as he can to get his concept off the ground. He has a Mars mission concept (colonization with no certainty of return*) and he has a business model (TV rights**).

(*Mars One doesn't plan on anyone returning. But it's quite likely that within 10 years of the first colonists landing some kind of ISRU-based, MCT-like return option could become available.)

(**Think Olympics, not Kardashians).

What Landorp doesn't have is money. So he is trying as hard as he can to keep the ball rolling and convince enough people that it's real, so that the investors will come and so it can be real. He may well fail. We're still waiting for that big investment round to close, and it may be like Hollywood movie plans--always about to happen.

How many of you all would have invested with SpaceX in 2006 after the first Falcon 1 failure?

Mars One gives you a chance to invest in a realistic project that could work.

My $.02.

Not quite.

Saying "it's a one way trip" does not constitute a plan.  A plan would require all the technological foundation of how to launch people, get them to Mars, allow them to live there for an extended period of time...   Money is (ironically) the least of his problems.  Suppose he had the money - what would he do next?  Ask Lockheed Martin to build him a Mars architecture?

So far we haven't seen
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 04/02/2015 08:21 am
Now that's good television. Unfortunately, it's as likely as NASA admitting that astronauts drink on-orbit.

Several people cooped up in a few small rooms/capsules is a good breeding ground for conflict. Add a competely closed oxygen and water cycle for extra discomfort. Conflict guaranteed.

Money is (ironically) the least of his problems.  Suppose he had the money - what would he do next?  Ask Lockheed Martin to build him a Mars architecture?

So far we haven't seen

Er, yes we have. Technology-wise, MO plan is limited to the use 'off the shelf technology'. Unfortunately, to them, any brainfart of someone working on/thinking about a technology that they could use is considered available 'off the shelf'.

MO has already paid LM to initiate a design study of life support systems, and has paid for a basic description of the phoenix lander. Unfortunately MO doesn't even have the money to see that part through. In the alternate universe where they would gather the hundreds of millions of dollars required to complete any one of those two parts, they would pay for it.

It seems to me that Bas Landorp is trying as hard as he can to get his concept off the ground. He has a Mars mission concept (colonization with no certainty of return*) and he has a business model (TV rights**).

(**Think Olympics, not Kardashians).

What Landorp doesn't have is money. So he is trying as hard as he can to keep the ball rolling and convince enough people that it's real, so that the investors will come and so it can be real. He may well fail. We're still waiting for that big investment round to close, and it may be like Hollywood movie plans--always about to happen.

Mars One gives you a chance to invest in a realistic project that could work.

That's exactly what meekGee is saying: MO has a concept, not a plan: Using no revolutionary new technology, and ignoring what it would cost to get 'existing' technology to the point where it can do what they plan, they get a very low budget. Compared to the return of 'comparable' projects, the math seems to work out.

The next step, which MO has not done at the time, is to go to experts to verify the basic assumptions. After that, they could start adding detail to the calculations. And only when their math and timeline would have held up (which is impossible), should they have started talking to investors and participants. Not fully preparing doesn't get you a vote of confidence from investors.

The basic assumptions that they have failed to verify, other than which technology is actually readily available, is the comparison to the olympics and the use of ISS life support systems. ISS needs resupply which you don't have on Mars. The olympics are a collection of dozens of sports events in a few days. A Mars landing has exactly one event that appears exciting when televised. And while this community would be clustered around our biggest possible screens for hours during that event, the average person would not want to wait for more than a few minutes before something exciting happens. And there better not be someone giving a speech, or they'll stop watching completely and wait for the recap on youtube. Before or after that, they won't bother to look. More bare rock or a black void, that's hardly worth watching. Unless something happens, which in reality kills the crew.

Would we have supported SpaceX? No. Hell, most of us don't even pay for L2 on this site, let alone give money to someone who might fail at something extremely hard that we really like. But SpaceX, VG etc all had the benefit of being backed by deep pockets BEFORE they asked other people for money. That's another thing MO could have done to avoid being called a scam.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 04/02/2015 08:48 am
And I can't find ten projects, no matter how I count them.


Destination Mir
Destination Space
Ancient Astronaut
Celebrity Mission (the Lance Bass one)
Space Commander
Russia TV1 project
Space Adventures 2-person Soyuz project
Space Race
Milky Way Mission
Mars One deal with Endemol

Destination Mir and Destination Space are the same show, by the same people, with the only difference being the available destination for the winner... The TVI project is again the same guy pitching the idea to a different network.

I also read a little fast and counted names without description and descriptions without a name as a single project. What was Ancient Astronaut about? Isn't that supposed to be about aliens? Hardly my idea of a reality show. The same for Space Commander... sounds more like a pitch for a game than a tv show, and that's all I can find.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 04/02/2015 05:20 pm
A plan would require all the technological foundation of how to launch people, get them to Mars, allow them to live there for an extended period of time...

No.. that's a master plan. Ya know, the kind of thing that people who don't understand planning try to do and end up doing nothing. You sure you don't work for NASA?

People who actually achieve things plan by figuring out what might possibly work and then doing.

Nope, ya know.  "Make it a one way trip" is not even master plan.  For example, I have other plans:

- "Make it a two way trip!"
- "Send pregnant women"  (aka the twofer plan)
- "Send committed couples"  (aka the mayhem plan)

Did I just come up with 3 more Mars plans?  Someone please stop me!

All they have is an idea that might help with a top level plan.   Beyond that, all they have is photoshop and another idea, for financing via a TV show.  I have some such "financial plans" too:

- Get $1000 from friends, invest in realestate, but cleverly.
- Get $1000 from friends, start a new fast food chain
- Get $1000 from friends, start an online retailer

Seriously.   They want to send people to Mars.  It's a technology issue, a money issue, an execution issue, a motivation issue.  It can't be solved by talking.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 04/02/2015 08:52 pm
Seriously.   They want to send people to Mars.  It's a technology issue, a money issue, an execution issue, a motivation issue.  It can't be solved by talking.

They're not talking.. they're doing. You're the one talking..

- Get $1000 from friends, invest in realestate, but cleverly.
- Get $1000 from friends, start a new fast food chain
- Get $1000 from friends, start an online retailer

You do understand that everyone who ever made it in any of these things did exactly that, right? No-one has ever sat down with a cocktail napkin and figured out the perfect business plan, and then made it happen. Everyone who has ever made a business work has done it by just starting and figuring out all the millions of details as they go along.

The real problem with planning is that people rarely recognize what they can control and what they cannot. This is especially the case in government where the planners think they can control everything and typically they can't even ensure they'll be around to finish the project. Almost every failure at NASA is a result of overplanning. Similarly, NASA's greatest successes are a result of setting a high level goal and rolling with the changes. If the Moon landings had been planned like NASA's attempts to go to Mars - and so readily abandoned when those plans go awry - they never would have gotten past Mercury. Heck, they never would have gotten past the epic failure of launching America's first satellite.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: hop on 04/03/2015 04:28 am
There are many critics of Mars One on this forum. But the criticisms are mostly rude and not based in fact.

It seems to me that Bas Landorp is trying as hard as he can to get his concept off the ground. He has a Mars mission concept (colonization with no certainty of return*) and he has a business model (TV rights**).
There's a difference between have a concept and business model, and having a credible concept and business model.
Quote
What Landorp doesn't have is money. So he is trying as hard as he can to keep the ball rolling and convince enough people that it's real, so that the investors will come and so it can be real.
Unfortunately, his strategy for keeping the ball rolling appears to rely on deception (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29053.msg1336915#msg1336915).
Quote
How many of you all would have invested with SpaceX in 2006 after the first Falcon 1 failure?
A totally different situation. SpaceX plan was risky but broadly credible:
1) An expendable LOX/RP1 LV was demonstrably possible at the time SpaceX set out to build one.
2) There was reason to believe it could be done at least somewhat cheaper than the established players.
3) Elon Musk had a large enough personal fortune to have a good chance of pulling it off.
4) A failure on the first development flight of a new LV is not unusual, so should not have deterred investors familiar with the industry. Three in a row was pushing things... but they had Musk's fortune to carry them through.

The risk was not whether it could be done, but whether they could make a viable long term business out of it.

Compare to Mars One:
1) Many of the major systems they need do not nearly the same level of "existence proof". Lansdorp claims otherwise, but the claim is so obviously false it hard to see as anything other than a deliberate attempt to mislead people who aren't familiar with the state of the art.
2) All indications are that their cost estimates are absurdly low, and not based on any rigorous engineering. The repeated claims that they have reliable cost estimates reinforces the pattern of deliberate deception.
3) They do not have funds to substantial fraction of the costs themselves.

Quote
Mars One gives you a chance to invest in a realistic project that could work.
I don't know where you get the idea the project is "realistic" from, but it isn't. That's the whole problem. Not all plans are created equal, some are plausible, and some are obviously baloney.

Edit:
While I think it's clear Mars One is deceptive, I don't think it's a scam in the sense that the end game is a suitcase full of cash and a one way ticket to some tropical paradise. IMO it's more likely that they know they have virtually no chance of success, but as long as they can keep it going they get to enjoy the limelight on someone else's dime.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Chris Bergin on 08/12/2015 01:37 am
My Thunderbird e-mail program isn't a fan it seems ;)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/12/2015 01:49 am
My Thunderbird e-mail program isn't a fan it seems ;)
Meta-LOL :) These are some finely tuned filters, indeed
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/17/2015 09:56 pm
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2809/1

Red planet rumble
by Dwayne Day
Monday, August 17, 2015

"There is a saying at Houston’s Mission Control: “in God we trust, all others bring data.” I’ve seen that codified more bluntly in a refrigerator magnet: “We have charts and graphs to back us up, so #uck off.” Because of the profanity, the former was probably a more appropriate title for a debate that occurred on the campus of the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, on Thursday evening when two representatives of Mars One squared off against two of the members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology group that produced a report a year ago calling into question the assertions that Mars One has made about the viability of their plan for sending humans to Mars within twelve years.

The MIT team, Sydney Do and Andrew Owens, both graduate research fellows and Ph.D. candidates at MIT, came armed with charts and graphs and data and PowerPoint (they are, after all, engineers.) The Mars One team, CEO Bas Lansdorp and one of his key technical people, Barry Finger, came armed with, well, a dream of sending humans to Mars. A nice fuzzy dream, filled with hope and powered by the human spirit and the desire to motivate schoolchildren.

The MIT team crushed them."
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/17/2015 09:58 pm
The MIT team crushed them.
Wow. Thats .. unexpected.

EDIT: and some harsh datapoints for all the dreamers:
Quote
The MIT team had their own analogy, noting that Virgin Galactic has spent ten years and $600 million and still has not achieved their commercial suborbital spaceflight goal.

Here is another writeup:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/space-flight/mars-one-is-feasible-ceo-insists
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/18/2015 01:50 am
The MIT team crushed them.
Wow. Thats .. unexpected.


Yeah. Turns out there's gambling at casinos too.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/18/2015 01:55 am
Here is another writeup:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/space-flight/mars-one-is-feasible-ceo-insists


Thanks for that. According to that writer, Lansdorp claims that they need another $15 million for additional studies. I thought I heard him say $50 million. Of course, you could buy it piecemeal and so either number could be correct.

I would note, however, that when big aerospace companies put together contract bids on multi-billion dollar contracts, they frequently spend many tens of millions of dollars, if not more, of their own money putting together the bid. Somebody told me nearly a decade ago that Northrop-Grumman spent $80 million of their own money for the contract proposal for the Prometheus nuclear-powered spacecraft program. And I believe that a NY Times article indicated that Boeing spent something like $100 million dollars of their own money on their contract proposal for the Future Imagery Architecture contract (they won it, then it got canceled).

So even $50 million is not going to be enough to produce a detailed study of a multi-billion dollar humans to Mars mission. It's going to cost a lot more.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/18/2015 01:58 am
Lansdorp referenced this "cultural sponsor" at the Thursday debate. He also said that they had another one signed up that he could not yet reveal:

http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/upcoming-bjoern-borg-fashion-show-pays-tribute-to-mars-one

Upcoming Björn Borg fashion show pays tribute to Mars One

Amersfoort, 11th August 2015 - Mars One is proud to announce that the Björn Borg Spring/Summer 2016 (SS16) show at Fashion Week in Stockholm will be a tribute to Mars One’s human mission to Mars. The brand aims to create an out of this world experience as their Spring Summer 2016 sportswear collection is showcased.

For their Spring/Summer 2016 collection, Björn Borg drew inspiration from the nomadic life of mankind, which ranges from populations roaming dry deserts and plains of the Earth to future generations that will walk the soil of other planets. “SS16 show finds its inspiration in the love of mankind. Inspired by the project Mars One, we are making a tribute to the courage and the faith that these people show by going out to the unknown for the evolution of mankind. We are showing a strong fashion sportswear collection and confidently take on the ultimate challenge – training for Mars!” says James Lee, Head of Design at Björn Borg.

“Mars One’s human mission to the red planet is the ultimate challenge,” says Bas Lansdorp, CEO and co-founder of Mars One. “Our candidates are modern day explorers that are willing to accept the risks associated with going to Mars in order to live their dreams. It will be an adventure that takes courage, skills, and perseverance. We are extremely proud that our mission inspired Björn Borg for their upcoming fashion show.”

The Björn Borg brand was established in the Swedish fashion market in the first half of the 1990s. Due to the brand’s typical sporty identity, it has gained a strong position in its established markets, particularly in the largest product groups, underwear and sportswear. According to Bas Lansdorp, the event offers a great opportunity to reach out to an entirely new public: “Björn Borg will inspire their audience to get excited about human space exploration and encourage them to learn more about current and future developments in this field."

The Björn Borg fashion show will be held on August 24th at 20:00 in Stockholm (Sweden). Mars One's CEO and Co-founder Bas Lansdorp and four astronaut candidates will attend the SS16 show. For more information about the Björn Borg Spring/Summer 2016 (SS16) show, please visit http://bbss16.com/trainingformars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Vultur on 08/18/2015 02:23 am
Did the MIT people fix the "wheat/soy" assumption in their original work? A potatoes-based system with some algal proteins would be vastly more space- and mass-efficient.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/18/2015 02:25 am
So even $50 million is not going to be enough to produce a detailed study of a multi-billion dollar humans to Mars mission. It's going to cost a lot more.

Simultaneously, people are calling them a scam and a fraud for not having a fully worked out master plan before they'd even spent a dime.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/18/2015 05:24 am
So even $50 million is not going to be enough to produce a detailed study of a multi-billion dollar humans to Mars mission. It's going to cost a lot more.

Simultaneously, people are calling them a scam and a fraud for not having a fully worked out master plan before they'd even spent a dime.

Oh, they seem to have spent a dime or two of their $750K or so that they took in as crowdfunding, but not towards going to Mars. They have also taken in sponsor cash. All this based on - by Lansdorp's own admission - highly misleading claims of the feasibility of what they claim to be trying to achieve.

But hey, astrology is apparently a multi-billion dollar industry and people are happy to part with their cash, so its all right.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/18/2015 06:37 am
I don't understand what you're trying to say.. even the MIT nay-sayers said they thought the Paragon study commissioned by Mars One is a fantastic document and should be widely read.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 08/18/2015 06:42 am
So even $50 million is not going to be enough to produce a detailed study of a multi-billion dollar humans to Mars mission. It's going to cost a lot more.

Simultaneously, people are calling them a scam and a fraud for not having a fully worked out master plan before they'd even spent a dime.

Oh, they seem to have spent a dime or two of their $750K or so that they took in as crowdfunding, but not towards going to Mars. They have also taken in sponsor cash. All this based on - by Lansdorp's own admission - highly misleading claims of the feasibility of what they claim to be trying to achieve.

But hey, astrology is apparently a multi-billion dollar industry and people are happy to part with their cash, so its all right.

750K is a dime or two when you're talking about decent feasibility studies about ECLSS, Mars suits, magical rovers, the precursor technology mission, revolutionary EDL technology, transfer vehicles, etc. Mars one has, up to now, financed two studies which would eventually lead to more mature technology to get us to Mars. The lack of money seems to be the only reason why both seem to have stopped short early.

From the debate (which is on youtube by now): Bas Lansdorp says that, given the choice, he prefers preparing a Mars mission without the money than doing so without the technology, as he thinks gathering the money is easier than developing the technology. Apparently, he can't even do that.

Edit: oh, and the new study they want to gather funds for, is to analyse the landable mass. In theory, the result of such a study would allow us to compare all other suggested architectures to the size of that mass. Including return missions. I don't expect them to come up with the money to pay for such a study, but at least they're trying. And yes, I'd happily give them ten bucks again for their next study. I haven't had to complain so far, and I spend far more money on other whims.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/18/2015 06:50 am
It'd probably be easier to gather the money if there wasn't a whole bunch of uninvolved do-gooders running around telling everyone that Mars One is a scam. Back in the alt-space days we used to call this the brother-in-law-at-NASA problem. So you've got a great idea for a space startup do ya? Sorry, all the would-be investors have a friend of a friend at NASA and if you ask anyone at NASA about anything they'll tell you that it isn't feasible. After all, NASA has billions of dollars to spend every year and the smartest people in the world and they can't do it, so why should anyone think a bunch of guys in a garage can?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 08/18/2015 09:32 am
It'd probably be easier to gather the money if there wasn't a whole bunch of uninvolved do-gooders running around telling everyone that Mars One is a scam. Back in the alt-space days we used to call this the brother-in-law-at-NASA problem. So you've got a great idea for a space startup do ya? Sorry, all the would-be investors have a friend of a friend at NASA and if you ask anyone at NASA about anything they'll tell you that it isn't feasible. After all, NASA has billions of dollars to spend every year and the smartest people in the world and they can't do it, so why should anyone think a bunch of guys in a garage can?

Question: have you actually met some of the MarsOne folks?
Because I have.

I can tell you one thing: they are not a scam, at least not willingly. They are however a bunch of highly unprofessional, ill-informed, devoid-of-any-sense-of-reality dreamers.

Is that a harsh statement? Yes, you bet it is. But the above is exactly as I have experienced both Lansdorp and his representatives at MarsOne.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: kdhilliard on 08/18/2015 11:32 am
Here is another writeup:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/space-flight/mars-one-is-feasible-ceo-insists

According to that writer, Lansdorp claims that they need another $15 million for additional studies. I thought I heard him say $50 million. Of course, you could buy it piecemeal and so either number could be correct.

You can hear Lansdorp say it at time 1:00:50 into the debate video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/70819066
and I'm pretty sure that he is saying $15 million, which stretches those funds even thinner.

~Kirk
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/18/2015 12:12 pm
Question: have you actually met some of the MarsOne folks?
Because I have.

I can tell you one thing: they are not a scam, at least not willingly. They are however a bunch of highly unprofessional, ill-informed, devoid-of-any-sense-of-reality dreamers.

Is that a harsh statement? Yes, you bet it is. But the above is exactly as I have experienced both Lansdorp and his representatives at MarsOne.

I got that without meeting any of them. I wish people who persist in claiming Mars One is a scam would learn what the word means and stop degrading the highly intelligent jerks who run scams.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 08/18/2015 02:01 pm
Question: have you actually met some of the MarsOne folks?
Because I have.

I can tell you one thing: they are not a scam, at least not willingly. They are however a bunch of highly unprofessional, ill-informed, devoid-of-any-sense-of-reality dreamers.

Is that a harsh statement? Yes, you bet it is. But the above is exactly as I have experienced both Lansdorp and his representatives at MarsOne.

I got that without meeting any of them. I wish people who persist in claiming Mars One is a scam would learn what the word means and stop degrading the highly intelligent jerks who run scams.


Oh please... some of the biggest scams in the world were pulled off by folks who couldn't distinguish between the front- and rear-ends of a pig. Simply because the victims of those scams were even more silly.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mfck on 08/18/2015 02:38 pm
Question: have you actually met some of the MarsOne folks?
Because I have.

I can tell you one thing: they are not a scam, at least not willingly. They are however a bunch of highly unprofessional, ill-informed, devoid-of-any-sense-of-reality dreamers.

Is that a harsh statement? Yes, you bet it is. But the above is exactly as I have experienced both Lansdorp and his representatives at MarsOne.

I got that without meeting any of them. I wish people who persist in claiming Mars One is a scam would learn what the word means and stop degrading the highly intelligent jerks who run scams.
Neal Caffrey approves of this comment
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 08/18/2015 02:51 pm
So the people using the expression "scam" are divided into 3 groups:

Those who believe that anyone taking money from people under the guise of funding Mars One are guilty of deliberately defrauding the funders because they know that what they are doing is never going anywhere.

