Cosmic cabin fever: Getting to Mars isn’t the hard part – it’s living there.
Or Not.
"Now that the 100-person short list is announced for Mars One, including four Canadians competing for a spot on the Dutch-run colonizing mission that is still at least a decade off, this kind of thing is roughly the worst-case scenario. In the cold blackness of space, with Earth receding into a blue-green pinpoint, cramped in an air-locked bubble on a one-way trip into the toxic atmosphere of a desert planet, an astronaut could take leave of his senses, like Apollo 13 meets The Shining.
With a half-hour delay even on light-speed communications with mission control, distressed astronauts would be pretty much on their own, and their crew mates would have to deal with whatever social or psychological problems might arise, from outright mental illness, which has already been documented in astronauts mid-flight, down to grudges, feuds, factions, jealousies, resentment and simple human awfulness."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/gett ... l-be-hard/
Apparently getting there will in fact be the hardest part, not to mention the odds of living past the 68 day mark:
"Last month, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed that any manned mission to Mars would result in the crew dying after 68 days."
http://qz.com/278312/yes-the-people-goi ... -will-die/
Living, Fucking, and Dying on Mars
"Mars One is underpinned by the idea that the application process, training regime and mission will form part of a reality TV show. Big Brother creators Endemol were confirmed as the partners when the Mars One project was launched but their PR director told Keep that “Things are at a very early stage and we’re not yet in a position to add anything further to what was detailed in the press release.” Added to this, there is currently no network buyer for the show."
A reality television series is the lynchpin of Mars One’s plan. It is through this that it intends to raise the necessary capital to actually fund the mission via advertising revenue and broadcast rights. The proposal is to film the final candidates 24/7 for the duration of their 10-year training mission on Earth, from the selection process to liftoff, and then to continue to broadcast the mission itself, live, beamed in perpetuity back from Mars to viewers on Earth.
There is the small problem of not having the money until you have the show and not having the show until you have the technology and not having the technology until you have the money and possibly not having the technology in time, or ever, which is why, Mars One says on its website, the schedule is flexible.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... -scam.html
Nor, apparently is there a, you know, Rocket available to take these rabid space volunteers to Mars.
"A space transport services company called SpaceX is listed on the Mars One website as one of the suppliers, with the statement: "Mars One anticipates using SpaceX Falcon Heavy, an upgraded version of the Falcon 9, which is in use by SpaceX currently. The Falcon Heavy is slated to undergo test flights in 2014, granting ample time for fine-tuning prior to the Mars One missions.” However, Keep discovered that SpaceX has no ongoing contracts with the Mars One mission.
Without a space craft, there is no way that the final candidates can be chosen for the mission. Keep, who spoke to astronaut Chris Hadfield, explains: "If there are no specifications for the craft that will carry the crew, if you don’t know the very dimensions of the capsule they will be traveling in, you can’t begin to select the people who will be living and working inside of it."
"It (Mars One) estimates the mission will cost only about $6 billion, tens if not hundreds of billions less than any manned Mars mission so far proposed by NASA. Mars One openly admits that it is “not an aerospace company and will not manufacture mission hardware. All equipment will be developed by third-party suppliers and integrated in established facilities.” That’s how it will keep costs down, by outsourcing everything to private enterprise."
Yes, that worked so well in the Iraq Invasion.
https://medium.com/matter/all-dressed-u ... 76df527ca0
“Anybody we didn’t consider serious we considered kind of an idiot. In the videos, some applied naked. I mean, how can you come to a job interview and apply naked? So that was quite easy.”
But right here is the nitty-gritty reason - possibly the only reason - why the Reality Show idea would work, if it ever exists beyond the fevered brows of lonely, weird people on Earth. Who is going to the the first human to GET LAID on Mars? Apparently the first landing crew of four people will have that opportunity, but unlike other terrestrial firsts, all they would get for their randiness is the chance to spend their remaining 67 days basking in that "glow."
The title article nails down many of the dangerous elements of Mars/Humans interaction, but this one stands out for me...
“Another hurdle is dust, which is quite fine on Mars, and it would not be good if that got into your lungs. There are also chlorates, about half a percent in the dust, and chlorates shut down your thyroid gland. Then there’s the radiation environment, which if they stay underground can be dealt with.”
I think as time goes by, this project will eventually be viewed as far more Inspirational than Operational.
I thought about Hiroko and John Boone and the First Hundred of the Mars Trilogy as I was reading these articles.
