Suicide mission to Mars

Whilst I find the one way prospect beyond frightening, I think we do need to be brave and do such things.

That said, I don't think we are technologically ready to do it though and I think there are more risks than there need to be.

However it is a very exciting mission - I think we're just trying to run before we can walk.

Give it another 100 years, or even several hundred before attempting something like that.


Ahem...What?

We have the capabilities now, just not the political desire, financial return or enough data to go ahead.

I'd be surprised if we don't land by 2040-50, which hopefully means a Lunar Base is operational, who knows by that point we might even have sustained Fusion, then its really easy comparably.
 
Ahem...What?

We have the capabilities now, just not the political desire, financial return or enough data to go ahead.

Ahem...what? We don't have the capability though do we....

We can can fly people there, but we can't fly them back.

We do not have the ability to build any sort of adequate permanent structure that can house people comfortably. In order to build such a facility we would need to load all of the construction materials on to the ship as well as a trained 'space' construction crew. I'm sure the ship cannot carry the weight of all of that.

If we were capable of the above then we could actually continually explore mars as much as we like. As it stands we can't do this. All we have is a bunch of social loons that want to be flown to mars.
 
Ahem...What?

We have the capabilities now, just not the political desire, financial return or enough data to go ahead.

We don't have the capability to do it safely, or reliably, no.

Just look at what happened with the attempt to land a probe on a comet recently. Largely successful, but with some major failures that caused part of the mission to fail.

With a probe it doesn't matter if the mission fails in whole or part. It's just a set back. If part of the mission fails here, people are going to die.

For all the brilliant minds working in the space industry, a mission to Mars is still science fiction, because the risks far outway the benefits.

What, prey tell, is the advantage of a Mars base over a Lunar base? Mars isn't habitable either, but is a hell of a lot further away...
 
Mars is far more habitable than the moon. And in some ways easier, some atmosphere, more water, higher mavity, no lunar regolith.
And in some ways harder, thin atmosphere, much further away.



Ahem...what? We don't have the capability though do we....

We can can fly people there, but we can't fly them back.

We do not have the ability to build any sort of adequate permanent structure that can house people comfortably. In order to build such a facility we would need to load all of the construction materials on to the ship as well as a trained 'space' construction crew. I'm sure the ship cannot carry the weight of all of that.

If we were capable of the above then we could actually continually explore mars as much as we like. As it stands we can't do this. All we have is a bunch of social loons that want to be flown to mars.

No you do not need to carry all the construction stuff with you. Like the earth mars has most of what we need.
Also return trip is likely to be possible in the coming decade or two. Again it uses resources on the moon to refuel a spaceship.
SpaceX falcon 9 reusability will pace the way forward for this.
Of which tonight they might make history of landing the first stage back on a drone ship after launching a space satellite.

It is far from a bunch of loons.
 
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Pretty much, just without the reality show, all hush hush government stuff.

oh and of course the development of a new breed of human with some weird scifi super powers...episode three got odd.
 
Pretty much, just without the reality show, all hush hush government stuff.

oh and of course the development of a new breed of human with some weird scifi super powers...episode three got odd.

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No you do not need to carry all the construction stuff with you. Like the earth mars has most of what we need.
Also return trip is likely to be possible in the coming decade or two. Again it uses resources on the moon to refuel a spaceship.
SpaceX falcon 9 reusability will pace the way forward for this.
Of which tonight they might make history of landing the first stage back on a drone ship after launching a space satellite.

It is far from a bunch of loons.

I might have the wrong end of the stick here.

You're saying for newly inhabitants, or to set up a new base, it would be easier to mine resources, then make construction resources, then build whatever needs building over just taking it with us?

Wouldn't we need to then take machines that do the mining, smelting, etc. etc.
 
Utter waste of money, far better to spend the same amount on un-man'd robots as this would massively improve our understanding of the cosmos in comparison.
 
I might have the wrong end of the stick here.

You're saying for newly inhabitants, or to set up a new base, it would be easier to mine resources, then make construction resources, then build whatever needs building over just taking it with us?

Wouldn't we need to then take machines that do the mining, smelting, etc. etc.

No. You do a mixture.
To start with you send capsules, these are covered in Martian soil to block radiation.
You send food supplies to last several years, AMD can supplament with fresh greenhouse grown stuff.
You can gather water on mars, that can be used as water or split for hydrogen and oxygen.
You can also capture and condense the atmosphere to get several gases you can use for several things.
As you build up the colony you can use mire and more ISRU.

There's even 3d printer research to build entire houses put of lunar and Martian soil.
 
No you do not need to carry all the construction stuff with you. Like the earth mars has most of what we need.
Also return trip is likely to be possible in the coming decade or two.

It is far from a bunch of loons.

So Mars has everything they need for construction purposes?? Please explain how the people flying up there would make the following -

screw, nut of bolt
Cement or equivalent
Concrete blocks
Steel I/H beams
Sheet metal
Plastic
Glass
Timber

The above can't just be magically dug out of the Mars soil....yet without them people won't be able to construct a single thing. What they fly up there with in the ship will be all they will ever have. If we shipped these people off to the Sahara desert they would die... This is no different.
 
Oh god, really. So before modern construction, we constructed nothing did we?

We never built caves etc?

Mars does indeed have all the raw materials we need. Some can be utilized straight away. Other you slowly bring in machines until you are eventually self sustainable. Your initial comment of having t bring everything with you is so far off the mark.

Why are there so many like you in this thread, who clearly don't know.
Bit I suppose you require I beams and windows etc for this
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/S...nology/Building_a_lunar_base_with_3D_printing

And LOL, people live in deserts
 
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