Those who find the motivation and intent of those organizing Mars One irrelevant to the fact that it is just obviously not going to happen the way it is organized.  This is like someone saying that they don't care that a group might have a strong religious belief that tells them to perform human sacrifice or cannibalism, it is still murder.

Those who are offended by the word because they feel there is some hope for the project.

I don't see a group who are saying the word scam is bad but the project is doomed. I see a group who don't care what it is called but also don't believe it has any hope of working out.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/18/2015 05:15 pm
I don't see a group who are saying the word scam is bad but the project is doomed. I see a group who don't care what it is called but also don't believe it has any hope of working out.
Your post sums it up nicely.
The crux of the matter is, that all of the money that they have received and will be receiving will make approximately zero contributions towards putting humans, or anything else on Mars, but it will fund all kinds of (positive and negative) publicity for people involved.
Come to think of it, they should try to sign on a random Kardashian or so, would make a perfect team. 'Famous for being famous' will be nicely complemented by 'famous for crazy Mars talk'
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ThereIWas3 on 08/18/2015 09:54 pm
Call it a fund to send the Kardashians to Mars.  A goal people can get behind.  :)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 08/18/2015 09:58 pm
The crux of the matter is, that all of the money that they have received and will be receiving will make approximately zero contributions towards putting humans, or anything else on Mars,

You've already been proven wrong. Read the Paragon study, it's something that should have been written long ago but for some reason they never could get funding to do it. If all that ever comes out of Mars One is this study then it was worth it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/19/2015 12:24 am
The crux of the matter is, that all of the money that they have received and will be receiving will make approximately zero contributions towards putting humans, or anything else on Mars,

You've already been proven wrong. Read the Paragon study, it's something that should have been written long ago but for some reason they never could get funding to do it. If all that ever comes out of Mars One is this study then it was worth it.

To each his own, i guess. I didn't see anything in there that is not easily available in existing research on NTRS and elsewhere at similar or higher level of detail, tons of 'free' graduate research included. Just another summation based on bunch of assumptions around highly hypothetical technologies, central piece being ISRU specifically.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 08/19/2015 06:50 am
The crux of the matter is, that all of the money that they have received and will be receiving will make approximately zero contributions towards putting humans, or anything else on Mars,

You've already been proven wrong. Read the Paragon study, it's something that should have been written long ago but for some reason they never could get funding to do it. If all that ever comes out of Mars One is this study then it was worth it.

To each his own, i guess. I didn't see anything in there that is not easily available in existing research on NTRS and elsewhere at similar or higher level of detail, tons of 'free' graduate research included. Just another summation based on bunch of assumptions around highly hypothetical technologies, central piece being ISRU specifically.

Plenty of information is available on every single subsystem, but none of it has been put together in a single architecture. It's great to know what a certain system can do and what conditions it can operate under, but if you don't know if that's enough for the other systems, you're not getting closer to a working architecture.

Specifically: the ECLSS design starts to describe how much power it needs, both on average and during minimal power consumption. This means the endless debate on the power production alternatives can finally get beyond pointless conjecture, as the size and variability of power production largely dictates which method is best for a given infrastructure.

The landed mass estimate gives a minimal requirement for an EDL design. This is the major point of no-return infrastructures. If it turns out the return industry, including launch vehicles, can be assembled from modules smaller than the landed mass of the heaviest module in a no-return infrastructure, there's absolutely no point left to risk not returning. Putting an end to yet more pointless debate.

The ISRU parts estimate how much water and nitrogen is required. So we can trim the list of potential technologies to get those resources from Mars. Only the technologies that might be able to do it on the required scale remain, each with their own requirements (power, spares, ....). Getting water from the Martian air on that scale will be a serious challenge, and extracting it from the soil only by heat will have a hard time producing this much water per day. So no more debate about using these for crewed missions (unless the advocates of these technologies demonstrate this capacity, or come up with an alternative architecture). That means the only alternative left has to demonstrate this capacity as well: digging up yet unknown quantities of rock, for 18 months, without humans present. Nothing less will be enough to send humans to Mars. And the infrastructure to do it has to be less massive than the amount of water required, which is in the requirements. The eventual result might be that, for the time being, we're better off taking the water along after all.

The text is full of these requirements. A requirement, even if assumed, sets rules that other components need to adhere to. That's much better than saying what a component can do, without knowing if it's enough.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/19/2015 07:22 am
Quote
Plenty of information is available on every single subsystem, but none of it has been put together in a single architecture.
Uh oh. There are plenty of integrated manned mars mission studies out there, more than i care to read. Start with NASA DRMs  if you like, all 400+ pages (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373667main_NASA-SP-2009-566-ADD.pdf), but there are plenty of alternatives.

Specifically: the ISRU design starts to describe how much power it needs, both on average and during minimal power consumption.
All of this has been calculated dozens and dozens of times over last decades, and without working robust hardware it means very little. Theoretical SWAGs not based on any actual hardware at any relevant scale or maturity level, that would actually make it to space, let alone Mars. Extrapolating from 'commercial cryocoolers', really ?

The first ever tiny ISRU experiment in the whole history of spaceflight is planned to launch in 2020, at a minuscule scale, and it may yet be yanked from the rover again. Thats a most basic solid oxide cell, only for CO2->oxygen generation, it'll be a while before its performance is proven ( if at all ) and characterized.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 08/19/2015 08:15 am
Quote
Plenty of information is available on every single subsystem, but none of it has been put together in a single architecture.
Uh oh. There are plenty of integrated manned mars mission studies out there, more than i care to read. Start with NASA DRMs  if you like, all 400+ pages (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373667main_NASA-SP-2009-566-ADD.pdf), but there are plenty of alternatives.

Specifically: the ISRU design starts to describe how much power it needs, both on average and during minimal power consumption.
All of this has been calculated dozens and dozens of times over last decades, and without working robust hardware it means very little. Theoretical SWAGs not based on any actual hardware at any relevant scale or maturity level, that would actually make it to space, let alone Mars. Extrapolating from 'commercial cryocoolers', really ?

The first ever tiny ISRU experiment in the whole history of spaceflight is planned to launch in 2020, at a minuscule scale, and it may yet be yanked from the rover again. Thats a most basic solid oxide cell, only for CO2->oxygen generation, it'll be a while before its performance is proven ( if at all ) and characterized.

Excellent, I had been looking for the complete text. None of the other integrated studies, that I do bother to read, seem to come near to this level of detail and completeness. If you have any more that you can't be bothered with, please don't hesitate to let me know where to find them.

For the moment, I still stand with my 'minimal power requirements over time' is lacking in the DRM, but I'll read more thoroughly before debating further. Note that this is a totally different mission, that requires a totally different architecture, power requirements, consumables, etc. One design returns the astronauts, the other does not, which is supposed (I don't agree) to make it less difficult.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 08/19/2015 08:23 am
It'd probably be easier to gather the money if there wasn't a whole bunch of uninvolved do-gooders running around telling everyone that Mars One is a scam. Back in the alt-space days we used to call this the brother-in-law-at-NASA problem. So you've got a great idea for a space startup do ya? Sorry, all the would-be investors have a friend of a friend at NASA and if you ask anyone at NASA about anything they'll tell you that it isn't feasible. After all, NASA has billions of dollars to spend every year and the smartest people in the world and they can't do it, so why should anyone think a bunch of guys in a garage can?

I think you have a valid point that non-NASA programs are often unfairly compared to NASA programs with the assumption that if it would cost NASA X dollars to do something, it must be unrealistic to think anyone could do it for less.  That kind of criticism severely curtails innovation with the bogus assumption there's no better way to do things than the way NASA does them.

However, I don't think the proper antidote to this problem is to go too far the other way and blindly believe claims that non-NASA programs will be much cheaper and better than NASA program.  I think the proper antidote is to have an open mind and allow non-NASA programs to present evidence for their claims they can do things cheaper and/or better.

I haven't seen any evidence from the Mars One side to back up their claims, and a lot of good evidence that the reason their numbers come in so much lower is simply that they aren't looking into the details and they are grossly underestimating the parts they're not going into detail about.

If people look into Mars One's claims and find them not credible, that's far different than refusing to take a credible plan seriously simply because it's not the NASA way of doing things.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/19/2015 04:05 pm
Excellent, I had been looking for the complete text. None of the other integrated studies, that I do bother to read, seem to come near to this level of detail and completeness. If you have any more that you can't be bothered with, please don't hesitate to let me know where to find them.
How far back to you want to go ? I'd start with everything that Ernst Steinhoff (http://www.wired.com/2012/12/a-forgotten-pioneer-of-space-resource-utilization-1962-1963/) pioneered. The WGER reports are all easily found on NTRS (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/), as is a trove of other studies and reports.

For a really good summary for why everything about Mars One is wrong, read Donald Rapp's excellent book, Human Missions to Mars: Enabling Technologies for Exploring the Red Planet (http://www.amazon.com/Human-Missions-Mars-Technologies-Exploring/dp/3540729380/ref=la_B001HPZPCU_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440000052&sr=1-5)

Just to give you an idea why, here is a review of the book.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008EO360009/pdf

And here is the TOC:
http://home.earthlink.net/~drdrapp/Mars.Book.TOC.pdf

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 08/20/2015 06:58 am
You do realize that even the review says the author is dogmatic in his own beliefs and partial towards several of the parties he writes about? Which means I'll have my reservations when reading the book. But it'll be an interesting read nonetheless.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/20/2015 03:44 pm
You do realize that even the review says the author is dogmatic in his own beliefs and partial towards several of the parties he writes about? Which means I'll have my reservations when reading the book...
Yes, Rapp is great. Knowing his biases going in is also awesome as it helps tune your own filters.
Crawfords piece is the most critical review of his that i have come across, thats why i posted it. And like Crawford says, it's great to read a non-advocate, skeptical and above all very well informed and analytical engineer's take who actually knows what he is talking about.
Here is Rapp's relevant resume, he calls him 50% scientist and 50% engineer :
http://home.earthlink.net/~drdrapp/
Quote
EXPERIENCE:

2008-2009 Research Professor, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California

2003-2009, JPL Consultant

1979-2002, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA; Senior Research Scientist and Division Chief Technologist, Mechanical Systems Engineering and Research Division; Retired February, 2002

1969-1981, University of Texas at Dallas:
1981 Resigned
1979-1981 On Leave of Absence while at JPL
1973-1979 Full Professor of Physics and Environmental Engineering
1969-1973 Associate Professor of Chemistry and Physics

1965-1969, Polytechnic Institute of New York: Associate Professor of Chemistry

1959-1965, Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory: Senior Staff Scientist
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/25/2015 02:56 pm
This article says pretty much the same stuff that I wrote last week Monday. But it says it differently, so there's that:

http://www.space.com/30357-mars-one-colony-billionaires-wanted.html?cmpid=514648

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Star One on 08/25/2015 03:54 pm

This article says pretty much the same stuff that I wrote last week Monday. But it says it differently, so there's that:

http://www.space.com/30357-mars-one-colony-billionaires-wanted.html?cmpid=514648

It seems their wish list gets more out there every time I read about it, so now some billionaire is supposed to ring them up out of the blue & save the day. They haven't so much got their heads in the clouds but rather somewhere in LEO.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 08/25/2015 04:49 pm

This article says pretty much the same stuff that I wrote last week Monday. But it says it differently, so there's that:

http://www.space.com/30357-mars-one-colony-billionaires-wanted.html?cmpid=514648

It seems their wish list gets more out there every time I read about it, so now some billionaire is supposed to ring them up out of the blue & save the day. They haven't so much got their heads in the clouds but rather somewhere in LEO.

Having a deep-pocketed investor come on board has always been the best shot that Mars One has of raising the money it needs.

This isn't a new thing, Mars One has been talking to large investment firms and interested individual investors for several years now. It's a bit surprising that some people seem to be taken aback by this.

Then again, I have often found that the detractors of Mars One often have no idea what their plans are or what they are doing to try to achieve their goals.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/25/2015 04:57 pm
Having a deep-pocketed investor come on board has always been the best shot that Mars One has of raising the money it needs.
I disagree. Bill Gates is worth nearly $80 Billion, even if he went completely nuts and threw all his money on this and die poor, Mars One with the leadership and plan that they have IMHNSO would not get to Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 08/25/2015 05:06 pm
Having a deep-pocketed investor come on board has always been the best shot that Mars One has of raising the money it needs.
I disagree. Bill Gates is worth nearly $80 Billion, even if he went completely nuts and threw all his money on this and die poor, Mars One with the leadership and plan that they have IMHNSO would not get to Mars.

Actually I would opine that if Bill Gates decided that the Mars One concept was a great followup to the B&M G foundation then putting another 25% of his fortune into it would do, but the first things that the donation would do would be to change the plan and the leadership.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Impaler on 08/25/2015 06:03 pm
Having a deep-pocketed investor come on board has always been the best shot that Mars One has of raising the money it needs.
I disagree. Bill Gates is worth nearly $80 Billion, even if he went completely nuts and threw all his money on this and die poor, Mars One with the leadership and plan that they have IMHNSO would not get to Mars.

Actually I would opine that if Bill Gates decided that the Mars One concept was a great followup to the B&M G foundation then putting another 25% of his fortune into it would do, but the first things that the donation would do would be to change the plan and the leadership.

Then why would he give money to a group who's leadership is unworthy?  They have nothing that can't be replicated in a month by a competent and well funded new leadership under a new banner without all the MarsOne baggage.  Gates could just give the money to someone like Jeff Bezos or better yet Musk and ask him to do the job.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: NovaSilisko on 08/25/2015 06:25 pm
Having a deep-pocketed investor come on board has always been the best shot that Mars One has of raising the money it needs.
I disagree. Bill Gates is worth nearly $80 Billion, even if he went completely nuts and threw all his money on this and die poor, Mars One with the leadership and plan that they have IMHNSO would not get to Mars.

Actually I would opine that if Bill Gates decided that the Mars One concept was a great followup to the B&M G foundation then putting another 25% of his fortune into it would do, but the first things that the donation would do would be to change the plan and the leadership.

IIRC Gates has specifically spoken out against the idea using his money for space, and the importance of spaceflight in general?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 08/25/2015 06:46 pm
IIRC Gates has specifically spoken out against the idea using his money for space, and the importance of spaceflight in general?
That's probably a topic for another thread. The point wasn't the person, point was viability of MarsOne as an entity. Insert a generic billionaire name instead of Gates, Slim, Buffet or Ortega
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 08/25/2015 07:08 pm
MarsOne isn't a viable Mars colonization mission with a billionaire funding it. Even Elon Musk isn't just throwing money at Mars. SpaceX has to make a profit to fund their Mars ambitions.

However, MarsOne can be useful for future Mars missions by funding research.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: gbaikie on 08/26/2015 12:12 am
MarsOne isn't a viable Mars colonization mission with a billionaire funding it. Even Elon Musk isn't just throwing money at Mars. SpaceX has to make a profit to fund their Mars ambitions.

However, MarsOne can be useful for future Mars missions by funding research.

And by being involved research related to Mars, MarsOne might eventually be involved with sending
people to Mars.
With Musk, MarsOne, or NASA things take time to do and people tend to have short attention spans,
which does mean that Musk, MarsOne, or NASA must have short attention spans- or one could say that
if they do, then they could not possibly succeed at what they may want to do.

In terms of exploration and in broad terms, Mars will require a lot of time- simply due to distance. And because it's a large project and large project require a lot of time.
In contrast,  commercial lunar mining vs mars settlement could require a shorter period of time, but both can occur during the same time. Or it would be mistake to think their is a limited amount of "public funding/investment. Or if parties invest in commercial lunar water mining, that somehow means less investment available to mars settlement- it's quite the opposite. Or there is synergy involved.
But in terms of NASA exploration, there is a limited amount of public investment possible. Or one needs to do one, and later do the other, rather them occurring at the same time.
It seems to me that exploration of the moon can be done quite fast, whereas commercial lunar mining "go on forever"- it can't be finished with quickly. Now Mars exploration is seems it going to require far more time to explore, and mars settlements also continue forever- that can't be finished quickly.

So it seems NASA should quickly explore the Moon [in a small region of the lunar poles] in order to determine if and where there is minable lunar water. And at the moment this seems to be a requirement
for any commercial lunar water mining. And it also better for commercial lunar mining, were NASA to finish [or stop] exploring the Moon, and begin exploring Mars. And were Mars settlers to show up at Mars, for NASA to stop exploring Mars. And it seems were their commerical lunar water mining, Mars settlements would begin quicker and be more robust [more human activity in shorter period of time [and in that context- one way to Mars makes a lot more sense].
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 08/26/2015 01:11 am
MarsOne isn't a viable Mars colonization mission with a billionaire funding it. Even Elon Musk isn't just throwing money at Mars. SpaceX has to make a profit to fund their Mars ambitions.

However, MarsOne can be useful for future Mars missions by funding research.

I was at the debate where Lansdorp said this. I was a bit tired, so maybe not as attentive as I could have been, but one thing that struck me was that he seemed to slip back and forth talking about investors and what would essentially be donors. The latter would give big chunks of money and not expect anything in return.

I can see problems with trying to do that, because why should somebody simply give money when other people are going to get a return on investment? Charities are charities, and for-profit institutions are different.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 08/26/2015 07:23 am

This article says pretty much the same stuff that I wrote last week Monday. But it says it differently, so there's that:

http://www.space.com/30357-mars-one-colony-billionaires-wanted.html?cmpid=514648

It seems their wish list gets more out there every time I read about it, so now some billionaire is supposed to ring them up out of the blue & save the day. They haven't so much got their heads in the clouds but rather somewhere in LEO.

They've been saying this from the beginning. The basic difference between Mars One and Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Bigelow, etc, is that they don't have a billionaire to back them up. (All other differences are a result of not having money). All of these companies were being ridiculed when they started out. Including SpaceX, for those of you who have forgotten. Most of these projects still have a questionable chance of success.

To attract a multi-billion dollar investor, MO has been trying to sell the business plan for years. However, anyone who has the brains to get or keep a fortune ranging in the billions, can easily see their business plan is flawed.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 09/20/2015 03:11 pm
http://www.leonarddavid.com/fashion-statements-about-mars/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Fsci123 on 09/20/2015 09:00 pm
Thats pretty cringe...would not expect something like that from a reputable company...of course, they arent a reputable company.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 09/20/2015 09:46 pm
I've been laughing for a couple of minutes now.

The hair styles, the expression on their faces, especially the smaller ones.  (Or is it just that the pictures are smaller...  hmmm....)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 09/20/2015 11:23 pm
So it isn't just me?

I realize that this is athletic underwear and not lingerie, but it is really unattractive. Like something worn by the inmates in Alien3.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 10/02/2015 02:23 am
Mars-One web page still shows using a wider version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

So if the Super Dracos were replaced with methane/Lox engines for landing and ascent on the side of the capsule would there be enough inside volume for the propellant. That is for ascent from the Mars surface and still have enough room for a crew of four?

For cargo descent only replace crew hatch with wider door. Assuming a 5.2 meter wide capsule how much cargo mass could it land with and how much propellant mass would it need from LMO?

Effective performance from engines will be reduce do to angle of the engines being on the sides of the capsule.
ISP of the engines would need to be calculated for the size of the nozzle and type of engine.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 10/02/2015 02:43 am
Mars-One web page still shows using a wider version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

So if the Super Dracos were replaced with methane/Lox engines for landing and ascent on the side of the capsule would there be enough inside volume for the propellant. That is for ascent from the Mars surface and still have enough room for a crew of four?

For cargo descent only replace crew hatch with wider door. Assuming a 5.2 meter wide capsule how much cargo mass could it land with and how much propellant mass would it need from LMO?

Effective performance from engines will be reduce do to angle of the engines being on the sides of the capsule.
ISP of the engines would need to be calculated for the size of the nozzle and type of engine.

SpaceX says Dragon can land on any planetary surface. No need to switch engines.

The is no ascent. Mars One is a one way trip.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/02/2015 04:08 am
The is no ascent. Mars One is a one way trip.

At most one way.  99.999% likely a zero way trip.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 10/02/2015 04:22 am
Mars-One web page still shows using a wider version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

So if the Super Dracos were replaced with methane/Lox engines for landing and ascent on the side of the capsule would there be enough inside volume for the propellant. That is for ascent from the Mars surface and still have enough room for a crew of four?

