Mars Voyage too Soon?

[Radrook]

I recently watched the Mars voyage plans as described on the Discovery Channel and could not but feel ill at ease with all the emphasis given to the extreme dangers involved and the possible deaths that might occur. I came away with the impression that NASA is rushing things, or that due to lack of funds, it isn't doing all that's possible to make the trip safer. I for one would not get on that ship based on all the nerve wracking "ifs" and "maybes" mentioned.

1. If rocket doesn't precisely on time and for the precise duration you die.

2. Returning earlier than usual via a Venusian gravity boost might mean missing the earth.

3. Most Russian efforts to land a craft on Mars have failed.

4. The crew living quarters are cramped = the size of an average apartment.

6. Fears of crew going ballistic due to stress were expressed.

7. No rescue mission planned if something goes wrong on the Martian surface.

8. No mention made of any radar to detect incoming objects such as meteorites.


In short, it seems to me as if they will be playing Russian Roulette. The only difference is the hi tech equipment is used instead of a loaded gun. Anyone else get that impression?

 

[Jimcalagon]

The people who participate in manned missions know the risks. If people throughout history had been as risk averse as is fashionable nowadays, ships (if we even had any) would not sail out of sight of land and the only manned flight would be happening in transcendental meditiation temples

As an arrant coward, I stand up and applaud the people who have enough belief in spaceflight that they are willing to put their lives on the line. As long as it isn't done unnecessarily.

 

[dacium2007]

As has been said on many mars missions site... many people would gladly go even accepting these risks. I mean seriously, how many people die in car crashes everyday? What is it compared to a few astronaughts dieing once every 10 years?

There were even semi-serious plans thought out to send people on one way suicide missions to mars, there will be no shortage of people putting their hand up to go, thats for sure.

Also none of the points you raised are really a concern. For example 1 2 and 7 will be known based on mathematics involving tolerences. Others can be avoided due to human itelligence (3 can be avoided by humans repointing an arial etc.) 4 and 6 are no longer a real concern (there are already people simulating mars living by living in a little space ship thing in the desert). 8 is extremely unlikly and again they can have measurements for this from other space craft. They can tell via solar panels and other things how much something has been hit by meteriotes. I would think that when a mission to mars is performed (maybe by 2030 if we're lucky) that the chance of success would be thought to be extremely high.

Also whats this got to do with paranormal?

 

[m_huber]

As has been said on many mars missions site... many people would gladly go even accepting these risks. I mean seriously, how many people die in car crashes everyday? What is it compared to a few astronaughts dieing once every 10 years?

About $1,000,000,000.

 

[tsg]

About $1,000,000,000.

Yeah, but they're going to save up for it by not fighting in Iraq for four days.

 

[Jimcalagon]

Yeah, but they're going to save up for it by not fighting in Iraq for four days.

 

[Radrook]

As has been said on many mars missions site... many people would gladly go even accepting these risks. I mean seriously, how many people die in car crashes everyday? What is it compared to a few astronaughts dieing once every 10 years?

There were even semi-serious plans thought out to send people on one way suicide missions to mars, there will be no shortage of people putting their hand up to go, thats for sure.

Also none of the points you raised are really a concern. For example 1 2 and 7 will be known based on mathematics involving tolerences. Others can be avoided due to human itelligence (3 can be avoided by humans repointing an arial etc.) 4 and 6 are no longer a real concern (there are already people simulating mars living by living in a little space ship thing in the desert). 8 is extremely unlikly and again they can have measurements for this from other space craft. They can tell via solar panels and other things how much something has been hit by meteriotes. I would think that when a mission to mars is performed (maybe by 2030 if we're lucky) that the chance of success would be thought to be extremely high.

Also whats this got to do with paranormal?

It has nothing to do with the paranormal. Why do you ask?

Actually, all the concerns I enumerated are not mine-they are the concerns focused on by the scientists on the Discovery Channel program entitled Mars Rising. Prior to their showing such concern I had far more confidence in the success of the mission with our present technology and preparation. But their constant harping on possible failures creates doubts.

