All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to Go

This piece is quite an interesting read, as well as being well structured and well phrased. This makes it all the more unfortunate that the writer is obviously unfamiliar with the technologies which would be used, and the realities of aerospace projects; leading to a slew of errors.

Some of the errors include:

1) Separating oxygen from nitrogen is quite commonly done, and there are at least three distinct methods for doing it. The reference is to an amateurish analysis done by others who had not done any research. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_swing_adsorption

2) It is quite well known that NASA distributes its contracts around the country, so as to increase political buy-in from governors, congressmen, and senators. In fact, the space shuttle was green-lit because Nixon had cancelled the national aerospace plane, and his administration had a meeting about how that would affect votes in key swing-states, and they decided that the shuttle would benefit his re-election effort. Sources are numerous including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo8v7juSgRw .

3) Vitamin D would be a problem from lack of sunlight, not vitamin A, and even then supplements and artificial lamps both provide viable long-term alternatives to sun-exposure.

4) Building a vehicle to carry sufficient fuel and supplies for the trip to Mars is not especially technically challenging, when compared to the design of an earth-entry vehicle. Earth orbit rendezvous allows for the assembly of massive (though expensive) space vehicles such as the ISS.

Aside from all the serious problems, their puny budget being probably the biggest, what always bugged me was the reality show aspect... What an ugly way to even think about achieving such a great feat. Are they picking their candidates like Big Brother does, with the egos and sex appeal? Will there be fighting? Sex? I mean, if the viewers get bored, and this will be a pretty long show with a pretty small cast, what happens then? And how will people even react to watching someone die in a "show" like this? Wouldn't this actually be the most perverse form of human exploitation ever conceived?..

I don't think this nasty idea even deserves this much work to write about it. I'm sorry for Josh, but I hope they do not succeed. I do not want to see the horror that this could turn into. Let's not mar space and Mars with this bullshit.

First: I thought this was a well-written article.

Second: although it is definitely not something I would seriously consider, I can appreciate that there are some people out there who are in fine mental health and would eagerly go on a one-way trip to Mars.

But third, when I read this:

Before he’d applied for Mars One, Josh had met a girl at the Redhead Days festival in the Netherlands. Eli did not have red hair, but was brunette; Josh was drawn to her easygoing demeanor, her effortless good moods, and they fell very much in love. But a shot at Mars would be a serious, life-changing turn of events, and Josh knew that he would have to fully commit if he was ever going to make it to the final selection. He didn’t even wait for the application deadline to break it off.

...I concluded that Josh was an idiot. Not for wanting to go on a one-way trip to Mars, not because of any career or lifestyle decisions he had made, but simply because he sabotaged his potential happiness based upon a promise of something exciting happening, made by people a world away that he had never met and who seemed to have a dubious command of the critical technical details of such an undertaking.

Ten years from now, when Josh is still on Earth, Mars One is considered to be another Biosphere 2 and Bas Landsorp and his pals have long since moved on to other commercial ventures, I suspect Josh will wonder about that brunette.

When they explain to me how ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) can fabricate a replacement for a blown microchip or a refrigerator's compressor - based only on the equipment you can bring to Mars in a couple of space capsules - I'll be ready to begin seeing Mars One as something other than an insane pipe dream.

This article nails it: these people would be living an 18th-century lifestyle. But it would be one utterly dependent on 21st-century technology for something as basic as breathable air. If their 18th-century lifestyle can't keep their 21st-century technology working, and the organizing company can't drum up enough money to send regular resupply flights for decades to come, they die. Simple as that.

To send actual humans to the surface of Mars requires several robotic missions first to prepare.

If we expect to make fuel for the return journey there, that needs to be happening before the people leave Earth orbit.

Ditto for digging the hole and putting in an underground habitat.

Building a greenhouse from glass made on Mars.

Growing actual food on the surface.

Each of these steps are critical and need testing before we send people. Otherwise it's a pointless test to find out which failure gets them first.

The point about the overabundance of oxygen (from the plants) that would require venting, but limited nitrogen, which would ultimately result in suffocation is one of those great little details that you don't normally think about when you think about living on other planets. There is so much we take for granted living day to day on a planet that we've evolved in concert with, that it's easy to overlook the little (and big) details that are so important for life to exist.

This article is like a laundry list of what's wrong with my generation. Whiny, cynical, woefully uninformed but happy to share technical reasons why something won't work.

> How the colonists might cope with a deficiency in vitamin A from a lack of sunlight, however, is.

Don't they mean vitamin D?

We are no where near ready to go to Mars.

What would the impact on the public's psyche be if this mission failed by means of a torturously slow death of the crew? I think it'd be a huge setback for any sort of space exploration to witness fellow humans triumphantly land on Mars and then watch it all fall apart and the crew perishes tragically (being optimistic enough to say they actually land safely).

I bet the Apollo program would have ended much sooner if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never made it off of the Moon.

I have always thought as Cmd. Hadfield stated, that we have to go to the Moon and get it right there first. Go to the Moon, get this space colonization thing figured out and then the conversation on heading to Mars can begin.

Well written article!

As much as I would like to but I think it will probably never happen in the near future. Not because of technical reasons as some people state in the article. In my opinion the technical difficulties are not the most difficult things to solve in order to travel to Mars. Humanity went basically from 0 to space and on the Moon but this was only possible because of the political pressure where everything was dedicated to reach this goal. This included a lot of money and ten thousands of people. But most important it was the society who supported this goal no matter what. Today nobody really cares if people go to space and this makes it impossible for a hand full of people who do.

"Gravity on Mars is only 38% that of Earth’s. What this would mean for the long-term health of colonists on Mars is not known"

I think this fact is often overlooked. The problem of gravity (and radiation) are probably harder to overcome than food and oxygen.

For anyone interested in a good, intense read about surviving alone on Mars, I highly recommend Andy Weir's "The Martian". Fiction (for awhile, anyway) based on science & engineering & human behavior. Don't start it on an evening when you can't stay up all night!

If that is the intellectual level of the applicants, they have far worse problems than radiation and food.

This is one exceptionally well-written article.

A well written article, interspersed with great art. Makes me wonder why he published it on Medium of all places.

This article deserved better. The author deserves recognition.