For cargo descent only replace crew hatch with wider door. Assuming a 5.2 meter wide capsule how much cargo mass could it land with and how much propellant mass would it need from LMO?

Effective performance from engines will be reduce do to angle of the engines being on the sides of the capsule.
ISP of the engines would need to be calculated for the size of the nozzle and type of engine.

SpaceX says Dragon can land on any planetary surface. No need to switch engines.

The is no ascent. Mars One is a one way trip.
The engine switch is do to propellant making on Mars for the ascent.

Having larger propellant tanks is for greater usable payload down mass and for the ability for ascent.

If this is possible then they should want to consider it. Better for PR and fund raising.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/02/2015 05:05 am
Mars-One web page still shows using a wider version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

So if the Super Dracos were replaced with methane/Lox engines for landing and ascent on the side of the capsule would there be enough inside volume for the propellant. That is for ascent from the Mars surface and still have enough room for a crew of four?

For cargo descent only replace crew hatch with wider door. Assuming a 5.2 meter wide capsule how much cargo mass could it land with and how much propellant mass would it need from LMO?

Effective performance from engines will be reduce do to angle of the engines being on the sides of the capsule.
ISP of the engines would need to be calculated for the size of the nozzle and type of engine.

SpaceX says Dragon can land on any planetary surface. No need to switch engines.

The is no ascent. Mars One is a one way trip.
The engine switch is do to propellant making on Mars for the ascent.

Having larger propellant tanks is for greater usable payload down mass and for the ability for ascent.

If this is possible then they should want to consider it. Better for PR and fund raising.

You may think Mars One should want that.  But that contradicts what they've always said.

They've always said their plan is for a one-way mission.

Anyway, you're greatly underestimating the difficulty in getting from the surface of Mars to orbit.  No small changes to Dragon will cut it.  Think in terms of scaling down Falcon 9, not scaling up Dragon.

Dragon 2's delta-V has been estimated at around 400 m/s.  The delta-V required to reach orbit from the surface of Mars is about ten times that, which is a bit less than half what it takes to reach orbit from the surface of Earth.

So, Mars-to-orbit is 1/2 the delta-V of Earth-to-orbit, but a factor of 10 more than the delta-V of Dragon 2.  Hence, any launch vehicle for Mars-to-orbit is going to be more similar to Falcon 9 than Dragon 2.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meekGee on 10/02/2015 03:53 pm
So, this happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FXp8cr4fe8

It's just a trailer. I think you have to pay to watch the whole thing - those lemming won't pay for themselves.

I made through about 3/4 of the way through the trailer, till just after the "sacrificial" dramatic turn-to-the-camera bit.

SMH.


EDIT:  Not quite pay, just sign up for first months free trial subscription to some streaming service...  except it's one of those that you sign up for the paid subscription in advance.   I wasn't planning on signing up, but wanted to confirm what were obviously going to be the terms...

I'm also guessing that the 5-part full feature will be produced at a rate of about 1 part per year, but that's just conjecture.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RocketmanUS on 10/02/2015 04:40 pm
Mars-One web page still shows using a wider version of SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

So if the Super Dracos were replaced with methane/Lox engines for landing and ascent on the side of the capsule would there be enough inside volume for the propellant. That is for ascent from the Mars surface and still have enough room for a crew of four?

For cargo descent only replace crew hatch with wider door. Assuming a 5.2 meter wide capsule how much cargo mass could it land with and how much propellant mass would it need from LMO?

Effective performance from engines will be reduce do to angle of the engines being on the sides of the capsule.
ISP of the engines would need to be calculated for the size of the nozzle and type of engine.

SpaceX says Dragon can land on any planetary surface. No need to switch engines.

The is no ascent. Mars One is a one way trip.
The engine switch is do to propellant making on Mars for the ascent.

Having larger propellant tanks is for greater usable payload down mass and for the ability for ascent.

If this is possible then they should want to consider it. Better for PR and fund raising.

You may think Mars One should want that.  But that contradicts what they've always said.

They've always said their plan is for a one-way mission.

Anyway, you're greatly underestimating the difficulty in getting from the surface of Mars to orbit.  No small changes to Dragon will cut it.  Think in terms of scaling down Falcon 9, not scaling up Dragon.

Dragon 2's delta-V has been estimated at around 400 m/s.  The delta-V required to reach orbit from the surface of Mars is about ten times that, which is a bit less than half what it takes to reach orbit from the surface of Earth.

So, Mars-to-orbit is 1/2 the delta-V of Earth-to-orbit, but a factor of 10 more than the delta-V of Dragon 2.  Hence, any launch vehicle for Mars-to-orbit is going to be more similar to Falcon 9 than Dragon 2.
PR, investors would want a way for crew to return to Earth. If someting did go wrong it would look bad in the public eye.

I had someone help with running some numbers. It looks like even a larger Dragon would not have enough volume for the needed ascent propellant. That is for the limited diameter for the launch vehicle that the capsule could be.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 10/02/2015 05:12 pm
It's just a trailer. I think you have to pay to watch the whole thing..
Actually you dont. The Onion produced a web series in 2014 that summarizes this entire stunt exactly and very succintly - another lame 'reality tv production'.
You can watch the Onion version 10 episodes for free here (http://bit.ly/1llIOA9)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mfck on 10/02/2015 07:27 pm
Those people discredit the whole idea of Mars exploration, for a purpose of making a few bucks, (which they obviously won't make, not with that level of lameness in production).

Did anyone ask Mars One about Planetary Protection and how they are about to enforce it on their crews?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/02/2015 08:21 pm
Those people discredit the whole idea of Mars exploration, for a purpose of making a few bucks, (which they obviously won't make, not with that level of lameness in production).

Did anyone ask Mars One about Planetary Protection and how they are about to enforce it on their crews?

How do they discredit the idea of Mars exploration?

If they're trying to make money, they are doing it wrong. The vast majority of the money they have collected has gone into design studies.

NASA's planetary protection protocol for a manned mission to Mars is basically "try not to contaminate the region you land in too much." I would imagine that would be similar for Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/05/2015 07:30 am
Those people discredit the whole idea of Mars exploration, for a purpose of making a few bucks, (which they obviously won't make, not with that level of lameness in production).

Did anyone ask Mars One about Planetary Protection and how they are about to enforce it on their crews?

How do they discredit the idea of Mars exploration?

If they're trying to make money, they are doing it wrong. The vast majority of the money they have collected has gone into design studies.

NASA's planetary protection protocol for a manned mission to Mars is basically "try not to contaminate the region you land in too much." I would imagine that would be similar for Mars One.

The question has come up a few times, and MO's reaction has always been that they would not pollute, because they would recycle everything. Exactly how they would do this (as ISS technology doesn't cut it) is far beyond the (non existant) technical expertise of MO. Let alone the response to the actual question, how to protect Mars against exposure to Earth microbial life when sending a crew there.

If coming up with a 'plan' to go to Mars, while not having a good idea about all of the technological difficulties, design processes or the ability to attract enough funding is discrediting the idea of going to Mars, pretty much every manned mission to Mars suggestion discredits the idea of going to Mars...

The first idea these guys need to tackle, is finding money to pay for actually getting an idea about how much it costs to design a Mars mission. But if they try to find money, they're a scam?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MarcAlain on 10/05/2015 03:38 pm
I don't mean to be rude, but why are there 52 pages of discussion on something that obviously was never going to be real and was most likely a scam of some sort?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Graham on 10/05/2015 03:51 pm
I don't mean to be rude, but why are there 52 pages of discussion on something that obviously was never going to be real and was most likely a scam of some sort?

This is NSF, the same site that has 275+ pages of stalking a barge becasue it has the SpaceX logo on it. I'm suprised there are only 52 pages.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 10/05/2015 03:52 pm
I don't mean to be rude, but why are there 52 pages of discussion on something that obviously was never going to be real and was most likely a scam of some sort?

I'm guessing you're new to this website.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 10/05/2015 04:00 pm

If coming up with a 'plan' to go to Mars, while not having a good idea about all of the technological difficulties, design processes or the ability to attract enough funding is discrediting the idea of going to Mars, pretty much every manned mission to Mars suggestion discredits the idea of going to Mars...


But that's not really the primary criticism. Yeah, they don't have answers to everything, that's expected. The problem is that many of the answers that they have provided don't withstand much scrutiny. And they seem to try and have it both ways, saying that they have a plan--here it is--and then when pressed, they admit that it's not really a plan.

I'd also take them to task on another aspect as well, which is that they have set really ambitious goals that are far greater than other proposed plans. Keeping people alive indefinitely on Mars is a very high goal, both technically (the life support has to operate forever) and financially (they have to raise money forever). That invites intense scrutiny. They brought it upon themselves.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 10/05/2015 04:01 pm
This is NSF, the same site that has 275+ pages of stalking a barge becasue it has the SpaceX logo on it.

Speaking of that barge...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 04:36 pm

If coming up with a 'plan' to go to Mars, while not having a good idea about all of the technological difficulties, design processes or the ability to attract enough funding is discrediting the idea of going to Mars, pretty much every manned mission to Mars suggestion discredits the idea of going to Mars...


But that's not really the primary criticism. Yeah, they don't have answers to everything, that's expected. The problem is that many of the answers that they have provided don't withstand much scrutiny. And they seem to try and have it both ways, saying that they have a plan--here it is--and then when pressed, they admit that it's not really a plan.

I'd also take them to task on another aspect as well, which is that they have set really ambitious goals that are far greater than other proposed plans. Keeping people alive indefinitely on Mars is a very high goal, both technically (the life support has to operate forever) and financially (they have to raise money forever). That invites intense scrutiny. They brought it upon themselves.

At this early stage, "the plan" needs to be flexible anyway. The ECLSS design study (completed by Paragon in June, and publicly released by Mars One in July) showed that what Mars One wanted to do would work, but the ECLSS system would weigh about twice as much as Mars One thought it would initially. So Mars one has to step back and sort out what needs to be done to accommodate that. The study also highlighted critical areas that need to be focused on during future ECLSS design development, which does provide them with a path forward.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 10/05/2015 05:20 pm
At this early stage, "the plan" needs to be flexible anyway. The ECLSS design study (completed by Paragon in June, and publicly released by Mars One in July) showed that what Mars One wanted to do would work, but the ECLSS system would weigh about twice as much as Mars One thought it would initially. So Mars one has to step back and sort out what needs to be done to accommodate that. The study also highlighted critical areas that need to be focused on during future ECLSS design development, which does provide them with a path forward.

It does, but it also belies their claim that they could do this with existing off-the-shelf hardware. That's a thorny conundrum, because "We're ready to go now and just need to buy the equipment" is a solid statement for fundraising. But "We have to develop more technology and we don't know how long that will take" is the kind of thing that makes investors wary.

I wish all this was possible, and maybe they're doing the best job that somebody could do for a goal that is not realistic, but there are a lot of inherent contradictions in their statements and plans.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 05:36 pm
At this early stage, "the plan" needs to be flexible anyway. The ECLSS design study (completed by Paragon in June, and publicly released by Mars One in July) showed that what Mars One wanted to do would work, but the ECLSS system would weigh about twice as much as Mars One thought it would initially. So Mars one has to step back and sort out what needs to be done to accommodate that. The study also highlighted critical areas that need to be focused on during future ECLSS design development, which does provide them with a path forward.

It does, but it also belies their claim that they could do this with existing off-the-shelf hardware. That's a thorny conundrum, because "We're ready to go now and just need to buy the equipment" is a solid statement for fundraising. But "We have to develop more technology and we don't know how long that will take" is the kind of thing that makes investors wary.

I wish all this was possible, and maybe they're doing the best job that somebody could do for a goal that is not realistic, but there are a lot of inherent contradictions in their statements and plans.

It's a catch-22. The technology exists, but it's not "off the shelf" - because nobody has gone to Mars before. Some of the technology they need is in various pieces and places, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be brought together and developed up to the level it's needed to be at to have people survive on Mars, though for it to be brought together and developed, someone needs to actually attempt to go to Mars. If nobody ever starts the process of trying to go to Mars, the technology never gets developed.

What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true. Putting the pieces together and developing it to maturity will take some time and effort, but nothing they need to accomplish what they want to do is truly novel.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: DanielW on 10/05/2015 06:18 pm
At this early stage, "the plan" needs to be flexible anyway. The ECLSS design study (completed by Paragon in June, and publicly released by Mars One in July) showed that what Mars One wanted to do would work, but the ECLSS system would weigh about twice as much as Mars One thought it would initially. So Mars one has to step back and sort out what needs to be done to accommodate that. The study also highlighted critical areas that need to be focused on during future ECLSS design development, which does provide them with a path forward.

It does, but it also belies their claim that they could do this with existing off-the-shelf hardware. That's a thorny conundrum, because "We're ready to go now and just need to buy the equipment" is a solid statement for fundraising. But "We have to develop more technology and we don't know how long that will take" is the kind of thing that makes investors wary.

I wish all this was possible, and maybe they're doing the best job that somebody could do for a goal that is not realistic, but there are a lot of inherent contradictions in their statements and plans.

It's a catch-22. The technology exists, but it's not "off the shelf" - because nobody has gone to Mars before. Some of the technology they need is in various pieces and places, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be brought together and developed up to the level it's needed to be at to have people survive on Mars, though for it to be brought together and developed, someone needs to actually attempt to go to Mars. If nobody ever starts the process of trying to go to Mars, the technology never gets developed.

What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true. Putting the pieces together and developing it to maturity will take some time and effort, but nothing they need to accomplish what they want to do is truly novel.

Sorry to jump in with an "I disagree" but, I disagree. Almost nothing they need exists; except maybe wrenches. There maybe no new science needed, but engineering is the hard part. Every single one of those "existing suppliers" would have to invest massive effort to design completely new systems to the required spec. You can't take existing designs and just scale them or change the layout and improve reliability by an order of magnitude. These would all be clean sheet designs only based on previous knowledge. That knowledge is important, but these aren’t just modifications.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 10/05/2015 06:31 pm
What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true.

It is not true, or National Research Council along with NASA are collectively lying.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 07:07 pm

It's a catch-22. The technology exists, but it's not "off the shelf" - because nobody has gone to Mars before. Some of the technology they need is in various pieces and places, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be brought together and developed up to the level it's needed to be at to have people survive on Mars, though for it to be brought together and developed, someone needs to actually attempt to go to Mars. If nobody ever starts the process of trying to go to Mars, the technology never gets developed.

What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true. Putting the pieces together and developing it to maturity will take some time and effort, but nothing they need to accomplish what they want to do is truly novel.

Sorry to jump in with an "I disagree" but, I disagree. Almost nothing they need exists; except maybe wrenches. There maybe no new science needed, but engineering is the hard part. Every single one of those "existing suppliers" would have to invest massive effort to design completely new systems to the required spec. You can't take existing designs and just scale them or change the layout and improve reliability by an order of magnitude. These would all be clean sheet designs only based on previous knowledge. That knowledge is important, but these aren’t just modifications.

You're basically agreeing with my post. That's pretty much what both I and Mars One said. Yes, development will be required, but nothing major needs to be invented. The biggest question mark was the ECLSS, and the Paragon design study essentially said what Mars One wanted to do was feasible, though it does need a lot of development work.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 07:10 pm
What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true.

It is not true, or National Research Council along with NASA are collectively lying.

I'm not aware of the National Research Council or NASA making a statement about Mars One's technical feasibility.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 10/05/2015 07:16 pm
What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true.

It is not true, or National Research Council along with NASA are collectively lying.

I'm not aware of the National Research Council or NASA making a statement about Mars One's technical feasibility.

They haven't made a statement, but they have built this
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html

If you start cross referencing Mars One notional plan against the actual state of the art in technology, you'll see its full of large, gaping holes. Simple example, pinpoint landing as depicted by MO in their concept for staging elements on surface simply doesnt exist and requires a lot of technology development
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 07:31 pm
What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true.

It is not true, or National Research Council along with NASA are collectively lying.

I'm not aware of the National Research Council or NASA making a statement about Mars One's technical feasibility.

They haven't made a statement, but they have built this
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html

If you start cross referencing Mars One notional plan against the actual state of the art in technology, you'll see its full of large, gaping holes. Simple example, pinpoint landing as depicted by MO in their concept for staging elements on surface simply doesnt exist and requires a lot of technology development

NASA is doing a lot of things that Mars One doesn't need to do, and NASA wants to push the boundaries of what is possible, whereas Mars One doesn't want to do that, they're happy with what works now.

Pinpoint landing isn't required by Mars One (their baseline has the rovers towing the habitat / ECLSS / supply modules to the outpost site), but it's entirely plausible. The Curiosity rover landed well within a kilometer of its intended landing point. SpaceX has said the Dragon V2 could have the landing accuracy of a helicopter.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 10/05/2015 07:51 pm
Pinpoint landing isn't required by Mars One (their baseline has the rovers towing the habitat / ECLSS / supply modules to the outpost site), but it's entirely plausible.
That's one magic rover that will traverse up to hundreds of kilometers on surface. I'd be interested to learn how's all that lifting and towing more than your weight and soil shoveling and all works, on solar power to boot. Because i build robots myself and boy would i be rich if i could build something like that.

We've been over this up the thread, including the 'beacon' landing nonsense
http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20Society%20Debate%20Slide%20Deck%20RELEASED.pdf




Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/05/2015 08:04 pm
Pinpoint landing isn't required by Mars One (their baseline has the rovers towing the habitat / ECLSS / supply modules to the outpost site), but it's entirely plausible.
That's one magic rover that will traverse up to hundreds of kilometers on surface. I'd be interested to learn how's all that lifting and towing more than your weight and soil shoveling and all works, on solar power to boot. Because i build robots myself and boy would i be rich if i could build something like that.

We've been over this up the thread, including the 'beacon' landing nonsense
http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20Society%20Debate%20Slide%20Deck%20RELEASED.pdf

The rover doesn't have to be all that intelligent. It doesn't cary much in the way of scientific instruments, so it won't be as expensive as the MSL or 2020 rover. It can have beefed up wheels since it will have little instrumentation mass. The vast majority of the power would be for the wheel motors. Grading can be done with a simple blade on the front or rear of the rover, that could even be detachable. It would be on the surface for at least two years so it doesn't have to move huge amounts of soil all at once. It would have to have a hitch for a towing trailer that would be slid under the modules. None of this is infeasible.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 10/05/2015 08:43 pm

It's a catch-22. The technology exists, but it's not "off the shelf" - because nobody has gone to Mars before. Some of the technology they need is in various pieces and places, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be brought together and developed up to the level it's needed to be at to have people survive on Mars, though for it to be brought together and developed, someone needs to actually attempt to go to Mars. If nobody ever starts the process of trying to go to Mars, the technology never gets developed.

What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true. Putting the pieces together and developing it to maturity will take some time and effort, but nothing they need to accomplish what they want to do is truly novel.

Sorry to jump in with an "I disagree" but, I disagree. Almost nothing they need exists; except maybe wrenches. There maybe no new science needed, but engineering is the hard part. Every single one of those "existing suppliers" would have to invest massive effort to design completely new systems to the required spec. You can't take existing designs and just scale them or change the layout and improve reliability by an order of magnitude. These would all be clean sheet designs only based on previous knowledge. That knowledge is important, but these aren’t just modifications.

You're basically agreeing with my post. That's pretty much what both I and Mars One said. Yes, development will be required, but nothing major needs to be invented. The biggest question mark was the ECLSS, and the Paragon design study essentially said what Mars One wanted to do was feasible, though it does need a lot of development work.

There's some real translation errors going on here--you just wrote that "No new major developments or inventions are needed" and he replied that "Almost nothing they need exists..." Those are completely opposite views. You two are not agreeing with each other.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/05/2015 08:56 pm
What Mars One says is that "No new major developments or inventions are needed to make the mission plan a reality. Established suppliers can build each stage of Mars One mission plan. While most of the components required are not immediately available with the exact specifications, there is no need for radical modifications to the current component designs." Which is true. Putting the pieces together and developing it to maturity will take some time and effort, but nothing they need to accomplish what they want to do is truly novel.

Yeah, it's not like landing a few dozen tons on Mars, running digging equipment for a year without human intervention, or keeping a small crew cooped up for in a small tin can and a tent in a hostile environment is truly novel.