I am not in favor of cringing in fear in terms of space exploration. In fact, I am disappointed that this present effort had not been made sooner. However, I don't believe in taking NEEDLESS risks when human lives are concerned. Also keep in mind that Spain provide sailors who were prisoners and were promised to have their sentences commuted when and if they returned. In fact, yjey panicked and were on the verge of mutiny based on fear when land was sited. If indeed the dangers are as insignificant as you describe them, then why all did these scientists feel obligated to bring them prominently to the public's attention as disastrous possibilities?

bTW

Lightning is extremely unlikely to strike me but it might happen. I think that the safer the astronauts feel in that voyage the better it will go in terms of their peace of mind. So adding a few amenities, though they might be deemed expensive is worth it-IMHO

 

[Jimbo07]

Actually, all the concerns I enumerated are not mine-they are the concerns focused on by the scientists on the Discovery Channel program entitled Mars Rising. Prior to their showing such concern I had far more confidence in the success of the mission with our present technology and preparation. But their constant harping on possible failures creates doubts.

But ultimately, from what I understand, they do it. In order to mitigate risk, you have to identify risk. It's almost valuable to identify a person whose job it is to sit around and imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong. That way, you can do some contingency planning...

 

[uruk]

I recently watched the Mars voyage plans as described on the Discovery Channel and could not but feel ill at ease with all the emphasis given to the extreme dangers involved and the possible deaths that might occur. I came away with the impression that NASA is rushing things, or that due to lack of funds, it isn't doing all that's possible to make the trip safer. I for one would not get on that ship based on all the nerve wracking "ifs" and "maybes" mentioned.

There is risk in everything you do. You should try to minimize it as much as possible though. And as much as I love NASA and Manned spaceflight, I do realize that NASA suffers from being a government agency.
I also do believe that a manned Mars flight will still be a long ways off. Politics and money being what it is.

1. If rocket doesn't precisely on time and for the precise duration you die.

The same was true for the Moon missions. But NASA was able to peg it on the money using computers that were not as powerful as a programmable calculator is today.

2. Returning earlier than usual via a Venusian gravity boost might mean missing the earth.

Navigation and computers are much more improved today. But then there is always a chance for failure. Same with every dangerous endevour in life.

3. Most Russian efforts to land a craft on Mars have failed.

So what? Russians are pretty much brute force, seat of thier pants type explorers anyway. And besides, we've had a pretty good track record succesfully placing craft around and on Mars. Mariner, Vikings, Sojourner, Spirit, etc...

4. The crew living quarters are cramped = the size of an average apartment.

Try living in an efficiency for 10 years with roommates. They should use astronauts that have grown up in government housing. They are used to being in cramped quarters with a mulitude of people.

6. Fears of crew going ballistic due to stress were expressed.

That's true with any long duration exploration. Studies were done with the McMurdo research facility in the Arctic. Mixed crews faired better than same sex crews.

7. No rescue mission planned if something goes wrong on the Martian surface.

You take your chances. Explorers of the past had to deal with the same issues.

8. No mention made of any radar to detect incoming objects such as meteorites.

You could always use the range finding radar used for docking and landing.
Besides, not much could be done even if you could detect one in advanced.(depending on the circumstances)

In short, it seems to me as if they will be playing Russian Roulette. The only difference is the hi tech equipment is used instead of a loaded gun. Anyone else get that impression?

Why do people see the risk in spaceflight differently than any other risky or dangerous endevour here on Earth? Death is still death wether it is here on Earth or in space.
Certainly, the dangers are different. The challenges are different. But then that's the point. Meeting and overcoming challenges.

There are alot of risks and dangers in life. That did not stop the early explorers.

I suspect the critics who use the danger aspect really have a different agenda.

 

[m_huber]

Half of the missions to mars have missed. I don't like those odds. Let's do some more unmanned missions before we send people.

 

[Radrook]

There is risk in everything you do. You should try to minimize it as much as possible though. And as much as I love NASA and Manned spaceflight, I do realize that NASA suffers from being a government agency.
I also do believe that a manned Mars flight will still be a long ways off. Politics and money being what it is.


The same was true for the Moon missions. But NASA was able to peg it on the money using computers that were not as powerful as a programmable calculator is today.

Navigation and computers are much more improved today. But then there is always a chance for failure. Same with every dangerous endeavor in life.


