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Mars Exploration 2: Manned Missions (Concepts; Preparations; etc.)

madmath said:
I propose a lack of microorganisms would make Mars soil essentially uninhabitable for most Earth plants. Adding a typical variety of bacteria, fungi, and other such, especially extremophiles, might help. Poop, of course, has a wide variety of flora and thus might provide an impetus beyond the nutrients.
Of course the perchlorate is nasty stuff and would need to be cleaned up, perhaps by genetically engineered bacteria.
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It would indeed be a difficult task, but may not be impossible. It just needs some engineering.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It would indeed be a difficult task, but may not be impossible. It just needs some engineering.
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Possibly Tardigrades could play a part?
They're tough little buggers and, after a minimum of terraforming to provide them with a foothold, maybe their metabolic by-products could contribute to bestowing the Martian soil with a degree of fertility.
 
Back in 2019 when Vice President Pence announced that the U.S. will go back to the moon.

Buzz Aldrin, former astronaut, expressed his unhappiness saying the moon is a waste of time.

Aldrin announced that “ it’s time to focus the on the great migration of humankind to Mars”.

Aldrin claimed our destiny is on Mars waiting for us.
 
charliebrown said:
Back in 2019 when Vice President Pence announced that the U.S. will go back to the moon.

Buzz Aldrin, former astronaut, expressed his unhappiness saying the moon is a waste of time.

Aldrin announced that “ it’s time to focus the on the great migration of humankind to Mars”.

Aldrin claimed our destiny is on Mars waiting for us.
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He's both right and wrong, I think. I'm surprised he said that about the Moon. It'd be useful as a base of operations and there may be deposits of rare, useful minerals there. But he's right about Mars.
 
Anyone going to Mars is a death sentence.

If the radiation does not get you, the harsh environment will.

If there is life on Mars it is underground.

The Cydonia area of Mars with the giant alien face and pyramids shows in the past that Mars had a civilization.

I believe there is some kind of life today living underneath the Mars surface.
 
I respect all opinions, and Mars is a big enigma

I am just puzzled about the years and money spent on Mars if it is just only a dead planet ?

In 2019 Buzz Aldrin was trying to start a campaign called “ skip the Moon and go to Mars “ because he felt Mars had the answers to the history of the earth.

And NASA is an enigma because over the years supposedly NASA turns off the live feed whenever an unknown gets near the ISS.

Russian cosmonaut, Ivan Vagner, claims he captured USOs while recording the southern lights

British astronaut, Tim Peake, claimed seeing UFOs, but NASA said it was leaking urine from the Russian Ship ?
 
charliebrown said:
I respect all opinions, and Mars is a big enigma

I am just puzzled about the years and money spent on Mars if it is just only a dead planet ?

In 2019 Buzz Aldrin was trying to start a campaign called “ skip the Moon and go to Mars “ because he felt Mars had the answers to the history of the earth.

And NASA is an enigma because over the years supposedly NASA turns off the live feed whenever an unknown gets near the ISS.

Russian cosmonaut, Ivan Vagner, claims he captured USOs while recording the southern lights

British astronaut, Tim Peake, claimed seeing UFOs, but NASA said it was leaking urine from the Russian Ship ?
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I would say thst it is all down to the natural resourses that can raped from the planet, seeing as the Earths natural resourses are running out, its no coincidence that these rovers are drilling into the sufrace and collecting samples, anyone who believes this is purely in the effory to find out if there was once life on Mars is severely deluded, it is all about MONEY :p
 
It would be a lot easier to mine asteroids for that purpose.
 
Hasn't this already been done before with a less-than-ideal outcome???

Mars Is Calling! NASA Is Recruiting for Yearlong Simulated Mars Mission
".....Each mission will consist of four crew members living and working in a 1,700-square-foot module 3D-printed by ICON, called Mars Dune Alpha. The habitat will simulate the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays, and other environmental stressors...."

https://scitechdaily.com/mars-is-calling-nasa-is-recruiting-for-yearlong-simulated-mars-mission/
 
Trevp666 said:
Hasn't this already been done before with a less-than-ideal outcome???

Mars Is Calling! NASA Is Recruiting for Yearlong Simulated Mars Mission
".....Each mission will consist of four crew members living and working in a 1,700-square-foot module 3D-printed by ICON, called Mars Dune Alpha. The habitat will simulate the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays, and other environmental stressors...."

https://scitechdaily.com/mars-is-calling-nasa-is-recruiting-for-yearlong-simulated-mars-mission/
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Yes, done before. No idea how this would be any different.
 
Simulation studies of such long-term mission and habitation conditions aren't as simple as "one and done." Large-scale crewed simulations of entire out-and-back Mars missions have been conducted for over a decade in a variety of places and addressing a variety of mission foci or mission profiles. Such simulations and / or the facilities in which they are conducted are called Mars analogs. For an overview see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mars_analogs

Some national and non-national organizations (e.g., the Mars Society) have also conducted simulations of long-term Mars habitat conditions alone (i.e., without the out-and-back space travel mission components).

Some of the facilities originally used for initial crew / mission studies of potential Mars missions have now been redirected toward similar studies focusing on moon base operations. This is mainly what's been going on with the HI-SEAS facilities in Hawaii (site of multiple Mars mission simulations over the last decade).

This newly-announced recruitment is for the CHAPEA program:

https://www.nasa.gov/chapea/about

CHAPEA is an updated and expanded simulation program focused specifically on long-term habitation on Mars. Among other things, CHAPEA will be using and testing concepts and conditions based on data from earlier simulation studies (e.g., different habitat structure and equipment).