(I posted this a few hours ago, but it didn't get through apparantly)

The rover doesn't have to be all that intelligent. It doesn't cary much in the way of scientific instruments, so it won't be as expensive as the MSL or 2020 rover. It can have beefed up wheels since it will have little instrumentation mass. The vast majority of the power would be for the wheel motors. Grading can be done with a simple blade on the front or rear of the rover, that could even be detachable. It would be on the surface for at least two years so it doesn't have to move huge amounts of soil all at once. It would have to have a hitch for a towing trailer that would be slid under the modules. None of this is infeasible.

Eh, if memory serves, the rover has to
- scout a large area for the best location for the base
- including looking for useful quantities of subsurface water
- transport the dozens of tons modules
- dig up and transport a quantity of regolith that can only be estimated AFTER it has found the best location
- dig in the subsurface which caracteristics can only be known AFTER digging starts
- do all this for over a year without needing maintenance.

Its intelligence isn't the only thing that makes it magical.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 01/31/2016 09:58 am
Hello NSF -- I'm Oscar, and I am a Mars One 100 candidate. 

Long time reader on NSF, first time writer in NSF forums.  Instead of sleeping for the past 4 hours, I have read through this thread (so many views!) in its entirety with interest and renewed optimism that (while we all can agree Mars One is not a perfect company) NSF is a balanced arena to thoroughly have these important, logical (fact-based) discussions to get humans to permanently settle another planet (in this case, Mars)!

I embrace the opportunity provided by the forums to convince any skeptics (with data and constructive criticism) to see the Mars One one-way mission plan in a better light.  I know Arno popped in at the beginning, but he has a ton on his plate with ESA (let alone Mars One), and I feel I can either provide the best updated information as the candidates are allowed to share it with you all, in the hope that the energy and expertise we as a group have can make the Mars One plan safer and more realistic going forward.  Any unresolved concerns, or issues relating to the mission plan that are outside my area of expertise can be directed to other candidates or to the Mars One leadership, directly.

Specifically, I'd like to focus (once I get some sleep) on a brief update of the mission plan's status to present state, and give an idea of what Mars One is hoping to accomplish in 2016 (funding, training/mockup, ongoing and future engineering studies, and crew selection).  Also, it's confusing why (a small minority) of the writers here would call Mars One a scam, but I am more than happy to see anyone's data and keep an open mind about it.  After all, I am making a trust determination about Mars One as well through this process, so facts (not rumor, opinion or conjecture) would be very welcome.

As a discussion segway, you may have heard, back in 2014, certain MIT students had their interpretation of the Mars One plan, rejected once at Acta, and finally accepted upon second revision (after having to remove the 68 day atmospheric issue as a finding of their research).  This conference paper and initial test of newly updated code (as claimed in their FISO telecon) and originally based on Bryan Versteeg's graphic art no less, seemed to criticize Mars One for essentially a crop-growth area increase and an unsustainable sparing requirement problem.  I'd like to speak more about exactly how I agree and disagree with Sydney's and Andrew's main findings (highlighting their seemingly unwarranted acceptance of higher risk in certain critical portions (like EDL), when inconveniently? shared by Red Dragon Mars baselined studies and other studies) and I can link the currently accepted Acta article (which also unfortunately makes some dire claims using old FH performance data to further their argument) here (http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0094576515004294/1-s2.0-S0094576515004294-main.pdf?_tid=84c6f40e-c807-11e5-acac-00000aacb361&acdnat=1454237212_d96cc18047ab6ffad6f014ed1dcd4449) and an interesting (and more importantly) independent NASA critique of the NASA-sponsored MIT work from Senior Systems Engineer, Bioengineering Branch at NASA Ames, Dr. Harry W. Jones (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160001251.pdf).

Enough for now!  Please comment--thank you for the wonderful (and mostly fruitful discussion) so far.  Looking forward to answering any questions this audience may have about the Mars One one-way mission plan. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

V/R

-Oscar "Flask" Mathews
NAVAIR systems F-18 weapons guy and full-time spacecraft radiation shielding PhD stud
(at ODU under Dr Robert Ash)
former NAVSEA Nuclear Test Engineer at NNSY
former AF officer and current Navy reservist with some jet time
Eagle Scout ;)  any Eagles on here?


To Mars!

Oscar Mathews
(http://i61.tinypic.com/qn30ba_th.png)
Mars One Astronaut Candidate
Mobile: +1 (901) 246-0904
Medium: @oscarmathewscorrea
Twitter: @Astro_Osk
Skype: Oskirrii
MarsCoin Foundation: www.marscoin.org 
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 01/31/2016 12:10 pm
Hello NSF -- I'm Oscar, and I am a Mars One 100 candidate. 

Long time reader on NSF, first time writer in NSF forums.  Instead of sleeping for the past 4 hours, I have read through this thread (so many views!) in its entirety with interest and renewed optimism that (while we all can agree Mars One is not a perfect company) NSF is a balanced arena to thoroughly have these important, logical (fact-based) discussions to get humans to permanently settle another planet (in this case, Mars)!

I embrace the opportunity provided by the forums to convince any skeptics (with data and constructive criticism) to see the Mars One one-way mission plan in a better light.

Actually I am one of those who always thought that given funding this was a plan that could work. However I was also convinced that funding would not come and therefore the effort is doomed. That opinion still stands and was reenforced over time.

In parallel the plans of SpaceX became more and more clear. They are much more likely to be funded and will achieve orders of magnitude larger goals with the same amount of money. So that is where my sympathies and good wishes go. Not that I have any negatives going for Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: The Amazing Catstronaut on 01/31/2016 02:03 pm
Hello NSF -- I'm Oscar, and I am a Mars One 100 candidate. 



Hi there! That's an impressive resume you have there.


One of the inherent problems with Mars One that many people encounter is a lack of architectural solidity. The resupply missions seem extremely expensive and cause the colony to become less sustainable as it grows, not more. Dragon capsules are poorly suited to serve as BEO habitats, whilst the Mars One foundation doesn't have enough currency to buy so much as a single dragon capsule. A television show, even if it became one of the most commercially successful on Earth, would not create sufficient revenue to fund a stable Mars program, even if you're factoring in 2020s era launch prices as expected by SpaceX. Meanwhile, alternative Mars programs are developing from alternative sources, from bodies which have significantly larger funding pools. How would Mars one be able to cope with the cost of a launch failure or a loss of mission? How does the Mars one colony expand? It appears entirely dependent upon Earth sourced materials, in much the same manner an arctic research base takes all of its resources from warmer latitudes. Yet an arctic research base doesn't qualify as a colony.

Mars One seems to be basing their architecture off technology obtainable from SpaceX, which is entirely fine and rational - however, they do not have the money to pay SpaceX to develop the tech for them. SpaceX currently has their own Mars program baselined which is currently in the RnD phase, engine development, etc, so they do not require Mars One in order for their own program to succeed and progress. Like Mars One they intend to use everyman astronauts as their endgoal.

Mars One has none of the infrastructure required for spaceflight. To build or obtain the use of such infrastructure alone would require them hundreds of millions of dollars that they do not have. Costs rise if they intend to source all their hardware from other providers.

I don't see it economically working out, and I don't believe that Mars One's colony design will result in high living conditions for the colonists - certainly extreme physiological and emotional stress, with little breathing room. If they re-evaluated their colonial architecture and had a few billions to play with, then I'd consider a Mars One colony considerably more likely, but for me the architecture is too austere to be palatable. I wouldn't personally want to go without more living volume.

The rover alone, considering all the tasks it's going to need to be capable of, will have to be big. It will require a Heavy Launch Vehicle or a Superheavy Launch Vehicle to get to mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: geza on 01/31/2016 02:34 pm
Mars One enlists 8 companies, as suppliers. They are respectable companies. Does Mars One have assurances from them, that they can provide their own planned contributions to the project under the planned budget?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 01/31/2016 03:56 pm
Mars One enlists 8 companies, as suppliers. They are respectable companies. Does Mars One have assurances from them, that they can provide their own planned contributions to the project under the planned budget?

Thank you for the warm welcome, all.  Good business question for Mars One.  I think it speaks to a an important piece of advice Star Trek's Scotty has for all us practicing engineers to "underpromise and overdeliver" as one of the key elements to working engineering miracles.  Now Mars One is a systems integration company and (to me) Mars One seems to be trying to walk the difficult line of generating excitement--by its nature--full of promises...but also of meeting schedule and...of delivering, and are finding several challenges in unexpected areas (mostly social ie. non-technical).    As many of us on here can probably attest, if contracts routinely slip, that wouldn't be ideal, but again things happen as we all know, and we would have to look forward and solve the problems as we can as a team that starts with a baseline.

I may make a list of smaller less-technical questions to consolidate those internal items Suzanne or items someone at Mars One might be better at answering, so as not to overwhelm the by sheer frequency of requests.

Thanks again everyone,

-Flask
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 01/31/2016 06:30 pm
Here is a quick update on the state of Mars One via a quick summary that I can update in the future:
https://medium.com/@oscarmathewscorrea/mars-one-update-f1deb970f300#.agh9gp8dv

(please excuse Bas' mistake on the Curiosity landing altitude, later corrected to him, but not edited from the StarTalk episode).  To address the point, though, there are some EDL techniques we could develop further to increase landed mass fractions, apart from the fact there are some locations in ideal areas on Mars that are lower than Gale Crater.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meberbs on 01/31/2016 10:13 pm
Here is a quick update on the state of Mars One via a quick summary that I can update in the future:
https://medium.com/@oscarmathewscorrea/mars-one-update-f1deb970f300#.agh9gp8dv

You start that off with the 200,000 applicant number, but that includes people who didn't even bother to pay the application fee. I know of no other organization who would actually count those as applicants. The accurate number of 4,227 (https://community.mars-one.com/blog/the-science-of-screening-astronauts) should be quoted. (You can include the other number as well with an explanation of the difference, but not including the smaller number would come across as deceptive.)

Mars One enlists 8 companies, as suppliers. They are respectable companies. Does Mars One have assurances from them, that they can provide their own planned contributions to the project under the planned budget?

Elon Musk's perception of Mars One is here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwP9cMeDsBo) Based on this I would say, no, they have not made any formal agreements with SpaceX yet. I don't know about all of the others, some have at least done trade studies or other design activities.

Personally, I won't believe Mars One is serious and capable unless they can actually raise the money to get Lockheed under contract to build the lander without another slip. This is a relatively small cost (launch cost wouldn't even be needed yet), so if they can't do this by next year I don't see how they will ever reach their bigger goals. They have around a year, maybe year and a half left at this point before they would be forced to slip another synod.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 01/31/2016 10:51 pm
Here is a quick update on the state of Mars One via a quick summary that I can update in the future:
https://medium.com/@oscarmathewscorrea/mars-one-update-f1deb970f300#.agh9gp8dv

You start that off with the 200,000 applicant number, but that includes people who didn't even bother to pay the application fee. I know of no other organization who would actually count those as applicants. The accurate number of 4,227 (https://community.mars-one.com/blog/the-science-of-screening-astronauts) should be quoted. (You can include the other number as well with an explanation of the difference, but not including the smaller number would come across as deceptive.)

Mars One enlists 8 companies, as suppliers. They are respectable companies. Does Mars One have assurances from them, that they can provide their own planned contributions to the project under the planned budget?

Elon Musk's perception of Mars One is here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwP9cMeDsBo) Based on this I would say, no, they have not made any formal agreements with SpaceX yet. I don't know about all of the others, some have at least done trade studies or other design activities.

Personally, I won't believe Mars One is serious and capable unless they can actually raise the money to get Lockheed under contract to build the lander without another slip. This is a relatively small cost (launch cost wouldn't even be needed yet), so if they can't do this by next year I don't see how they will ever reach their bigger goals. They have around a year, maybe year and a half left at this point before they would be forced to slip another synod.

To be fair to what wrote, I said that 202,586 applicants began their application. :) Mars One has a clarification article/video from Dr. Kraft on their website explaining the exact progression from 202,586 people to 100--then down to 94 and back up to 100, with the addition of 6 from the reserve selection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pVBUKQ2sT0

Otherwise, I agree with you.  It appears to me that when SpaceX claims they can make deep space routine and affordable as a commodity purchase, that Mars One is taking them at their word.  SpaceX, from what I can tell from my friends who work in design and test, is a truly customer-and goal-focused organization.  If Mars One has the money, then it follows that (like any other customer, Inmarsat/Eutelsat/NOAA/USAF etc) they would also benefit from lower costs and increased access.  But yes, funding is critically important (and to get funding from a broadcast model or an economic model) and you have to put forward a credible case for how a mission (to Mars in this case) should be done.  That is where some people disagree on what feasibility actually means, and where Mars One is listening to established aerospace providers they can count on to provide contracted engineering support, versus what I thought they would emphasis more of in the early stages with enhanced outreach beyond the initial student team leads on payloads in the PiP from Lockheed aerospace (ie. more grassroots efforts).  As I see it, it seems to be working, albeit very slowly due to unhelpful student reports on system of system simulations with no attendant V&V to back it all up and the surprising media attention that student report from MIT in particular had, despite now having practically no worthwhile conclusions.  That is to say, the MIT model was/is unverified and/or outright wrong, and the conclusions they drew (sparing requirements/ISRU development) we knew for decades earlier as politely stated in the NASA Ames rebuttal/comments (and also politely mentioned by Chief Engineer Barry Finger of Paragon at the 2015 Mars Society conference).  Mars One has said in the past it would love to depend more on student work, but there is a very quick turn required for most of this work, so I think they are focused on payload development and leaving mission architecture to less transient and more-dependable players (I'm a student as well, so I can see their reasoning to want to be able to follow up with the same person/entity yeas later).

All that to say--if people keep their criticism constructive, then there is room to improve with dialogue but yes, they do need further development, and quickly/safely, which means more resources.

One thing I would add, personally--is that the incredible outreach and impact Mars One makes even where we are now is worthwhile to me.  Being able to speak with students and with the general public has reinforced in my mind the real passion that exists in the public realm to explore, especially if it is one-way.  With that said, I hope that Mars One can focus resources on their goals, so hopefully soon we will find out some details showing real funding progress.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: geza on 02/01/2016 01:50 am
Look. The claim of Mars One is an extraordinarily one. The company claims that they can develop and build a Martian base from 6 bn dollar, at least an order of magnitude less, than other people find realistic. They claim that a minimal (relative to other plans) hardware is sufficient for the long-term survival of 4 people on the surface of Mars. Please accept the fact, that this is not credible without providing extraordinary proof. That student report does not matter. Where is the positive support by a group of people, who have developed already anything, which works in space? Who can judge? If no such support exists, then why does Bus believe what he says? Why do you believe it? Why are investors supposed to believe?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/04/2016 02:44 am
...
I don't see a group who are saying the word scam is bad but the project is doomed....
That would be me.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/04/2016 02:51 am
"They're a scam who you shouldn't give money to unless they raise a whole bunch of money and then they aren't a scam."
...sounds like a sort of circular reasoning.

They can't raise money because they can't raise money.

...does anyone else see the weird irony here?

Honestly, I don't think it's an elaborate scam precisely because it's not successful.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 02/04/2016 04:11 am
...
I don't see a group who are saying the word scam is bad but the project is doomed....
That would be me.

I do object to losing the context of the one phrase you quoted from my post - so I do wish people would click on the link and go back to my post for the 3 groups I had seen claiming that the word "scam" was bad back in August. It took you long enough to rebut me!

So to answer your subsequent post:

"They're a scam who you shouldn't give money to unless they raise a whole bunch of money and then they aren't a scam."
...sounds like a sort of circular reasoning.

They can't raise money because they can't raise money.

...does anyone else see the weird irony here?

Honestly, I don't think it's an elaborate scam precisely because it's not successful.

It is or it isn't a scam based on either intent, or, like the cannibals and human sacrificers I mentioned, because the delusion they are under can hurt people and that in itself is wrong.

But if you believe that their project is doomed do you still object to the word scam because you believe their hearts are pure?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 02/04/2016 05:30 am
My previous comment that many members of this forum refuse to actually discuss Mars One (instead of their personal opinions about what does and doesn't make them legitimate) got deleted, so I'll repeat it here. Please, can we have some Mars One discussion? If you don't like Mars One, go elsewhere.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 02/04/2016 02:54 pm
While I don't think Mars One will be able to generate the funds for their mission, I do think they can have a positive contribution by funding studies on the details of their concept. More research on how to live on Mars is needed and funding is in short supply.

Mars One can also help in promoting manned spaceflight to the general public.

Oxford Dictionary defines scam as "a dishonest scheme; a fraud." Mars One might be guilty of being overly optimistic, but they are not a scam. We shouldn't be carelessly throwing around derogatory terms like that.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/04/2016 04:55 pm
Welcome Astro_Osk :)

To make sure we're clear on a few items:
(Note these are somewhat out of order :) )
Meanwhile, alternative Mars programs are developing from alternative sources, from bodies which have significantly larger funding pools.

Like who for example? SpaceX isn't developing a "colony" or settlement they are working towards a transportation system with some possible on-site crew requirements. The Mars Society is fixated on some form of "Mars Direct" which itself is predicated on significant government involvement without which it can't be accomplished. There aren't any other groups that I am aware of that are both actively working on and/or have "significantly larger" funding colony design and testing projects let alone actual development projects.

That doesn't get Mars One off the hook however as they are short in both categories as well :)

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One of the inherent problems with Mars One that many people encounter is a lack of architectural solidity. The resupply missions seem extremely expensive and cause the colony to become less sustainable as it grows, not more. Dragon capsules are poorly suited to serve as BEO habitats, whilst the Mars One foundation doesn't have enough currency to buy so much as a single dragon capsule. A television show, even if it became one of the most commercially successful on Earth, would not create sufficient revenue to fund a stable Mars program, even if you're factoring in 2020s era launch prices as expected by SpaceX.

Mars One's "planning" has actually become more vague as time goes on rather than more specific, which is problematical even for something that would be considered a "systems integration company" specifically because you have to have a firm architecture to know what systems need integration and where.

This might be where the idea of it being a "scam" comes from as the original "pitch" was a reality TV show based on the Mars One candidates training and selection process. Since Mars One doesn't seem to be solidifying the actual Mars infrastructure there is the idea (it seems) that going to Mars is simply a "draw" for the TV show with no real plans on following it up. Since there's not a lot around about the supposed reality TV show that makes some wonder where all the money they've gotten is going and so on.

My opinion, (which Mars One can have, free and clear, aren't I generous? :) ) is that they need to focus on the more near-term items significantly, (this would include the TV show, the Communications Satellite and demo mission and specifically the rover design and demonstration) and while "updating" the follow on items, (specifically if they ARE planning on using SpaceX designate, design and research using the BFR/MCT which can be done without full performance specifications, if they are using FH/Dragon then the same applies but I'd question the actual feasibility of that path) but ensuring it is understood that the "follow-on" is a Work In Progress.

And I would point out that specifically that they should in fact plan on "simulating" the building of the base here on Earth, (if the TV show is still planned) using "analog" systems as much as possible (gas-powered rover, helicopter landed "landers", everyone wears "space suits" outside, no outside "help", etc) to refine the planning and requirements.

You will of course get accused of "playing" at the job, (everyone does if they aren't NASA, RKA, or the ESA after all :) ) but the main point is to simulate the difficulty rather than the actuality or conditions. Very few, (actually none that I can think of...) groups have tried to even attempt such activity here on Earth, let alone on Mars or the Moon.
While it's a dirty, dangerous, rather un-exciting and very hard work job it will be orders of magnitude less so here than on Mars. And the plus side is that doing so requires about as much commitment, (probably way less in funding though) as the actual mission would and therefore would go a long way towards silencing a lot of the critics.

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How would Mars one be able to cope with the cost of a launch failure or a loss of mission? How does the Mars one colony expand? It appears entirely dependent upon Earth sourced materials, in much the same manner an arctic research base takes all of its resources from warmer latitudes. Yet an arctic research base doesn't qualify as a colony.

While they don't "say" much about expansion they do show in the illustrations that the on-site crews would build what look to be Mars-crete block "vaults" which are coved with regolith and sealed for additional space. The actual description still has dedicated "life support" landers attaching to the habitat-landers though. Neither of which is really feasibly for the amount of personnel and equipment given for the initial crews.

The "planning" through about 2030 ONLY has 8 (eight) people on Mars by then so it would still be several more missions (and probably about a decade more work) before the "outpost" becomes self sufficient in any reasonable manner. Even then it's going to continue to require Earth based logistics and support for quite a while. "Upgrading" the planning to MCTs would reasonably expand capability faster but cost is still an issue.