So what? Russians are pretty much brute force, seat of their pants type explorers anyway. And besides, we've had a pretty good track record successfully placing craft around and on Mars. Mariner, Vikings, Sojourner, Spirit, etc...


Try living in an efficiency for 10 years with roommates. They should use astronauts that have grown up in government housing. They are used to being in cramped quarters with a multitude of people.


That's true with any long duration exploration. Studies were done with the McMurdo research facility in the Arctic. Mixed crews faired better than same sex crews.

You take your chances. Explorers of the past had to deal with the same issues.

You could always use the range finding radar used for docking and landing.
Besides, not much could be done even if you could detect one in advanced.(depending on the circumstances)

Why do people see the risk in space-flight differently than any other risky or dangerous endeavor here on Earth? Death is still death whether it is here on Earth or in space.
Certainly, the dangers are different. The challenges are different. But then that's the point. Meeting and overcoming challenges.

There are a lot of risks and dangers in life. That did not stop the early explorers.

I suspect the critics who use the danger aspect really have a different agenda.

I agree that fear in this matter can only serve to keep us earthbound. Perhaps the tone of the whole program was a bit too far on the dangers side. But as you say, if dangers are known then they can be prepared against. It would be truly sad to see a disaster on our first attempt. Although I am sure that a second and a third would be made until we succeed. That's part of being human and is an admirable trait without which nothing useful is accomplished.

BTW

Maybe sending couples who already have an established romantic relationship is better than waiting for the relationship to develop on board? Heard anything on this?

 

[uruk]

But ultimately, from what I understand, they do it. In order to mitigate risk, you have to identify risk. It's almost valuable to identify a person whose job it is to sit around and imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong. That way, you can do some contingency planning...

it also makes for good television in our present purient, sensationalistic, fearmongering, rating addicted media world if you harp and focus on the bad things.

I actually heard on a CNN ad spot for a presidential debate: "Tonight the presidential debate....this time the gloves come off" As if it was some kind of wresteling match or Jerry Springer show. JEEZZ!

 

[Southwind17]

As has been said on many mars missions site... many people would gladly go even accepting these risks. I mean seriously, how many people die in car crashes everyday? What is it compared to a few astronaughts dieing once every 10 years?

That's a flawed argument. How many people actually drive cars every day? What proportion get killed? I recently read that the safety rating for space shuttle missions is currently 1:70 (which I assume somehow relates to fatalities), compared to 1:20,000 for civil aviation. In other words space shuttle missions need to become around 285 times safer to meet current aviation safety standards, thereby allowing 'civil' flights.

Also whats this got to do with paranormal?

I made the same mistake of incorrectly thinking this was a forum for just paranormal issues. If you check out the various sub-forums you'll notice the vast array of topics.

 

[uruk]

Half of the missions to mars have missed. I don't like those odds. Let's do some more unmanned missions before we send people.

Depends on the country your looking at. The US has had a good track record with the fewest failures.(19-5)

But I agree that we should continue to send unmanned probes to Mars.
Practice makes perfect.

 

[Southwind17]

But I agree that we should continue to send unmanned probes to Mars.
Practice makes perfect.

Er, not quite!

 

[uruk]

I agree that fear in this matter can only serve to keep us earthbound. Perhaps the tone of the whole program was a bit too far on the dangers side. But as you say, if dangers are known then they can be prepared against. It would be truly sad to see a disaster on our first attempt. Although I am sure that a second and a third would be made until we succeed. That's part of being human and is an admirable trait without which nothing useful is accomplished.

Agreed. As Jimbo7 said, we need to discover what all the dangers are so that we can try to minimize them.

Unfortunately, the Discovery channel is not above sensationalism in the name of ratings. But even if the morbidly curious get the fix they need maybe they'll get some knowledge along the way.

BTW

Maybe sending couples who already have an established romantic relationship is better than waiting for the relationship to develop on board? Heard anything on this?

I need to look it up but I think the study suggested that married couples did fair better. Although I don't know how the isolation affected thier marrage after thier tour was up.

