Mars One Project.

[Moonlight Cat]

My point of view - this is madness or ordinary fraud, but....

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

[Roulette Zeitung]

The problem with any vacation on Mars ...

It's a one-way-ticket!

I don't know, why Mars should be so important. It's better to collect billions of Dollars from as much people as possible to make a journey to Jupiter moon Europa.

Perhaps we can find on Europa the real "Nessie" under the surface in the ocean because on Earth in Scotland the "Loch Ness monster" is untraceable until today.

And from Europa it's only a (astronomic) stone's throw away to Gliese 581 ... the second Earth!

Human beings are made of stardust, and stardust is everywhere in the universe.



Leopold

[DaftDog]

My point of view - this is madness or ordinary fraud, but....

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

... and when the first sailing ships set sail for distant shores detractors said they would sail over the end of the world and be lost forever. It takes brave adventurers to go where no man has gone before.

[Moonlight Cat]

... and when the first sailing ships set sail for distant shores detractors said they would sail over the end of the world and be lost forever. It takes brave adventurers to go where no man has gone before.

I would be happy to be wrong

[Moonlight Cat]

.
I don't know, why Mars should be so important. It's better to collect billions of Dollars from as much people as possible to make a journey to Jupiter moon Europa.

Leopold, i think the reason is - that Europa - is too far away. And very cold -150-190 C. And very radioactive.

[Roulette Zeitung]

Europa - is too far away. And very cold -150-190 C. And very radioactive.

The result would be the same. A flight to Mars includes a gift of one Sievert. That radiation dose of one Sievert will not kill the astronauts but it's high enough to damage the health irreversible. I can't see the logic, how a group of infertile people with cancer is able to reach long-term goals on Mars without the chance to come back on Earth again.

It's better to collect all money to sent a robot to Europe. A robot, who is able to break through the surface to enter the ocean with a camera. The chance of finding life on Europe is thousand times higher than finding it on Mars.

Bacteria living on Earth in the frigid depths far beneath the ocean surface in every "Black Smoker" or in the permafrost soils on Antarctica (Lake Whillans) shows, what you can expect at every place in the universe with water (Ocean) and geological activity (Black Smokers).

Hubble Telescope finds geysers of water on Europa!

Earth is the pathfinder:

The bacterium "Geobacter metallireducens" loves radioactive material and "eats" it.

"Deinococcus radiodurans" is an extremophilic bacterium too and can survive more than 10.000 Gray!

Both are living on Earth!

Hello Europa, put the beer on ice!

And Mars?

A prestige object, that ends with a handful lonely, sick and infertile astronauts living on it (for a short time) ... According to the current state of research.

Leopold

[TheGooner]

Both Mars and Europa are inconceivable projects for the current tech-level of humankind.

Forget films like Star Wars or Star Trek or Aliens, our current ability to survive in space is minimal. To take a good look at current tech you could do worse than view the recent film Gravity that was dealing with astronauts in near earth orbit. This film underlined the flimsy state of current tech, and the perilous nature of space travel ... AND it slightly overstated our abilities and produced a couple of tech miracles for the heroine to survive ...

While I agree with Leopold that a visit to Europa might be the most interesting thing to see in our solar system, to do it with living humans is an impossible task with todays tech -and probably will not be seen in our lifetime. The distances are huge, the temperature significant and the environment unsustaining.

Finding life? That's a nice to have - but not essential to me. I know life must exist elsewhere already.
Developing new systems to enable more humans to live while consuming less resources? That's essential.

First we need to be able to build an orbiting "bio-sphere" of some sort that is self sustaining (although it doesn't need to be round)


Then we can take it to our nearest neighbour and prove that humans can live on dead rocks (albeit a close one for rescue potential) and then move it farther away so that it really is a point of no return for astronauts. Each development would enable us to build better tech around recycling, radiation protection, and energy generation.

The stages probably are something like :
-Self-sustaining space station (10-30 years)
- Moon Base (30-50 years)
- Mars Base (50-70 years)
- Europa. (100+ years)

Each stage would produce technology that could also be used on Earth to help feed, clothe and warm the 7 billion, 10 billion, 13 billion humans that will exist during the timelines and it's these spin off ideas that mean it might be possible with state and private co-operation.

Of course none of this may happen - if economies and cultures decline with over-population and another financial crises then humans may have to simply focus inwards on more terrestrial solutions. This would be a shame - because I believe that it will take the space challenge for us to REALLY revolutionise our energy systems ...

Just my thoughts though ... and it will take time ... I don't expect to be around to see the Mars base and beyond.

[Roulette Zeitung]

Leopold