Launch failure planning is a good question as that's lacking in the available planning, but as in any such planning one would assume some flexibility in launch schedules and equipment. I can't see too may 'bottle-necks" where timing is critical for any single payload but more information would be nice of course :) Still in their shoes I probably wouldn't get into to much detail over that segment as it's dependent on a lot of assumptions that are already in the process of changing.

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Mars One seems to be basing their architecture off technology obtainable from SpaceX, which is entirely fine and rational - however, they do not have the money to pay SpaceX to develop the tech for them. SpaceX currently has their own Mars program baselined which is currently in the RnD phase, engine development, etc, so they do not require Mars One in order for their own program to succeed and progress. Like Mars One they intend to use everyman astronauts as their endgoal.

On the other hand one could argue that what Mars One is doing, or planning on doing is what SpaceX is designing it's Mars program to service and therefore closer cooperation would be valuable even if NO money changes hands. SpaceX is building a transportation system while Mars One is planning an outpost that becomes a colony. Synergy there :)

However Mars One seems fixated on a specific architecture rather than general planning, (and I understand there are reasons why they should but I'd argue that none of them are significant enough to NOT be constantly updating the "future" planning segment as circumstances change) so that they are not taking into account the capabilities and advantages that the BFR/MCT offer. Specifically the "tech" Mars One needs to work on and fund is actually NOT anything that SpaceX is doing, but what is required on Mars to build and sustain the crew(s) from outpost to colony and all that implies while FITTING into an MCT. I understand that while BFR/MCRT is "speculative" at this point and Falcon Heavy and Dragon 1/2 exist which could be considered a "selling point" for planning purposes, the truth is FH/Dragon isn't capable of doing what Mars One needs without significant re-design and re-building which Mars One can't pay for. By the time they can (and will need to) pay for it the BFR/MCT is scheduled to in testing so the "need" has gone away for a significantly less capable (and more costly) architecture.

I have the feeling that Mars One is afraid to make significant "changes" in planning because this might make them look less credible. The problem is that NOT changing and constantly updating is making them look less credible instead.

Frankly arguing about systems and designs that are not going to be required for 8 to 9 years from now is fruitless. Mars One has significant CURRENT worries and issues that must be addressed (and funded) before you get to the point of designing (and paying for) systems that won't be built for at least another 5 or more years. Yes, there is the issue that IF Mars One insists on pursing the path of FH/Dragon as a basis they will therefore need to put money towards having SpaceX redesign and enhance both items and that would have to begin within a few years to be in place in time. But that goes back to the basic viability of the FH/Dragon to support such a plan which is marginal at best and expensive for Mars One NOW rather than later.

Mars One has significantly MORE pressing issues to deal with now rather than later.

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Mars One has none of the infrastructure required for spaceflight. To build or obtain the use of such infrastructure alone would require them hundreds of millions of dollars that they do not have. Costs rise if they intend to source all their hardware from other providers.

How so actually? The infrastructure exists and is available for use in a number of countries and the prices are currently known for at least the early phases of the plan. Allowing for Mars One's original plan most of the "infrastructure" is owned by NASA and SpaceX already and pricing is a known factor that shouldn't exceed at worst a hundred million. (We ARE talking infrastructure not flights correct?) What "infrastructure" are we talking about specifically?

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I don't see it economically working out, and I don't believe that Mars One's colony design will result in high living conditions for the colonists - certainly extreme physiological and emotional stress, with little breathing room. If they re-evaluated their colonial architecture and had a few billions to play with, then I'd consider a Mars One colony considerably more likely, but for me the architecture is too austere to be palatable. I wouldn't personally want to go without more living volume.

To be sure we're all on the same page I'll point here:
http://www.mars-one.com/technology/living-unit

The crew will NOT be living in Dragon capsules but in landers with a unique "inflatable living section" with the "life support" and supply modules still seeming to be based directly on Dragon capsules. So it's likely the actual living space will be less "austere" than originally suggested. However this begs the question of who's designing and building the living section landers because SpaceX sure isn't it and again who (and when) is paying for all this? Another thing that bothers me about Mars One is the use of buzzwords such as "inflatable living section" with no actual substance or applicable design suggestions. Getting at least some basic ideas and concepts is going to cost money though and I suspect that's a major problem for Mars One.

They've talked to several companies but since little or no cash has been exchanged for detailed design studies all there are at this point is assumptions.

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The rover alone, considering all the tasks it's going to need to be capable of, will have to be big. It will require a Heavy Launch Vehicle or a Superheavy Launch Vehicle to get to mars.

Eh, well the rover is my most pressing concern at the moment as the Demo and Com-Sat mission can be flown with what amounts to "off the shelf" systems. Frankly, Mars One is at it's lowest credibility level at here since they haven't even TALKED to the relevant companies on what's needed or required. Most telling is they haven't talked to any companies that have actually done some work in the areas they are requiring :)

Flat out they should be exchanging emails and phone calls with Caterpillar (or the European equivalent thereof, but Cat has already given presentation on work they have done which I haven't seen from anywhere else) over the rover design. Cat has gotten as far as testing various lubricant's and fluids for use in "space" conditions and lets face facts this "rover" is going to be MUCH more 'tractor' than anything previously seen or designed.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/04/2016 05:56 pm
While I don't think Mars One will be able to generate the funds for their mission, I do think they can have a positive contribution by funding studies on the details of their concept. More research on how to live on Mars is needed and funding is in short supply.

I'm not sure that the amount of money they have is significant enough to cover detailed study of the issues :) They DO have the ability to fund research "outside-the-box" of usual methods which could be a plus. On the converse side it's less likely that those pursing more conventional research will actually pay any attention to the results because of that fact :)

On the gripping-hand, Mars One could have opportunities to receive funding for non-conventional research in certain areas if they were willing to try those routes. (Suggest anyone wondering what I'm blathering about see "Scaling Agriculture on Mars" for suggestions)
Post as an example:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35877.msg1484466#msg1484466

Like I noted in that thread there's a tendency to over-do the technology and difficulty of such experiments in order to produce "more valid" data when the actual data you need is less dependent on expensive (and expansive) experimental set ups.

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Mars One can also help in promoting manned spaceflight to the general public.

They could also "demote" manned spaceflight in the eyes of the general public if they don't come through or are seen as "failing" to be credible don't forget :)

The main issue is what constitutes "failure" or non-performance in the public eye which of course is HUGLY subjective.

In perception the basic model of Mars One seems to be based on a flawed premises, (though one that it often brought up or suggested as being viable so it's not like they are alone in believing their own PR :) ) in that the "public" will pay vast amounts to "participate" through visual or other media in some grand event.

It's true that they public will in fact do this, but it must be kept in mind that they will do so ONLY under certain circumstances and WITH certain expectations that are not necessarily in-line with space exploration in general and colonization in particular.

The examples cited on the Mars One website are telling:
http://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/what-is-the-mars-one-business-model

Yes millions around the world watched Apollo-11, but vastly fewer watched Apollo-12 and even fewer Apollo-13 until the accident happened. "Colonization" is going to be watching a few (4 initially) people walking around on Mars in space suits which will be "exciting" for about a week if you're lucky. Then it's once a week "highlights" and monthly "updates" unless something "exciting" (which usually is NOT a good thing for the people it's happening to) happens. By the time the second crew arrives it's most likely no one will "pay" to watch it happen and will simply wait till someone updates their facebook page after arrival.

The Olympics? Well thank you Los Angeles (1984) for breaking most of the traditions and actually generating a "profit" for the first time in Olympic history. Yes London generated a bunch of profits for companies that participated but that's with a four year build up of world wide interest in an event that hundreds of thousands of people could actually attend (where a majority of the "profits" were made actually, in place) and millions more could watch live and edited on TV and for which almost NO ONE paid to do. Broadcast rights and sponsorship opportunities for three weeks of constant, high level, (world class actually) athletic competition being compared to landing on Mars for what may or may not be the "first" time and then being able to "broadcast' the activity day-in and day-out of the "crew" on the surface?

This along with the reservation to Mars One of the "intellectual property rights" of the crews is what makes a lot of people leery about Mars One overall and their business plan specifically. They are assuming that because it is a "world-changing" event there will be world wide a very high percentage of people who will be willing to pay for and continue paying for the "privilege" to watch it all happen live on TV. There's actually no support for that proposal and neither of the "examples" can be shown to be applicable for more than (for example) a month of revenue. If that.

Then there is the "investment" angle which is based on the idea of investors "owning" a piece of the mission by investing so much money. The above mentioned "revenue" streams are to not only continue to fund the support and expansion of the Mars One colony but also to pay-back those investments with an assured "return on investment" which is questionable on several levels and not just financially. Really the people who "invest" in Mars One are going to be doing so WITHOUT any expectation of ROI because there's no real case to be made for there being one.

I understand WHY they are 'selling' the program the way they are but I'm also aware that the reasoning and justification are more than a little flawed and expecting large sums to be invested for the supposed 'ROI' is more than likely to backfire with negative results for perception by the general public.
On the other hand I don't see any other way to "sell" the idea short of a set of angle investors but it seems most that are willing to do so have other ideas or concepts they are backing.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/04/2016 08:18 pm
...
I don't see a group who are saying the word scam is bad but the project is doomed....
That would be me.

I do object to losing the context of the one phrase you quoted from my post - so I do wish people would click on the link and go back to my post for the 3 groups I had seen claiming that the word "scam" was bad back in August. It took you long enough to rebut me!

So to answer your subsequent post:

"They're a scam who you shouldn't give money to unless they raise a whole bunch of money and then they aren't a scam."
...sounds like a sort of circular reasoning.

They can't raise money because they can't raise money.

...does anyone else see the weird irony here?

Honestly, I don't think it's an elaborate scam precisely because it's not successful.

It is or it isn't a scam based on either intent, or, like the cannibals and human sacrificers I mentioned, because the delusion they are under can hurt people and that in itself is wrong.

But if you believe that their project is doomed do you still object to the word scam because you believe their hearts are pure?
"pure hearts" is a weird way to put it, but sure.

Just because you think it has essentially zero hope of success is no reason to call it a scam. Scam implies intent to deceive,although for some dumb reason people have started using it to describe everything which in their mind is super over-optimistic.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 02/04/2016 08:36 pm

But if you believe that their project is doomed do you still object to the word scam because you believe their hearts are pure?
"pure hearts" is a weird way to put it, but sure.

Just because you think it has essentially zero hope of success is no reason to call it a scam. Scam implies intent to deceive,although for some dumb reason people have started using it to describe everything which in their mind is super over-optimistic.

Ok, do you believe it is "obvious" that their plan is doomed (that is that by now, it is obvious to them)? If so then even if their hearts were pure when it started, Mars One is now a sinecure that they pretend they still feel the same about?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/04/2016 09:59 pm

But if you believe that their project is doomed do you still object to the word scam because you believe their hearts are pure?
"pure hearts" is a weird way to put it, but sure.

Just because you think it has essentially zero hope of success is no reason to call it a scam. Scam implies intent to deceive,although for some dumb reason people have started using it to describe everything which in their mind is super over-optimistic.

Ok, do you believe it is "obvious" that their plan is doomed (that is that by now, it is obvious to them)? If so then even if their hearts were pure when it started, Mars One is now a sinecure that they pretend they still feel the same about?

Ok we're not being very productive on the thread with this stuff but I'd like to point out that if the criteria was "obviously" doomed to not work or be implemented then "scam" would apply to the Mars Society, Mars for Less,  and any and all previous Mars colony plans...

Because people gave their money and support to something that was at some point "obviously" not going to work to the original proposers which isn't even actually "obvious" in the case of Mars One. Highly optimistic? Aren't they all, but that in no way makes them a "scam" by any definition. Shaky funding? Yes usually based on the "highly optimistic" planning and hype but again, no scam. Unclear architecture with few firm technology or planning commitments? Again, show me any that don't fall at some point into this category but you still won't meet the criteria for it being a scam.

So in the end "scam" is a personal opinion due to not being optimistic or even believing that the original proposal is possible and being "proved" right by current effort and/or funding rather than by an actual definition of the word and it's meaning. Got it.

Now can we actually DICUSS the concept and get over our selves?

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: nadreck on 02/04/2016 10:20 pm
I should probably un-install tapatalk from my phone as it keeps notifying me when I am quoted even if my post was from last August.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/04/2016 11:29 pm
Im fairly certain Mars One, if it somehow got full funding now, would likely be using an obsolete set of hardware by the time they would actually land anyone. They're reliant on SpaceX for launch and for landing and their hab modules, and SpaceX plans to have something much better by the time Mars One would land.

(SpaceX succeeding in this is not guaranteed, but is more likely than Mars One at this point.)

So I expect Mars One would modify their architecture drastically.

...if SpaceX is fully successful (forgetting timeline for the moment), then I think Mars One's business case of filming a reality TV show on Mars is much more realistic, though also much less groundbreaking.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 02/04/2016 11:39 pm
...if SpaceX is fully successful (forgetting timeline for the moment), then I think Mars One's business case of filming a reality TV show on Mars is much more realistic, though also much less groundbreaking.

That's an interesting idea. If SpaceX's coverage of Mars colonization is at all as amateurish as their launch coverage (or as boring as NASA tv) then there's an opportunity there for a professional production. Suppose booking an entire MCT launch costs $50M (that seems so stupid now, but it's approximately the price that Elon has quoted already), plus wages for crew and supplies, that's not a terribly unrealistic budget.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 02/05/2016 01:40 am
Welcome Astro_Osk :)

Flat out they should be exchanging emails and phone calls with Caterpillar (or the European equivalent thereof, but Cat has already given presentation on work they have done which I haven't seen from anywhere else) over the rover design. Cat has gotten as far as testing various lubricant's and fluids for use in "space" conditions and lets face facts this "rover" is going to be MUCH more 'tractor' than anything previously seen or designed.

Randy

Thank you for the welcome--you make some excellent points.  With respect to your Caterpillar comments, I will ask Mars One if they can disclose any past, present or planned outreach to Cat (or equivalent) as potential rover partner.  I'll let you know if they have a response!
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/05/2016 03:39 pm
Im fairly certain Mars One, if it somehow got full funding now, would likely be using an obsolete set of hardware by the time they would actually land anyone. They're reliant on SpaceX for launch and for landing and their hab modules, and SpaceX plans to have something much better by the time Mars One would land.

(SpaceX succeeding in this is not guaranteed, but is more likely than Mars One at this point.)

So I expect Mars One would modify their architecture drastically.

They are assuming at this point using the Falcon Heavy and modifications of the Dragon (still showing the "supposed" version of the landing Dragon from the Red Dragon concept but the actual wording has changed quite a bit) for the basis of their "landers" but they have actually changed several of the detail points in their descriptions.
Link to "Technology Overview" for example:
http://www.mars-one.com/technology

But yes they will be required to make some "hard" decisions in the near future, for as you said SpaceX succeeding (or more specifically doing so in a manner that meets the timeline of Mars One) isn't a given. I can see how they are trying to keep their options open in most respects but they specifically tie themselves to the Falcon Heavy which is problematical. (Not to mention they haven't updated the specifics either; "The Falcon Heavy is slated to undergo test flights in 2014, granting ample time for fine-tuning prior to the Mars One missions." Which considering their first mission is to be launched in 2020 (4 years from now) SHOULD have had SOME impact on their schedule and operations you'd think :)

I suspect the main issue is the lose of confidence if they begin to seriously (and publicly) push their timetable back in order to embrace MCT as a base line. (IIRC it's not supposed to be ready to even test by 2020, and probably wouldn't be ready to actually go to Mars before 2024/2025 with 'paying' passengers. Depending on the specifics which haven't come out yet it might be closer to 2030 as a Mars One "first crew" target which is well past the "scheduled" arrival of Crew 2 under the Mars One timetable) But I seriously don't see an alternative either since Falcon-9/Falcon-Heavy, and the Dragon will be on the way or already mostly retired so the only applicable missions are the precursor and rover missions. (In general the actually "capability" of the Falcon-Heavy was butterflied away in the roadmap by the use of the "Mars Transit Vehicle" {http://www.mars-one.com/technology/mars-transit-vehicle} but that brings up it's own problems which haven't been addressed yet :) )

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...if SpaceX is fully successful (forgetting timeline for the moment), then I think Mars One's business case of filming a reality TV show on Mars is much more realistic, though also much less groundbreaking.

As QuantumG noted that's an interesting idea but I suspect it will be MORE "groundbreaking" than you seem to think as SpaceX isn't going to be doing anything as detailed. Weren't they supposed to do a reality TV show around the training process as well?

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/05/2016 03:50 pm
If SpaceX fails, what hope does Mars One have?

Nothing closes without the capability and cost of SpaceX. Blue Origin might work, but aren't working on a cheap Mars landing compatible vehicle like SpaceX is, and don't seem particularly focused on Mars.

It's SpaceX or bust for Mars One.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/05/2016 03:50 pm
Welcome Astro_Osk :)

Flat out they should be exchanging emails and phone calls with Caterpillar (or the European equivalent thereof, but Cat has already given presentation on work they have done which I haven't seen from anywhere else) over the rover design. Cat has gotten as far as testing various lubricant's and fluids for use in "space" conditions and lets face facts this "rover" is going to be MUCH more 'tractor' than anything previously seen or designed.

Randy

Thank you for the welcome--you make some excellent points.

Hopefully we can discuss them at length :)

Quote
With respect to your Caterpillar comments, I will ask Mars One if they can disclose any past, present or planned outreach to Cat (or equivalent) as potential rover partner.  I'll let you know if they have a response!

Thanks!

As noted Caterpillar is the only company that's done any in-house work on modifying their equipment for use in space, and while I understand there are other companies that design and produce "rovers" what is being asked of the Mars One rover is much more akin to something you'd see from Caterpillar (Bobcat really since hey have off-the-shelf remote and automation options but I'm sure there are companies in Europe as well) than say the makers of MSL or Curiosity.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/05/2016 04:13 pm
If SpaceX fails, what hope does Mars One have?

Nothing closes without the capability and cost of SpaceX. Blue Origin might work, but aren't working on a cheap Mars landing compatible vehicle like SpaceX is, and don't seem particularly focused on Mars.

It's SpaceX or bust for Mars One.

Not at all actually which is the point I was making about keeping the options open :)

Mars One (and most Mars colony plans barring the Mars Society base line) are less tied to an individual architecture and/or plan but to certain requirements which are often addressed in the outline planning with actual or assumed near-term vehicles. Mars One choose the Falcon-Heavy for it's described capabilities and cost to Earth orbit for their major payloads, NOT to Mars. They have the Mars Transit Vehicle for that.

Overall that architecture will not be as cheap or efficient as the MCT is supposed to be, but it also doesn't actually REQUIRE SpaceX to be successful in developing the MCT. If something happens to MCT (delays or outright failure to successfully develop the architecture) then the combination of Falcon Heavy and Modified Dragon coupled with a dedicated MTV are there to take up the slack.

The sticking point is if they "go" with MCT then they ARE stuck with SpaceX succeeding or their whole plan failing AND the fact that they have to push everything back significantly. It would appear to be a safer bet to continue with the FH/Dragon/MTV architecture until there is far less doubt about the future of MTC and it's costs. I say appears because I don't actually see that as being the "safe" bet due to the amount of money and resources that Mars One will have to commit very soon (which they obviously don't have) under that scenario compared to the less "firm" but far more capable and cost effective MCT architecture.

Again though if they do that they WILL be "stuck" with whatever SpaceX comes up with and will be totally dependent on SpaceX succeeding (and meeting all it's goals/criteria which I should mention) to have any chance of success.

As folks keep pointing out, if SpaceX's current course is the success they and their fans expect it to be then all other aerospace companies will have to adapt or die, and the odds have always been radically higher that they will adapt rather than concede to SpaceX which in turn means that overall costs of getting into orbit on a regular basis will therefore drop. If Mars One doesn't fully commit to MCT or a SpaceX derived architecture then their options become much better down the line, except as I've noted they have far to tight a timetable to actually pull that off.

Anyway "I" look at it the only viable option I see for Mars One involves having their timetable significantly altered for the major milestones UNLESS they actually manage to raise a couple of billion dollars in funding in the next few years. If they have to push back the major milestones then it would make sense to go either way on the architecture decision but to me it comes down to the capability and economics of the MCT.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/05/2016 04:20 pm
I didn't mean MCT, I meant Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy. Mars One clearly rely on those and there aren't any replacements that don't cost roughly an order of magnitude more.