 

[uruk]

That's a flawed argument. How many people actually drive cars every day? What proportion get killed? I recently read that the safety rating for space shuttle missions is currently 1:70 (which I assume somehow relates to fatalities), compared to 1:20,000 for civil aviation. In other words space shuttle missions need to become around 285 times safer to meet current aviation safety standards, thereby allowing 'civil' flights.

I think the point was missed. People die everyday doing mundane things. People also die doing risky things for mundane reasons. Take, for instance, stunt men. They risk thier lives so that a movie can can have a few seconds of action. (or get paid)

Risk and death is a part of life. And I think it is up to the individual to decide for themselves what is acceptable and what is not.
Although the point should be to make manned spaceflight as risky as taking a intercontinental plane flight.

 

[uruk]

Er, not quite!

Why would that not be the case? Don't we gain experiance every time we send something up there? Don't we learn from the failures?

And our successe rate with sending probes to Mars is improving. We have only had 5 faliures out of 19 missions so far. There are two more on the way. We'll have to see how things fair when and if they get there.

Of the seven Moon landing missions only one failed to land. And we got the astronauts back safely. and that's not counting the circumlunar missions.

Although you could make a case with the space shuttle. Bad design.

 

[sts60]

I can't really agree that NASA is "rushing things" with regards to a manned Mars expedition. About the only thing the agency is rushing to do is retire the Shuttle to free up budget for the Ares launch vehicles and Orion spacecraft, followed by the rest of the lunar hardware (primarily the Lunar Surface Access Module). As dacium2007 pointed out, a manned trip to Mars is a couple of decades away.

As far as the hazards enumerated by Radrook,

1. If rocket doesn't precisely on time and for the precise duration you die.

2. Returning earlier than usual via a Venusian gravity boost might mean missing the earth.

Navigating to Mars is a piece of cake, relatively speaking. Aside from the embarrassing fiasco with the unit conversions on Mars Climate Orbiter - which an onboard crew would have figured out - there's no issue with knowing when, which way, and how long to burn the engines.

3. Most Russian efforts to land a craft on Mars have failed.

As have many American ones. Many of these problems would have been avoided by the presence of a crew, which would require man-rated redundant systems (= additional $$$).

4. The crew living quarters are cramped = the size of an average apartment.

6. Fears of crew going ballistic due to stress were expressed.

The psychological issues are challenging, no doubt about it. But there is no reason to believe they're insurmountable.

7. No rescue mission planned if something goes wrong on the Martian surface.

You'd probably be better off spending some of the money for a separate rescue capability on more redundancy, cached supplies, more capability reserve for the original vehicle, etc. At some point, though, you simply have to accept that there are people who are going to dare to go places they can't be rescued if things go wrong.

8. No mention made of any radar to detect incoming objects such as meteorites.

Landing radar, certainly. But a deep-space search radar powerful enough to look for inbound meteoroids would draw an enormous amount of power and would be of doubtful value, given (a) that the most dangerous inbounds would be moving too fast to avoid when detected, and (b) the probably of encountering a significant meteoroid is extremely small.

The most significant challenges to a manned Mars mission are, in no particular order, psychological health, physical health (extended free-fall effects), and radiation (in particular, exposure to solar flares). None are insurmountable, but overcoming them will be expensive and, well not easy. What would help is the development of a man-rated space reactor (the U.S. hasn't flown a reactor since the SNAP-10A of the 1960s) and the magnetoplasma drive (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/vasimr.html), which could theoretically cut one-way times down to a more manageable 90 days or so. That would enormously simplify the task of dealing with the challenges enumerated above.

 

[Radrook]

Why would that not be the case? Don't we gain experiance every time we send something up there? Don't we learn from the failures?

And our successe rate with sending probes to Mars is improving. We have only had 5 faliures out of 19 missions so far. There are two more on the way. We'll have to see how things fair when and if they get there.

Of the seven Moon landing missions only one failed to land. And we got the astronauts back safely. and that's not counting the circumlunar missions.

Although you could make a case with the space shuttle. Bad design.

Five manned mission failures out of nineteen with crews of four on each mission would have been a death toll of twenty dead astronauts. I truly hope we can better the perecentages.

BTW

Unlike us, Russia plans a cautious fly-by on its first manned mission to Mars.