As such, the CHAPEA simulations and agenda aren't just a repeat of the earlier Mars-related simulation studies.
 
Nosmo King said:
Crude oil, natural gas, rare metals, other gases etc. In the same way that the Falklands war wasn't about protecting some sheep farmers, it's no coincidence that it has recently been announced that they are going to start drilling for oil and gas in the coastal waters there.

https://www.forces.net/services/tri-service/drilling-companies-strike-oil-falklands
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We aren't running out of oil or gas, despite the regular panic headlines. Anyway, how would they get it the 140,000,000 miles back?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judecl...ch-oil-does-the-world-have-left/#6fd5a5a65b1f

Metals? Nope:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

Rare metals? The people pumping electric cars, which require them for their batteries, would tend to disagree.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
We aren't running out of oil or gas, despite the regular panic headlines. Anyway, how would they get it the 140,000,000 miles back?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judecl...ch-oil-does-the-world-have-left/#6fd5a5a65b1f

Metals? Nope:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

Rare metals? The people pumping electric cars, which require them for their batteries, would tend to disagree.

maximus otter
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So in your opinion the Mars rovers, that cost millions to manufacture, that are exploring a planet millions of miles away, that cost trillions to get there, are just looking for signs of long dead life on a long dead planet? I would ask, to what end? Say they find fossilized microbes of millinia old life, what next?
 
Nosmo King said:
So in your opinion the Mars rovers, that cost millions to manufacture, that are exploring a planet millions of miles away, that cost trillions to get there, are just looking for signs of long dead life on a long dead planet? I would ask, to what end?
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Human curiosity. Scientific knowledge. The absolute confirmation that - at least at one time - We Are Not Alone.

"...heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

maximus otter
 
Nosmo King said:
So in your opinion the Mars rovers, that cost millions to manufacture, that are exploring a planet millions of miles away, that cost trillions to get there, are just looking for signs of long dead life on a long dead planet? I would ask, to what end? Say they find fossilized microbes of millinia old life, what next?
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OIL!
 
maximus otter said:
Human curiosity. Scientific knowledge. The absolute confirmation that - at least at one time - We Are Not Alone.

"...heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

maximus otter
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To quote Jessy J ' it's all about the money' why are the Americans looking for volunteers to take part in tests in a Mars like environment, as posted about recently, there would be no point in setting up an outpost on Mars just to study fossilized microbes, it is not economically viable, mining with a view toward onward space exploration is economically viable, build space craft and fuel them from Mars, then jump to the next place to look for more resources to mine, and repeat.
 
maximus otter said:
Damn!

Which garage chain is selling the dirt-cheap Moon Oil, from that long-dead "planet" we went to for no reason?

;)

maximus otter
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The moon landing was slightly different, in that it was a political stunt, to prove that America was better than the USSR, at the height of the cold war, there is a reason nobody has been back there since the 1970's
 
Nosmo King said:
build space craft and fuel them from Mars, then jump to the next place to look for more resources to mine, and repeat.
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Indeed.
It's much easier than the first step of getting to Mars from here.
Mars orbit is much further out, and the gravity is lower, thus requiring a less effort over all for the launch of craft from there.
 
What none? Not even any cheese?
I bet Neil Armstrong was disappointed.
 
Buzz has been an advocate for Mars missions for a very long time; one strategy for colonising Mars would use the special orbital pathways popularised by Aldrin, known as an Aldrin Cycler. These missions would use large, permanently cycling, craft capable of carrying hundreds of people, and would drop them off in much smaller landers when they get to their destination, while returning to Earth for another load. This strategy could conceivably send hundreds of thousands of people to the Red Planet in a fairly short time, enough to establish an industrial base.
521px-Aldrin_Cycler.gif

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler

Any item that stirs up interest in the exploration of Mars and its moons could act as an impetus towards this goal, including a mysterious monolith.
 
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Modeling and simulation studies increase the concerns about physiological / medical effects of a voyage to Mars.
Your Body Won't Be The Same by The Time You Get to Mars, Scientists Say

In the coming decade, in 2033, NASA and China intend to send astronauts to Mars for the first time in history. This presents numerous challenges, ranging from logistical and technical issues to ensuring that astronauts can deal with waste and have enough food and water for the months-long transit to and from Mars.

But of course, there's also the health and safety of the astronauts, who will be spending months traveling through space where they'll be exposed to cosmic radiation and microgravity.

There are even concerns that after months of exposure to microgravity, astronauts will have trouble adapting to Martian gravity. ...

To determine if these fears have merit, a team of space medicine experts from the Australian National University (ANU) developed a mathematical model to predict whether astronauts can safely travel to Mars and perform their duties once they arrive on the Red Planet. ...

The paper that describes their mathematical model and conclusions recently appeared in npj Microgravity, a scientific journal published by Nature.

The research team was led by Dr. Lex van Loon, a Research Fellow from the ANU College of Health and Medicine (CHM). As he and his colleagues note in their study, the potential hazards for missions bound for Mars are numerous, but the greatest threat is arguably the time the astronauts will spend in microgravity.

Combined with damaging radiation from the Sun and cosmic sources, the experience will cause fundamental changes to their bodies.

Based on extensive research conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS), microgravity is known to cause muscle and bone density loss and affect organ function, eyesight, and the cardiopulmonary system – the heart and its ability to pump blood through the body's system of arteries and veins. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-wont-be-the-same-by-the-time-you-get-to-mars-scientists-say

PUBLISHED RESEARCH REPORT: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-022-00219-2
 
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