However:

If SpaceX is fully successful with those, then the odds of SpaceX pursuing other elements is much higher. At that point, Mars One would just be better off being an early customer for that new system instead of piecing together parts of the old. That'd reduce costs by another order of magnitude and likely would make their sponsors feel a lot better since the "colonists" wouldn't be completely without hope of ever returning. It'd improve their business case on both sides, IMHO.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/05/2016 04:28 pm
Shorter: if SpaceX fails at Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 (which already have customers), Mars One is effectively sunk.

If SpaceX succeed at Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2, then SpaceX will certainly pursue something Raptor-based which will be far better and cheaper. Especially if SpaceX can find customers for that new system.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mfck on 02/05/2016 06:51 pm


...
 That'd reduce costs by another order of magnitude and likely would make their sponsors feel a lot better since the "colonists" wouldn't be completely without hope of ever returning. It'd improve their business case on both sides, IMHO.

Well, that strips Mars One as a reality show of its main promise: watching people die on Mars. I think the Showbiz sponsors won't appreciate that. Also, the return option complicates the risk assessment, operational and legal, into the indecisive territory... Not good for getting $Bs in investment. Mars One is not exploration contractor, it's an entertainment Production. They are better off with the no-return scenario.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/05/2016 07:45 pm
"Watching people die on Mars" was never part of their business plan, though it is a good troll.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: QuantumG on 02/05/2016 10:42 pm
"Watching people die on Mars" was never part of their business plan, though it is a good troll.

Although, if you've ever watched reality tv, there's going to be a lot of viewers hoping they do.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: mfck on 02/06/2016 02:03 am


"Watching people die on Mars" was never part of their business plan, though it is a good troll.

Although, if you've ever watched reality tv, there's going to be a lot of viewers hoping they do.



It's their only hope to have a decent show - let people die. No deaths - no show. No other device to keep the viewers and make ROI. The audience that made this whole idea look like it can make some business sense is not your average STEM poster child ;)

...nuf said.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/06/2016 02:36 am
This is a morbid kind of trolling. I also don't think it's accurate.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Barrie on 02/06/2016 02:50 am
I think they will need jeopardy.    In a conventional reality show it's just egos in jeopardy, but in this case it will be lives as well.

But it doesn't need to come to the worst to make a show.  Far from it - no more people, no more show.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: The Amazing Catstronaut on 02/06/2016 07:17 pm


Like who for example? SpaceX isn't developing a "colony" or settlement they are working towards a transportation system with some possible on-site crew requirements. The Mars Society is fixated on some form of "Mars Direct" which itself is predicated on significant government involvement without which it can't be accomplished. There aren't any other groups that I am aware of that are both actively working on and/or have "significantly larger" funding colony design and testing projects let alone actual development projects.



Mars Polar has more financial resources, but Mars One has accomplished more.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Saage on 02/07/2016 09:41 am


Like who for example? SpaceX isn't developing a "colony" or settlement they are working towards a transportation system with some possible on-site crew requirements. The Mars Society is fixated on some form of "Mars Direct" which itself is predicated on significant government involvement without which it can't be accomplished. There aren't any other groups that I am aware of that are both actively working on and/or have "significantly larger" funding colony design and testing projects let alone actual development projects.





Then you also have these guys: http://pioneer-city.com/

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MP99 on 02/07/2016 11:08 am
I should probably un-install tapatalk from my phone as it keeps notifying me when I am quoted even if my post was from last August.
Bit drastic. Just turn off notifications.

Cheers, Martin
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Astro_Osk on 02/08/2016 09:56 pm
Welcome Astro_Osk :)

Flat out they should be exchanging emails and phone calls with Caterpillar (or the European equivalent thereof, but Cat has already given presentation on work they have done which I haven't seen from anywhere else) over the rover design. Cat has gotten as far as testing various lubricant's and fluids for use in "space" conditions and lets face facts this "rover" is going to be MUCH more 'tractor' than anything previously seen or designed.

Randy

Thank you for the welcome--you make some excellent points.

Hopefully we can discuss them at length :)

Quote
With respect to your Caterpillar comments, I will ask Mars One if they can disclose any past, present or planned outreach to Cat (or equivalent) as potential rover partner.  I'll let you know if they have a response!

Thanks!

As noted Caterpillar is the only company that's done any in-house work on modifying their equipment for use in space, and while I understand there are other companies that design and produce "rovers" what is being asked of the Mars One rover is much more akin to something you'd see from Caterpillar (Bobcat really since hey have off-the-shelf remote and automation options but I'm sure there are companies in Europe as well) than say the makers of MSL or Curiosity.

Randy

I know Mars One had some initial contact with Astrobotics concerning a rover, but perhaps they did not reach out to Cat.  This is the first I've heard Cat working on off-world construction equipment, so maybe I'm not the only one.  Very interesting to know, however.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/09/2016 01:43 pm
"Watching people die on Mars" was never part of their business plan, though it is a good troll.

Although, if you've ever watched reality tv, there's going to be a lot of viewers hoping they do.

This is a morbid kind of trolling. I also don't think it's accurate.

QG: Not "hoping" but there is a human fascination with the subject. Really though people tune in to see conflict, struggle, and more people get interested in "triumph" than despair and destruction.

RB: It's morbid yes, but people tune in to see the conflict and personalities than blood and guts.

I think they will need jeopardy.    In a conventional reality show it's just egos in jeopardy, but in this case it will be lives as well.

But it doesn't need to come to the worst to make a show.  Far from it - no more people, no more show.

Exactly it. The show needs "conflict" of some sort. Obstacles to overcome, the higher the stake the better but in general people prefer to see a positive outcome rather than a negative one.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/09/2016 02:19 pm
I know Mars One had some initial contact with Astrobotics concerning a rover, but perhaps they did not reach out to Cat.  This is the first I've heard Cat working on off-world construction equipment, so maybe I'm not the only one.  Very interesting to know, however.

It was my understanding that Astrobotics was going to work on site surveying rover(s) rather than the main construction/work rover but it would be good to hear more. I heard about the Cat presentation from a report on one of the space conferences several years ago. The presenter talked about possible modifications for off-Earth use and Caterpillar internal work on vacuum capable lubricant's and other seriously mundane but highly important "support" factors for off-Earth construction and digging equipment. Never could find a summery or on-line information though.

My main point though is that the "rover" that Mars One is suggesting is really nothing like any "rover" that has ever been launched before and it is much more akin to a piece of construction and "earth" moving equipment. (I'm also going to question a single rover being capable of doing all the things they want it to do. Specifically both searching for, finding, then surveying a specific colony site then doing all the preliminary construction and "earth" moving work which can include demolishing and moving rocks and debris from the primary site, grading, possibly trenching and other activities. On the scale required, this unit has to move landers on a trailer as well, you're looking at something the size and power of a Bobcat at least. That's VERY different from any "rover" previously even considered)

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/09/2016 02:54 pm
I didn't mean MCT, I meant Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy. Mars One clearly rely on those and there aren't any replacements that don't cost roughly an order of magnitude more.

However:

If SpaceX is fully successful with those, then the odds of SpaceX pursuing other elements is much higher. At that point, Mars One would just be better off being an early customer for that new system instead of piecing together parts of the old. That'd reduce costs by another order of magnitude and likely would make their sponsors feel a lot better since the "colonists" wouldn't be completely without hope of ever returning. It'd improve their business case on both sides, IMHO.

FH and Dragon 2(manned) aren't scheduled to fly till mid-2016 and maybe 2017 respectively. The former will be three years behind the schedule of Mars One and any improved version will be further down the line even if Mars One doesn't need any modifications themselves. The latter is and always was only a "base-line" and not a firm fixture as it would be unable to support the Mars One plan without significant design modifications which would make no longer anything like a "Dragon 2" and again, "improved" models won't be available for the schedule Mars One is proposing.

In general, other than using the FH and various improved mods for launching probes, comm-sats, and exploratory rovers I can't see how Mars One can maintain their suggested schedule even if SpaceX has no further delays in reaching operational status with the required hardware. If they have to push back anyway, why not go the whole way and plan everything around the capabilities of the BFR and MCT?

I personally don't see this happening and assume Mars One will continue to plan towards the more "near-term" FH and "not-a-Dragon-2" because they are closer to operational status. The heavy limitations on per mission capability though are worrying.

As for costs well while anyone else would be more expensive the overall plan of Mars One is basically about access to LEO for the most part with some direct interplanetary missions so anyone who can get them to LEO is acceptable even if it costs more. Money is always going to be a sticking point no matter which route you take.

Shorter: if SpaceX fails at Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 (which already have customers), Mars One is effectively sunk.

Not at all. They plan a reusable Mars Transfer Vehicle for the manned missions and while anyone else would be more expensive, the mission architecture is NOT tied to SpaceX other by reference.

Quote
If SpaceX succeed at Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2, then SpaceX will certainly pursue something Raptor-based which will be far better and cheaper. Especially if SpaceX can find customers for that new system.

"Far better and cheaper" isn't as clear cut as that actually and again it won't be available "soon" enough under the circumstances. Further, if SpaceX/Elon is at all in the ball park for BFR/MCT and their transportation architecture, then IT will be even "better-and-cheaper" so the incentive would appear to be to wait for it to come on-line.

But Mars One is about getting it done "sooner" by assuming more near-term capability which would preclude planning around any advanced version of the FH since, as noted, the FH itself is almost three years behind their schedule as it is.

Randy

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/09/2016 02:57 pm
Mars Polar has more financial resources, but Mars One has accomplished more.

Have to look them up since my current browser won't display that page, care to give a summery?

Then you also have these guys: http://pioneer-city.com/

Same?

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/09/2016 05:50 pm
RanulfC: Dragon 2 is the only Dragon that can possibly land on Mars. Dragon 1 has no way to do so.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/09/2016 08:18 pm
RanulfC: Dragon 2 is the only Dragon that can possibly land on Mars. Dragon 1 has no way to do so.

Dragon 2 will in no way WORK for Mars One as a "living" lander, marginally (at best) as a basis for the Life Support modules and limited (at best) as a cargo lander. Mars One still uses (which makes sense they are paid for) what appear to be "Red Dragon/Dragon-1-with-propulsion" landers for illustration but the descriptions and information on the site make it clear that the Dragon in fact won't be what they use or what they are planning.

To get what they need at any level they would have to pay SpaceX to heavily modify the basic Dragon-2 design and which SpaceX won't do UNLESS someone pays them. (And lets keep in mind that word "possibly" as we're still not clear that it has that capability in it's standard form :) )

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/10/2016 12:05 am
Dragon 2 IS Dragon 1 with propulsive landing. There is no other.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/10/2016 06:10 pm
Dragon 2 IS Dragon 1 with propulsive landing. There is no other.

Missing the point, and not relevant either. Mars One isn't going to use Dragon although they show it in the illustrations. Without major modifications, (serious enough it won't be a "Dragon" anymore) it won't work for their needs. It was/is a place-holder for the system they are planning.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/10/2016 11:30 pm
A couple of years ago we got the Lockheed Martin study for their Mars lander. Did we ever get to see the Surrey Space study for their Mars orbiter?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/10/2016 11:57 pm
Dragon 2 IS Dragon 1 with propulsive landing. There is no other.

Missing the point, and not relevant either. Mars One isn't going to use Dragon although they show it in the illustrations. Without major modifications, (serious enough it won't be a "Dragon" anymore) it won't work for their needs. It was/is a place-holder for the system they are planning.

Randy

You are being misled by the fact that the first graphics of Dragon 2 showing up in CGI looked a lot more like a Dragon 1, just like the first vertical-landing Falcon 9 first stage CGI looked a lot more like a v1.0 stage with fold-out legs. There is no vertical-landing variant of v1.0 with fold-out legs, there is only v1.1 and now Full Thrust. There is no "Red Mars" variant of Dragon 1 with propulsion, there is ONLY Dragon 2.

Mars One was NOT expecting to add that propulsion themselves, they were expecting to use the propulsive landing Dragons that SpaceX is already building, i.e. the Dragon 2.

I'm not "missing the point." They aren't going to make their own custom lander (which would require way more money), their plan was to modify Dragon 2 (which looked like a Dragon 1 in SpaceX's initial graphics, which Mars One basically copied) to use as a hab. You might think that it'd require essentially a new lander, but the fact remains:

If SpaceX doesn't get Dragon 2 (and Falcon Heavy) working, Mars One is essentially stuck. To replicate such capabilities from whole cloth or to hire the usual aerospace primes to do it for them would cost billions of dollars more than their budget (which is already a complete work of fiction).

So either SpaceX is able to get Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy, in which case they'd probably successfully go beyond that (with SpaceX likely developing a reusable upper stage that could be made to land a much larger payload on Mars), or SpaceX will fail and Mars One will be stuck without a way to land on Mars without a ridiculous amount of money.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 02/11/2016 05:30 am
I thought Mars One mentioned using a 5m version of Dragon which SpaceX will not develop unless buried under a big pile of money. My recollection may be wrong. But I think they mentioned that 5m Dragon at a time when early EDL calculations showed only 1t payload capacity. Dragon is now at 2t according to newer calculations which is what they may have expected from the 5m version. That leaves transfer in the smaller Dragon for 4 people as a very uncomfortable transport mode. But given that transfer is much shorter than the Inspiration Mars roundtrip maybe not completely impossible.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Hotblack Desiato on 02/11/2016 09:31 am
I don't know, how solid the rumors about this FH raptor US are, but if those 5.2m diameter are true, would it make sense für SX to develop a dragon 2 XL that fits on said US?

For those in orbit operations that require 7-15 people somewhere around LEO, but not the capacity of a full MCT.

Mars One still couldn't possibly know about that dragon version, since they showed those CGIs immediately after they went public with their plan.

(I think, such a Dragon 2XL would require its own thread, and so far I've heard nothing about such a craft. It just makes sense to me to have a capsule with a similar diameter compared to the US).
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: The Amazing Catstronaut on 02/11/2016 02:10 pm
Mars Polar has more financial resources, but Mars One has accomplished more.

Have to look them up since my current browser won't display that page, care to give a summery?

Then you also have these guys: http://pioneer-city.com/

Same?

Randy

Mars Polar is an organisation lead by two Russians, based in the UAE (they have offices there too apparently). Beautiful website design but a lot of borrowed hardware graphics mixed in with their own. Site is oculus rift compatible in some sections, intriguingly. They intend to set up a polar Mars colony, hence the name. Their reasons for going to mars seem rather Muskite crossed with Zubrinite. They're based in a particularly pricey part of a particularly pricey city, which infers they have some cash to play with. They advocate a Mars Direct style architecture. They intend to build their own launch site and haven't fully fleshed out their ideas yet. They're rendered 3D models of their spaceship design - modular, minimal, conventional, chemical, to be short. They intend to aerobrake the whole ship. They've given out a lot of detailed mass figures - I'd need more info to know if they're suspect or not, but they certainly have a plan of some kind.

They want volunteers and crowdfunding. Crowdfunding isn't going to get them to Mars, but every bit helps I guess.



Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/11/2016 03:53 pm
You are being misled by the fact that the first graphics of Dragon 2 showing up in CGI looked a lot more like a Dragon 1, just like the first vertical-landing Falcon 9 first stage CGI looked a lot more like a v1.0 stage with fold-out legs. There is no vertical-landing variant of v1.0 with fold-out legs, there is only v1.1 and now Full Thrust. There is no "Red Mars" variant of Dragon 1 with propulsion, there is ONLY Dragon 2.

Mars One was NOT expecting to add that propulsion themselves, they were expecting to use the propulsive landing Dragons that SpaceX is already building, i.e. the Dragon 2.

Not being "misled" at all. the Mars One Graphics show a version of the proposed Red Dragon as a crew capsule which we all know wasn't "real" at any point. However the description(s) of the habitat landers has radically changed and is now not compatible with using a Dragon 2 capsule.

Quote
I'm not "missing the point." They aren't going to make their own custom lander (which would require way more money), their plan was to modify Dragon 2 (which looked like a Dragon 1 in SpaceX's initial graphics, which Mars One basically copied) to use as a hab.

Actually they have no choice, their planning called for such as the Dragon (in any form) wasn't going to be capable of being used for what they wanted to use it for.

Quote
You might think that it'd require essentially a new lander, but the fact remains:

If SpaceX doesn't get Dragon 2 (and Falcon Heavy) working, Mars One is essentially stuck. To replicate such capabilities from whole cloth or to hire the usual aerospace primes to do it for them would cost billions of dollars more than their budget (which is already a complete work of fiction).

They contracted Lockheed Martin to design "unmanned" landers already so it's not a stretch to see them doing so for their manned and life support modules as well. Cost? Yes it would but that's rather beside the point in that not even SpaceX is "planning" on using the Dragon to get to Mars for the (also rather obvious) reason that Dragon (even Dragon 2) is not a viable Mars landing craft. Especially for manned missions.

Quote
So either SpaceX is able to get Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy, in which case they'd probably successfully go beyond that (with SpaceX likely developing a reusable upper stage that could be made to land a much larger payload on Mars), or SpaceX will fail and Mars One will be stuck without a way to land on Mars without a ridiculous amount of money.

Your "logic" here is neither supported by anything we know nor the anything we've heard from SpaceX. A "reusable" upper stage for EARTH is not going to be all that useful for Mars operations, and unless SpaceX totally changes their architecture with the upcoming announcement is not at all in line with their plans anyway. In general Mars One can always use the higher capability of an advanced FH and upper stage but who can't? The main issue at this point, and as I keep noting their time-line is probably un-achievable so the question becomes do they stick with the lower and less economical FH based architecture or do they become early adopters of the MCT architecture and accept the significant revisions to their time line that implies?

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 02/11/2016 04:29 pm
... Cost? Yes it would but that's rather beside the point in that not even SpaceX is "planning" on using the Dragon to get to Mars for the (also rather obvious) reason that Dragon (even Dragon 2) is not a viable Mars landing craft.
...
Factually incorrect.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 02/11/2016 04:46 pm
Mars Polar is an organisation lead by two Russians, based in the UAE (they have offices there too apparently). Beautiful website design but a lot of borrowed hardware graphics mixed in with their own. Site is oculus rift compatible in some sections, intriguingly. They intend to set up a polar Mars colony, hence the name. Their reasons for going to mars seem rather Muskite crossed with Zubrinite. They're based in a particularly pricey part of a particularly pricey city, which infers they have some cash to play with. They advocate a Mars Direct style architecture. They intend to build their own launch site and haven't fully fleshed out their ideas yet. They're rendered 3D models of their spaceship design - modular, minimal, conventional, chemical, to be short. They intend to aerobrake the whole ship. They've given out a lot of detailed mass figures - I'd need more info to know if they're suspect or not, but they certainly have a plan of some kind.

They want volunteers and crowdfunding. Crowdfunding isn't going to get them to Mars, but every bit helps I guess.

Ok that actually rings some bells as I seem to recall there were a lot of questions over where they had gotten their financing for the stuff they have and who (if anyone) they were consulting or getting information from. IIRC this one popped up around the same time a video showing a proposed Mars probe mission funded by Arab nations was being shown around.
I'll have to check it out.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 09/28/2016 08:08 pm
So when Mars One came up with their idea, their proposal was based on a bunch of Dragon vehicles transporting people to the Martian surface and serving as living quarters - a very dicey proposition - because that was the only real-world equipment available for them to base their proposal on.

But now that Musk has announced the Interplanetary Transport System and put that on the table, would it be possible for Mars One to revise their plans to now base them on this newly available platform?

If they do choose to do this, then what kinds of proposals might they come up with, as an improvement over their previous idea?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 09/29/2016 02:15 pm
So when Mars One came up with their idea, their proposal was based on a bunch of Dragon vehicles transporting people to the Martian surface and serving as living quarters - a very dicey proposition - because that was the only real-world equipment available for them to base their proposal on.

But now that Musk has announced the Interplanetary Transport System and put that on the table, would it be possible for Mars One to revise their plans to now base them on this newly available platform?

If they do choose to do this, then what kinds of proposals might they come up with, as an improvement over their previous idea?

From a purely technical standpoint, using the ITS as their main habitat (so not having it return) would seem to be the best way to go. Economically as well: send people that don't want to come back and have them erect the infrastructure to relaunch future ITS's. (fuel production and storage, power plants if they're going solar, landing pad so you don't risk damaging the ITS's, and infrastructure to get voluminous objects in and out of them without having to design the ITS itself to facilitate that). At that point, a first Martian colony has maximized the measurable value it can provide (at an early stage): facilitating future Mars missions so their cost drops enormously. I'm not saying they'll break even though.

So no more magical rovers, less impossibly tight supplies, considerably more room to live in, potential for radiation protection. The ship is designed for a 100 people, so if the idea remains to send a skeleton crew - not necessarily exactly four - there's plenty of room to add the now missing radiation protection, etc.

This answer tackles the most important technical problems I see with both Mars One and ITS. It remains however a very, very challenging undertaking that will require an enormous amount of money.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 10/03/2016 11:39 am
ITS changes things so much for the better for Mars One.  First launch is a cargo ship full of ISRU equipment, water mining gear, sh*t loads of solar panels, inflatable structures and bulk consumables.  Two weeks later a crew version, fitted out as a habitat for 12 crew, essentially three of the 4 person teams already in training.
This craft is provisioned to enable it to swing by Mars on a free return trajectory if the cargo lander fails to report a safe landing.

If all is OK then the crew lands,, unloads the cargo, sets up ISRU and power to produce air, water and methalox.
They then spend the next two years setting up the infrastructure, habitats, greenhouses etc as per the original plan in preparation for the arrival of the next dozen or so settlers and their precursor cargo drop on the next synod.  By that time the ISRU plant will have made enough propellant for, hopefully, the 2 cargo and the second crew ship to return in that same synod.

The first crew lander/hab could stay as a monument to the first landing or an emergency lifeboat if required.  It could even be used to hop around the planet surveying sites for new settlements.

IMHO of course.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 10/03/2016 11:45 am
With this architecture Mars One would get 24 or more persons on Mars, with all their gear as well, in just 2 synods as against 10 or more as per the previous timeline.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Star One on 10/03/2016 02:11 pm
I can't believe people are still taking this project seriously. It's clear nothing is going to happen.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/03/2016 03:06 pm
I can't believe people are still taking this project seriously. It's clear nothing is going to happen.

Agreed. But that doesn't mean we can't hypothesize about their architecture, does it? Every next iteration of the 'no return' mission design will be a little bit closer to drawing enough support to cover the remaining costs.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/03/2016 10:09 pm
ITS changes things so much for the better for Mars One.

I have to disagree. ITS is another system that is to far out for them to hit any of their goals on the time-line. And while it's capability is greatly in excess of what Mars One planned that's actually a problem since utilizing the ITS would require a full re-planning of the Mars One mission.

And frankly you can do better if you're going to go that route with a half-dozen OTHER Mars colony plans. Mars One brings literally nothing to the table except 24 possible colonists who no longer are going to be unique or stand out. They just have to afford a ticket which is all together probably going to be a lot less than trying to buy a mission or ITS.

Mars One was possible if improbable from the start. Now it has nothing really that makes it any more 'viable' than any other groups plan and a lot less than it had initially.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/03/2016 10:16 pm
I can't believe people are still taking this project seriously. It's clear nothing is going to happen.

Agreed. But that doesn't mean we can't hypothesize about their architecture, does it? Every next iteration of the 'no return' mission design will be a little bit closer to drawing enough support to cover the remaining costs.

Eh? Hypothesizing the architecture is always fun but Mars One has lost any opportunity to gain additional funding because of ITS unless they pretty immediately change all their plans. That is a move they haven't done yet in the face of their current situation and I highly doubt they are going to do so now.

Their original plan wasn't impossible, but it was improbable and they never made any significant changes to their plans as it was. The didn't fully engage SpaceX previously and I doubt they have done so any further since then so frankly their one chance of working with SpaceX to BE part of the initial missions is probably gone. As I said above at this point they could, in theory simply train their selected 'crews' and try and raise money to buy them rides and support from SpaceX but really their in no position to dictate any of the architecture.

I think ITS will have killed any chance they had of further funding.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/03/2016 11:16 pm
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ThereIWas3 on 10/03/2016 11:40 pm
The movie "Europa Report" is entirely made out of beamed back footage from a fictitious mission, plus interviews with Earthbound administrators.   It's very well done, once you catch on to the out of sequence parts and how to read the time code at the bottom.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 10/04/2016 07:08 am
I see your point Randy but I think the capabilities of ITS should make it easier to gain funding, not harder.  Agreed their timeline as planned is now out the window but once ITS is flying it will compress everything by a factor of 4 or 5 time wise.

I hope that they don't give up the idea but grow their plans to take advantage of the new capabilities on offer.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: rocx on 10/04/2016 07:28 am
I think if Mars One was serious about continuing their plans, they would have been following this forum and the subreddit, bought an L2 subscription to keep up to date with the latest scraps from Elon, so that they could have a new plan ready to present the day after Elon's IAC speech. They didn't.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/04/2016 08:13 am
OK, the What If game.

Assume they can raise an initial 1B $. Assume they do their own location. SpaceX probably won't want them colocated with their own base because one day the responsibility to keep them alive may fall in their lap. Mars One don't want to deal with the initial expense and complexity of flying back.

A one way ITS should cost maybe 300m $. Send two to set up the base. That leaves 400m for equipment and supplies. Supplies for 10 people and two synods, to be prepared for worst case are less than 100t. Solar panels, a greenhouse for fresh produce and oxygen. A tunnel from the ITS exit to the greenhouse. Some digging equipment for water ISRU, no need for a large amount of water like for fuel ISRU.

Should be a lot more doable than their first approach with Dragons. Needs at least 500m $ for one supply flight every synod to maintain and slowly grow the number of people to 50 with added greenhouse capacity. Building up fuel ISRU and switching to reusable ITS should bring the cost for sustaining the base down or enable growth.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/04/2016 04:49 pm
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.

The "reality" series was supposed to be the Earth bound training, they then "assumed" complete ownership of all media and communications from the 'colonists' once on Mars. That wasn't to produce a "reality" show but to ensure they gained all profits from anything the colonists might do on Mars.

There was no real plan for WHAT the colonists would do on Mars and the lack of on-site support and control would not allow production of the type of 'reality' show program that people watch. Ya, you'd get some interest in general summery and update shorts but not the sustained interest of what people consider a 'reality' show.

The movie "Europa Report" is entirely made out of beamed back footage from a fictitious mission, plus interviews with Earthbound administrators.   It's very well done, once you catch on to the out of sequence parts and how to read the time code at the bottom.

While "Europa Report" is a pretty standard 'found' (beamed) footage program it doesn't actually compare well with the reality show format. REAL life rarely does. In order to have a viable reality show you have to have on-site and constant overview, multiple cameras, (many mobile) and time enough to cut and re-sequence everything to make it 'viewable' to the general public. There isn't going to be the infrastructure or on-site support to make the "show" as anything other than a update and summery program. It won't be anything like the "Europa Report" or any reality show which is why they needed to raise the money BEFORE they go as numerous analysis showed there wasn't going to be much if any revenue stream from the media rights Mars One was going to have. (And there were in fact legal questions about how enforceable those "rights" were in fact going to be)

"Europa Report," "Apollo-18," and even the genre defining "Blair Witch Project" all had to VERY carefully and meticulously plan each and every scene to not only get a viable shot but to make it and the all the dialog and acting appear to be shot as "naturally" as possible. You don't get that with multiple fixed or mobile camera's in a "reality" setting which is why fixed camera segments are intercut with mobile camera and planned shots to flesh out the program. Mars One planned on using some fixed and some "rover" mounted cameras on Mars but they would have been inadequate to do more than generally document what was happening even using multiple camera's on the colonists suits.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/04/2016 06:13 pm
I see your point Randy but I think the capabilities of ITS should make it easier to gain funding, not harder.  Agreed their timeline as planned is now out the window but once ITS is flying it will compress everything by a factor of 4 or 5 time wise.

I hope that they don't give up the idea but grow their plans to take advantage of the new capabilities on offer.

The ITS, once it is much nearer to flying would make gaining funds by any serious organization easier, but the key word is serious. Having a plan beyond an Earth-based reality show following the trainee's would have helped, but Mars One's plans beyond the Earth-bound portion of the "plan" have always been quite nebulous at best. The fact they still haven't updated or changed their planned time-line despite there being no way for them to achieve their stated goals is and has always been telling. The fact they don't yet even acknowledge SpaceX's plans is even more so.

I would feel much better about their 'plans' if they had at least as much detail as say "Mars My Way," or "Mars4Less" or any of the dozen or so other Mars colonization organizations that have actually made more detailed plans for what to do once they GOT to Mars. There are many aspects that do not require a specific delivery system and infrastructure that could be 'tested' on Earth and there is no sign that Mars One is even interested in exploring those aspects. They should at this point have either arranged to share resources with the Mars Society to use either the Desert Research Station, (which is frankly the only facility they could afford) of planning their own analog station with a specific location and system planning in the advanced stages. There is no such activity which tells me they aren't serious because they are not looking past the suggested trainee reality show aspect and even THEN they are not planning on making any significant effort to "plan" an actual Mars colony effort.

Yes ITS should in fact cause significant shifts in their planning and development, but that would have included them initially actually planning to work with SpaceX on systems development and planning which they have not done.

This isn't a 'little' oversight either as any possibility of meeting their "roadmap";
http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap
Would have required that the astronaut training that begins in 2017 be as realistic and detailed as possible according to the "planned" deployment of the colony. There is no such plan in place even for the very 'basic' plan they have put forward so far. They do not look like they will have their "100-to-24" selection done by the beginning of 2017, and as I keep pointing out the training from there has to be based on building what amounts to the planned "colony" on Earth to practice and perfect it before doing it on a much more hostile and remote Mars. That requires a detailed and supported PLAN on which to base the training plan and which Mars One obviously lacks. And that lack HAS been obvious for quite a while which I suppose is one reason they have had a funding slow down.

What ITS does at this point is throw all of what little 'planning' Mars One has done so far into the trash unless they feel that SpaceX cannot actually deploy the ITS. (Always possible but even so they don't actually have a serious plan to go to Mars anyway)
ITS does in fact give Mars One a chance to redefine itself, in one aspect they can now avoid having to make serious Mars plans and concentrate more on simply "training" some "colonists" and trying to raise money to send them to Mars BUT that requires that Mars One significantly reduce it's established plans and schemes that so far have been fundamental to their Earth based planning. Mars One would have to consider that they can no longer monopolize media and intellectual rights of the 'colonists' if for no other reason than they will not in fact be paying as much as they planned to get them to and support them on Mars. (Under the original Mars One 'plan" Mars One controlled all access and communications with and to the colony and with ITS that will no longer be true. Further SpaceX wouldn't put up with such a plan and therefor Mars One will not have the degree of control over the colonist they planned)

In a way this makes the fund raising more direct as now Mars One only has a significantly smaller eventual "output" total of funding and they can simply concentrate on the one direct aspect, (colonists) that they actually have control of. But they now have little or no chance to exercise the amount of control over almost every other aspect they originally envisioned having. But at this point Mars One has to do something and soon as the possibility of the ITS means that others with a more coherent and detailed plan (or the ability to adapt one of the many already out there) can undercut everything Mars One has done so far and probably have a much better chance of gaining the funding Mars One is aiming for.

The more obvious and glaring flaws of the Mars One "plan" have been discussed here and other places numerous times and Mars One hasn't done anything to address most of them nor have they significantly changed their plans in any way to address them either. I fully expect they will neither take advantage of the capability that ITS might provide nor change their "plans" to do so for the simple reason I do not think they are serious about sending people to Mars in the first place. I will be pleasantly surprised to be wrong but as they haven't surprised me or shown they were actually serious by addressing the known issues/problems by changing or modifying their plans yet so I don't hold out much hope of that outcome.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/04/2016 06:59 pm
I think if Mars One was serious about continuing their plans, they would have been following this forum and the subreddit, bought an L2 subscription to keep up to date with the latest scraps from Elon, so that they could have a new plan ready to present the day after Elon's IAC speech. They didn't.

Well as much as "I" think these forums and others, (they don't follow any of the Mars related forums that I can tell) would be helpful it would take away from their control of the conversation which is frankly one of the aspects that has always made me pretty sure they weren't serious.

They should have at least acknowledged or mentioned the IAC speech by this point, again it seems to indicate a lack of seriousness. (Then again they should have been there and every other industry event as they SHOULD be shopping satellites at this point if only for "information" and planning purposes)

Not that following the forums, (even L2) would have done them much good as their "plan" isn't really detailed at this point and again that's not something that would be indicative of a serious effort so I would not expect any significant changes to what doesn't really exist.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/04/2016 07:46 pm
OK, the What If game.

I'll point out the problem is that Mars One doesn't seem to have done this game from the start :)

Quote
Assume they can raise an initial 1B $. Assume they do their own location. SpaceX probably won't want them colocated with their own base because one day the responsibility to keep them alive may fall in their lap. Mars One don't want to deal with the initial expense and complexity of flying back.

All of this now rules out the use of the ITS you realize? SpaceX won't have a "colony" of their own, they are setting up a refueling outpost that someone can turn into a colony so it doesn't make much sense for Mars One to NOT take advantage of the infrastructure since they aren't planning much, (if any) of their own.  And I don't see SpaceX allowing anyone else to operate the ITS so you would have SpaceX personnel involved at both ends of the trip.

The "flying back" is inherent in the system so Mars One won't be paying for that capability and what you're suggesting is they pay extra for 'one-off' modifications of the basic ITS which will actually cost much more. Not having a 'return' capability when that capability significantly cut into the landed mass of the proposal, (but it actually doesn't with the original architecture since it couldn't be included because of the extensive changes required to the basic Dragon-1/2 itself) but under these circumstances Mars One is MUCH better off since they don't actually 'pay' anything for development or production of the transportation system. That's the key point of the ITS itself.

Quote
A one way ITS should cost maybe 300m $. Send two to set up the base. That leaves 400m for equipment and supplies. Supplies for 10 people and two synods, to be prepared for worst case are less than 100t. Solar panels, a greenhouse for fresh produce and oxygen. A tunnel from the ITS exit to the greenhouse. Some digging equipment for water ISRU, no need for a large amount of water like for fuel ISRU.

Assuming no significant changes to the design or construction of the ITS I'd still think that would be low for anything but an end-of-life ITS, and you probably should add in operations costs for launch and on-orbit support since the launch, on-orbit servicing, flight and landing will need to include SpaceX support. If Mars One is serious it won't plan for 4, 10, 12 or even 24 people but a continually expanding colony which means the first flights will include additional infrastructure that is too much for the present population but will allow you not to have to wait on shipments from Earth to allow expansion.

Using an ITS for an initial habitat isn't any better than using a Dragon-1/2 for the same purpose. They both are not designed to be long term habitats and they have extra systems and equipment which is going to interfere with the primary mission. Those systems will still be a part of and integrated with the basic structure and therefore will represent failure points, sources for leaks and maintenance nightmares. Mars One's primary failure was to tie themselves to a specific transportation architecture AND then try turn that transport into a hybrid habitat. ITS removes that requirement so if Mars One is serious they need to take advantage of what ITS offers and not attempt to make it something it's not.

Quote
Should be a lot more doable than their first approach with Dragons. Needs at least 500m $ for one supply flight every synod to maintain and slowly grow the number of people to 50 with added greenhouse capacity. Building up fuel ISRU and switching to reusable ITS should bring the cost for sustaining the base down or enable growth.

Anything would have been more 'doable' than trying to use Dragon's as habitats which is why you want to get away from using transports as habitats as a rule. ITS allows you a LOT more leeway on planning but you have to have an initial plan to begin with which Mars One was lacking.

Seriously if we want to 'game' this out then you have one or more, (two is preferred) ITS flights to the colony location where they off-load the initial habitats, (hybrid inflatables probably) equipment, personnel, and the initial infrastructure which is set up and checked out before the ITS' depart back to Earth. The initial colonists (20 is good but lets say 24 since that's double what they initially planned and their whole initial 'colonist' corps) then spend the next inter-synod period establishing the first permanent habitat and support systems, (food, power, and ISRU production along with initial area explorations or planning expansions) and preparing for the first expansion effort which will come when the next colonist group arrives. (Which will probably be every other synod to allow a transport flight of supplies and equipment to be emplaced before they arrive)

Now this is actually closer to what most people think Mars One was trying to accomplish anyway since a 'colony' of 24 means they can actually support something like a 'reality' show format with 10 "colonists" and 14 "support" personnel as long as the "support" personnel are far less invasive and controlling than standard reality show personnel. (Not too hard to accomplish if they are actually volunteer colonists themselves, and as long as Mars One can be made to understand that the colony comes first)

The key to the planning, (or gaming in this case) if in the details of both the 'how' and 'what' of the work on Mars rather than how to get there since you can only train your colonists to do the detailed work when you have those details. Again this is where I find Mars One significantly lacking.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: guckyfan on 10/04/2016 09:08 pm
Flying back requires setting up fuel ISRU which is a major cost factor at start up. With a limited scope it is still cheaper to fly a few ITS expendable than setting up a large fuel ISRU factory. Assuming Mars One has their own site and no access to fuel ISRU set up by SpaceX.

As I said I expect Mars One to have their own site and not colocate with the SpaceX base.

Or in reality, of course I expect Mars One to do none of these things.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/05/2016 12:54 am
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.

The "reality" series was supposed to be the Earth bound training, they then "assumed" complete ownership of all media and communications from the 'colonists' once on Mars. That wasn't to produce a "reality" show but to ensure they gained all profits from anything the colonists might do on Mars.
...
So yeah, a reality show on Mars. Look, that's been their plan from the beginning. I remember it.

And if Mars is ever settled, there will be a reality TV show on Mars. And if I'm alive then, I'll watch it.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/05/2016 12:56 am
Flying back requires setting up fuel ISRU which is a major cost factor at start up. With a limited scope it is still cheaper to fly a few ITS expendable than setting up a large fuel ISRU factory. Assuming Mars One has their own site and no access to fuel ISRU set up by SpaceX.

As I said I expect Mars One to have their own site and not colocate with the SpaceX base.

Or in reality, of course I expect Mars One to do none of these things.
An electric truck carrying stuff to Mars One's camp site is cheaper than an expendable ITS. Or heck, a full ITS could probably do round-trip surface hops big enough to land their payload without having to expend it. Or, more likely, the reality TV show will happen wherever the main settlement is because that'd be cheaper.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/05/2016 08:51 pm
Flying back requires setting up fuel ISRU which is a major cost factor at start up. With a limited scope it is still cheaper to fly a few ITS expendable than setting up a large fuel ISRU factory. Assuming Mars One has their own site and no access to fuel ISRU set up by SpaceX.

Not at all, making, building or buying an "expendable" IST will be the expensive option since its designed to be cheaper to reuse. ISRU is a question of power and resources which is cargo not spaceship. Main issue is you can't in fat have a 'limited scope' Mars colony which is exactly what Mars One has always proposed but can't seem to make believable.

Quote
As I said I expect Mars One to have their own site and not colocate with the SpaceX base.

And as I said that make's no sense since you're on Mars. Multiple colony sites early on doesn't make much sense as each would require their own ITS service. It doesn't enhance survivability or redundancy either so it's a waste for Mars One to consider. If they are the only one going, (which was the original plan) they of course set up all the variables but if they are using the ITS then it makes no sense they wouldn't work with SpaceX and/or other colonization efforts.

And that in fact is the main flaw with even attempting to carry on with Mars One in a scenario where ITS is available since Mars One will in fact be a less capable effort compared to other possible colony organizations.

Quote
Or in reality, of course I expect Mars One to do none of these things.

But I thought we were gaming here :)

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RanulfC on 10/05/2016 08:58 pm
So yeah, a reality show on Mars. Look, that's been their plan from the beginning. I remember it.

And if Mars is ever settled, there will be a reality TV show on Mars. And if I'm alive then, I'll watch it.

They described the idea as 'reality show like' but in a more limited fashion due to technology and personnel limits on Mars but they focused on the Earth based reality show as the main way of making the initial money to send the colonists in the first place.

There will be media updates and documentaries for a long while before there are reality shows on Mars. (We can hope they actually don't make the trip :) )

I wouldn't watch it for the very reason it won't be anymore reflective of what the colonists lives are like and they challenges and triumphs they face than any Earth based reality show is. It's entertainment media aimed at entertaining an Earth audience not to educate them or enhance the lure of Mars so while I'd have a keen interest and fascination with what is really happening on Mars, a 'reality' show would hold no interest because it provides little of the actual information I want to know.

Randy
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/06/2016 08:50 pm
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.

The "reality" series was supposed to be the Earth bound training, they then "assumed" complete ownership of all media and communications from the 'colonists' once on Mars. That wasn't to produce a "reality" show but to ensure they gained all profits from anything the colonists might do on Mars.
...
So yeah, a reality show on Mars. Look, that's been their plan from the beginning. I remember it.

And if Mars is ever settled, there will be a reality TV show on Mars. And if I'm alive then, I'll watch it.

The question isn't so much whether you'd watch the reality show of the first colony on Mars.  The question is whether you'd watch the reality show of the second colony on Mars 10 years after the first colony.  Because I can't imagine SpaceX will give up any of their early ITS flight opportunities to let Mars One get there first on SpaceX hardware.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/06/2016 09:46 pm
*snip*
I think ITS will have killed any chance they had of further funding.

Randy

Basically, this.

There used to be some slim hope they'd get a miracle donor, but most likely, this is no longer the case. Mars One may still promote some useful research on living-on-Mars-related activities (what plants are good to grow, etc.), like they're doing now, but as a colonization attempt, I believe them to be finished. Of course, they probably won't say this for some time yet. Or they may eventually turn into an advocacy group, like the L5 Society did.

Interestingly, on the Mars One twitter they did a Q&A session on Sept. 29th, a couple of the answers imply they might just go with SpaceX's ITS.

https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/781428895715295232
https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/781463245987147777
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: whitelancer64 on 10/06/2016 09:51 pm
*snip*
They should have at least acknowledged or mentioned the IAC speech by this point, again it seems to indicate a lack of seriousness.
*snip*

They did promote it on Twitter :p and on their Facebook page.

https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/780791973217243137
https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject/status/780869614796476416
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 02:55 am
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.

The "reality" series was supposed to be the Earth bound training, they then "assumed" complete ownership of all media and communications from the 'colonists' once on Mars. That wasn't to produce a "reality" show but to ensure they gained all profits from anything the colonists might do on Mars.
...
So yeah, a reality show on Mars. Look, that's been their plan from the beginning. I remember it.

And if Mars is ever settled, there will be a reality TV show on Mars. And if I'm alive then, I'll watch it.

The question isn't so much whether you'd watch the reality show of the first colony on Mars.  The question is whether you'd watch the reality show of the second colony on Mars 10 years after the first colony.  ...
Heck YEAH, I would. Unless I'm actually on Mars, I would watch it. Wouldn't you?

There are a ton of Alaska reality TV shows, and a LOT of people watch them. Alaska has been settled for a really long time, now. Doesn't stop people from watching reality TV shows set there.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: ChrisWilson68 on 10/07/2016 03:17 am
I don't know about y'all, but I'd watch a reality TV show about colonists on Mars.

That is essentially what their plan is.

The "reality" series was supposed to be the Earth bound training, they then "assumed" complete ownership of all media and communications from the 'colonists' once on Mars. That wasn't to produce a "reality" show but to ensure they gained all profits from anything the colonists might do on Mars.
...
So yeah, a reality show on Mars. Look, that's been their plan from the beginning. I remember it.

And if Mars is ever settled, there will be a reality TV show on Mars. And if I'm alive then, I'll watch it.

The question isn't so much whether you'd watch the reality show of the first colony on Mars.  The question is whether you'd watch the reality show of the second colony on Mars 10 years after the first colony.  ...
Heck YEAH, I would. Unless I'm actually on Mars, I would watch it. Wouldn't you?

There are a ton of Alaska reality TV shows, and a LOT of people watch them. Alaska has been settled for a really long time, now. Doesn't stop people from watching reality TV shows set there.

And I'm sure the Discovery Channel makes some money from them, but maybe not enough to settle a different planet.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 12:34 pm
They would be able to easily pay for the tickets and lodging though, if the ITS is even in an order of magnitude within the hoped-for price range.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: savuporo on 10/08/2017 10:41 pm
I thought these guys were thoroughly laughed out of the room, but no

https://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/new-mars-one-ventures-ag-shares-issued-after-the-companys-valuation-at-us-3

Quote
The Swiss Commercial Register has approved the capital increase based on an independent valuation report by a Swiss auditor, valuing Mars One at US$ 389,300,000

https://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-releases-revenue-projections-funding-humankinds-mission-to-mars
Quote
Mars One Ventures AG holds the exclusive monetization rights of the mission. It receives revenue from merchandise sales, Mars settler applications, advertisements on video content, broadcasting rights, and marketing-related sponsorships and partnerships. Mars One Ventures AG is forecast to be profitable by Q1 2019. It pays a 5% license fee on gross revenue to the Foundation.

Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/09/2017 12:42 am
BFR could save them from themselves.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 10/09/2017 11:57 am
I thought these guys were thoroughly laughed out of the room, but no

https://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/new-mars-one-ventures-ag-shares-issued-after-the-companys-valuation-at-us-3

Quote
The Swiss Commercial Register has approved the capital increase based on an independent valuation report by a Swiss auditor, valuing Mars One at US$ 389,300,000

https://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-releases-revenue-projections-funding-humankinds-mission-to-mars
Quote
Mars One Ventures AG holds the exclusive monetization rights of the mission. It receives revenue from merchandise sales, Mars settler applications, advertisements on video content, broadcasting rights, and marketing-related sponsorships and partnerships. Mars One Ventures AG is forecast to be profitable by Q1 2019. It pays a 5% license fee on gross revenue to the Foundation.

And for a minimum investment of only $1000 worth of their penny stock, you can participate in their IPO. Don't expect their revenue estimate to pan out however. Most of their estimate for 2018 comes from publicity deals they haven't been able to realize in 6 years, and from videos that apparently don't cost anything to make, but which they somehow haven't gotten around to putting them up to start generating revenue already.

And the $500.000 raised by the IPO will be used to 'meet the conditions required to release the $6 million investment'. Without any further explanation. For an organisation struggling to get some credibility, they sure aren't trying very hard to avoid resembling a lottery scam.

BFR could save them from themselves.

If anything, BFR would make a privately funded, one way space programme more feasible, and would benefit from it: development risk of the transportation system, EDL technology and backup hab for a skeleton crew (until permanent structures are set up by said crew) are nullified. While conversely, a crew that doesn't plan to return can set up whatever infrastructure is required to land BFR safely without damaging anything near the landing site, unload it, refuel it, and launch it again. Without relying on complex, failure prone and tediously slow (anywhere in that choice triangle) autonomous robots, or without governments wanting 120% reliable systems before sending astronauts.

But while I can easily see how such a one way, privately funded mission would be mutually beneficial to BFR, I don't expect MO to follow that route.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Robotbeat on 10/10/2017 03:06 am
If Mars One gets to Mars, it will be on a BFR.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: sanman on 10/12/2017 06:45 am
Mars one needs to update/re-make their video, showing BFR delivering them to Mars. That in itself would suddenly make the whole thing look more plausible. Never mind the Dragon2 capsules now - they're old hat - technology has moved on.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: 85frankie on 03/10/2018 11:53 am
Has anyone else heard of this?
http://mars-one.com/
It's a private company that is looking to put humans on mars by 2023 using Falcon Heavy launchers and Dragons for landers. They admit in the FAQ page that they have no funding yet. so for now it's just a dream with some pretty pictures.

Who are actually going to Mars I`m concidering being a part of the trip?
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meberbs on 03/14/2018 02:59 pm
Has anyone else heard of this?
http://mars-one.com/
It's a private company that is looking to put humans on mars by 2023 using Falcon Heavy launchers and Dragons for landers. They admit in the FAQ page that they have no funding yet. so for now it's just a dream with some pretty pictures.

Who are actually going to Mars I`m concidering being a part of the trip?
Honestly, probably no one. (You should note that the post you quoted is out of date, and the current dubious plan is to send crew in 2031, an 8 year delay in 6 years.)

SpaceX announced their initial BFR design a year and a half ago, and cancelled Red Dragon to focus on BFR last year. Mars One still hasn't changed their architecture to account for this or acknowledged that the capsules they were planning on using will never be built in a Mars capable form now.

Mars One has narrowed down to 100 finalists for the first crew, and they were supposed to start training last year. I haven't heard any actual details of this happening despite the fact that they wanted to film the training as a reality show to make money.

Speaking of money, even their absurdly optimistic revenue projections are at least an order of magnitude short of being able to pay for work to start on their demo mission they plan to launch in 2022. Given lead times, by next year they will have no choice except to delay their entire plan by another synod (26 month period between transfer windows). Not that the delay would actually change their lack of funding, they have been failing to get sufficient funding for years.

If you actually want to go to Mars, you are better off following SpaceX's progress. They have an actually achievable plan, involving sending people starting in 2024, though that date will likely slip some. There is currently no way to apply to be an astronaut on BFR, in part because SpaceX, unlike Mars One, knows that they need hardware before they can start training crew. (Plus they know that government space agencies will want to pay them to send astronauts once they have proven their technology far enough) Long term, anyone should be able to go with SpaceX since tickets should get down to around $500,000 or less, which either people could get by selling their house, or be sponsored by entrepreneurs who want to do business on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/14/2018 04:31 pm
Don't forget you need to pay that amount every synod just to ship in supplies needed to survive on Mars.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meberbs on 03/14/2018 04:46 pm
Don't forget you need to pay that amount every synod just to ship in supplies needed to survive on Mars.
This isn't the thread to discuss SpaceX's plan in detail, but the goal is to make the Mars colony self sufficient. By the time the ticket price comes that low, little should need to be imported for basic survival. Details are TBD, and I doubt necessary supplies would even be billed to the colonists by SpaceX, but even if they were, the cost would be nowhere near a full additional ticket per person.

For Mars One, they do have a problem with recurring costs, because they aren't really designing with a goal of full self-sustaining.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/15/2018 04:44 am
"Details" like paying for all the flights required to get all of the infrastructure to be self sustaining and create more of that infrastructure for population growth. And to support an aging part of the population that is no longer productive. But yeah, where is the thread where this small detail is not being handwaved away?

Edit: apparently I've caused some confusion. There are plenty of threads going into the difficulties of creating said selfsufficient colony. None of which include a magic master plan from SpaceX to pay for it all. They themselves have said they only do the transport. Once there, you still need a way to pay for consuming stuff that people who paid to get there make, and using infrastructure that someone paid for to put up there.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: MickQ on 03/15/2018 08:10 am
Seems to me that Mars One should be changing their architecture from 4 dragon capsules with 2 expandable habs per synod to 1 only BFS per synod.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: RonM on 03/15/2018 12:14 pm
Mars One could save their reality TV concept by adding to SpaceX settlement plans instead of making their own settlement. Mars One could use the SpaceX facility as a base for exploration runs. Be the first to drive rovers to spectacular looking locations. Extreme exploration would make good TV.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meberbs on 03/15/2018 03:45 pm
"Details" like paying for all the flights required to get all of the infrastructure to be self sustaining and create more of that infrastructure for population growth. And to support an aging part of the population that is no longer productive. But yeah, where is the thread where this small detail is not being handwaved away?

Edit: apparently I've caused some confusion. There are plenty of threads going into the difficulties of creating said selfsufficient colony. None of which include a magic master plan from SpaceX to pay for it all. They themselves have said they only do the transport. Once there, you still need a way to pay for consuming stuff that people who paid to get there make, and using infrastructure that someone paid for to put up there.
I replied in the SpaceX "Development of a Martian export economy" (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44411.msg1799324#msg1799324) thread.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 03/20/2018 08:31 am
"Details" like paying for all the flights required to get all of the infrastructure to be self sustaining and create more of that infrastructure for population growth. And to support an aging part of the population that is no longer productive. But yeah, where is the thread where this small detail is not being handwaved away?

Edit: apparently I've caused some confusion. There are plenty of threads going into the difficulties of creating said selfsufficient colony. None of which include a magic master plan from SpaceX to pay for it all. They themselves have said they only do the transport. Once there, you still need a way to pay for consuming stuff that people who paid to get there make, and using infrastructure that someone paid for to put up there.
I replied in the SpaceX "Development of a Martian export economy" (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44411.msg1799324#msg1799324) thread.

An having emotional rants by PM apparently. Sure, let's take this monologue there, as it's in the right
section, yet still does not talk about "SpaceX's plan in detail", which is what I responded to in your post.

This isn't the thread to discuss SpaceX's plan in detail, but the goal is to make the Mars colony self sufficient. By the time the ticket price comes that low, little should need to be imported for basic survival. Details are TBD, and I doubt necessary supplies would even be billed to the colonists by SpaceX, but even if they were, the cost would be nowhere near a full additional ticket per person.

There is no such SpaceX plan to make the Mars colony self sufficient. None that we know of anyway. In fact, EM has already stated that he's only doing the transport.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: meberbs on 04/05/2018 07:57 pm
From the updates thread:
2. I asked Lansdop whether reusing Phoenix for 2022 is still into the plans. He said yes.

3. Amazingly, there's one thing that I understood during the lecture - it's that there's still no commitment on what rockets to use. Mars One representatives were rather vague - they said they can use any rockets. There's no even firm decision about the first mission. This IMO is quite strange - time is running out.
Time is not just running out, indications are that their fundraising goal is $10 million this year. Even ignoring the unlikelihood of them getting that, a year from now, they would need cash on the order of $100 million to start building that lander.

I have never considered Mars One a "scam" at least not in any sense that includes intent, but it is difficult to comprehend how they can continue to claim that schedule, when their plan explicitly does not involve them having enough money to cover the needed contracts, probably not even initial down payments.

Of course the next post on the update thread is an article that indicates they may likely be in debt already, and indicates that some of their top officers are ignorant of the organization's basic financial health.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: rob2507 on 05/20/2018 12:04 pm
Apologies if this is behind a paywall (I'm a subscriber), story in today's Boston Globe on a few of the people that have been selected for Mars One. An interesting look at the human, rather than technical, side of things.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/05/19/other-world-turns-how-trip-mars-thwarted-and-ignited-love/z7hNzQwcRAnrTv4mWP3DMP/story.html (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/05/19/other-world-turns-how-trip-mars-thwarted-and-ignited-love/z7hNzQwcRAnrTv4mWP3DMP/story.html)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FishInferno on 02/11/2019 11:39 pm
Mars One is (finally) bankrupt

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 02/12/2019 08:23 am
Mars One is (finally) bankrupt

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/ (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/)

Not entirely dead yet...

The commercial part of Mars One (Mars One Ventures AG) is bankrupt.

The not-for-profit part of Mars One (Mars One Foundation - responsible for selecting astronauts and mission training) is (unfortunately IMO) still operating, according to a statement by Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp (https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/11/mars-one-is-dead/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=internal&utm_source=dl&guccounter=1)
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: woods170 on 02/12/2019 12:46 pm
Mars One is (finally) bankrupt

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/ (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/)

Not entirely dead yet...

The commercial part of Mars One (Mars One Ventures AG) is bankrupt.

The not-for-profit part of Mars One (Mars One Foundation - responsible for selecting astronauts and mission training) is (unfortunately IMO) still operating, according to a statement by Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp (https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/11/mars-one-is-dead/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=internal&utm_source=dl&guccounter=1)


And it look like they are working on a revival:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31915.msg1910530#msg1910530
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/12/2019 02:18 pm
Mars One is (finally) bankrupt

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/ (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/to-almost-no-ones-surprise-mars-one-is-done/)

Not entirely dead yet...

The commercial part of Mars One (Mars One Ventures AG) is bankrupt.

The not-for-profit part of Mars One (Mars One Foundation - responsible for selecting astronauts and mission training) is (unfortunately IMO) still operating, according to a statement by Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp (https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/11/mars-one-is-dead/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=internal&utm_source=dl&guccounter=1)

Except that the commercial part is what funded the not-for-profit part.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/12/2019 02:25 pm
Another article about the bankruptcy:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/02/11/goodbye-mars-one-the-fake-mission-to-mars-that-fooled-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR1i9OdFbi9DjTcrEPe8CPZfL8BtcDaIfIePReC3c1wt_dAbhcy8quY8Zqc#22ffbb302af5


Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Blackstar on 02/12/2019 02:28 pm
I wrote this back in August 2015 at The Mars Society conference where they debated the technical viability of Mars One. In retrospect, that was just a little bit after the height of their publicity and it was all going downhill from then:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2809/1?fbclid=IwAR0JIjhWUflIWgCXyhupLAaaFgRx4sCJAguxrjR-hO10FOxy0qAMp64IZPo


"Sydney Do and Andrew Owens went first, and they came out guns blazing. Part of Mars One’s argument is based upon analogy: the United States went from no human spaceflights to putting a man on the Moon in eight years, so certainly today, with lots of experience and more advanced technology it should be possible to put humans on Mars in 50 percent more time and far less money, especially if you do it privately.

The MIT team had their own analogy, noting that Virgin Galactic has spent ten years and $600 million and still has not achieved their commercial suborbital spaceflight goal. Sending humans to Mars will be far more difficult than commercial suborbital spaceflight, and significantly more difficult than landing humans on the Moon. But Mars One has concluded, without any detailed analysis, that it will only cost $6 billion—thus, the $6 billion estimate barely even qualifies as a wild-assed guess. Do and Owens punctuated this point by singling out a particular aspect of Mars One’s proposal, a multi-purpose crewed Mars rover. In comparison, JPL built the Curiosity rover, with far fewer capabilities than what Mars One is proposing, for $2.6 billion, and is currently working on the Mars 2020 rover for roughly $1.5 billion. Therefore, even one relatively minor component of what Mars One is proposing to do is likely to eat up a substantial amount of what they claim as their total mission cost. Mars One’s $6-billion price tag is based upon false assumptions and faulty data and is totally unrealistic, and yet Mars One uses that low price tag as a selling point to investors.

The MIT team noted that whereas Mars One’s argument is that their one-way mission proposal is easier because it does not require a return trip and associated hardware, it trades this off instead for a permanent commitment to support the humans on Mars, which adds all kinds of increased complexity and requirements. That decision requires high reliability from the various systems such as life support, as well as a steady logistics train to keep resupplying the humans on Mars, and bringing spare parts for their machines. In fact, Mars One advocates adding people to the Mars outpost to build up a colony, meaning that the logistics requirement not only continues forever, but actually increases substantially as each new crew has to bring spare parts for themselves and the previous crew(s) to keep them alive on Mars."
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Lar on 02/12/2019 03:15 pm
It's interesting to me that the SpaceX FB group has had a topic ban on Mars One in place for some time now, in an effort to make it (slightly) harder for MO to separate the gullible from their money.

Unrelatedly, there are many valid arguments to make against MO. One could rank them. What it costs JPL to do things is not going to make the list for me, or if it does, won't be ranked very highly...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Rondaz on 03/09/2019 07:35 pm
Here’s what experts say are the main issues we’ll face in colonizing Mars..

By: Jasper McEvoy March 8 at 12:46 AM

http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2019/03/08/heres-what-experts-say-are-the-main-issues-well-face-in-colonizing-mars/
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/28/2020 06:49 pm
This is entertaining & features Chris Hadfield. Not sure why it’s appearing now:

https://twitter.com/thedailyshow/status/1222210321265369094

Quote
Mars One lied when they promised to send people to Mars, but who’s to blame for people thinking it was real? @desilydic investigates: on.cc.com/2RPV81q
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: Steven Pietrobon on 02/02/2020 04:42 am
I spoke with Australian Mars One candidate Josh Richards last night. He reports that Mars One is still alive and that they will be having a big meeting in Amsterdam in the middle of this year. They are still at 100 candidates and haven't down selected yet. Mars One decided to stay quiet through the media hype of Mars One Ventures AG going bankrupt, which has not affected the Mars One Foundation who are responsible for the mission.
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: libra on 02/02/2020 12:53 pm
Mars One will (perhaps) make sense maybe in 10 or 15 years hitching a ride on a successful SpaceX Starship. For the present day it has zero chance in hell to go anywhere...
Title: Re: Mars One Discussion Thread
Post by: high road on 02/07/2020 07:12 pm
I spoke with Australian Mars One candidate Josh Richards last night. He reports that Mars One is still alive and that they will be having a big meeting in Amsterdam in the middle of this year. They are still at 100 candidates and haven't down selected yet. Mars One decided to stay quiet through the media hype of Mars One Ventures AG going bankrupt, which has not affected the Mars One Foundation who are responsible for the mission.

Yup, it had no effect. They have as little money and as little technical knowledge as before. And plenty of hot air for years to come.