When will humans land on Mars?

[DaveS]

41 minutes ago, wulfrun said:

Considering the plight of our current planet, I'd have to question our right to start interfering with another. Not to mention that if it doesn't happen very soon indeed, I wonder if the environmental cost to Earth would lead to its cancellation anyway.

First of all cancel all non-essential air travel (Most *is* non essential) and stop making cement. These outweigh any current or near term foreseen space travel by many orders of magnitude.

[HiveIndustries]

12 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Doesn't even have to be that exotic, we're not talking fusion, antimatter, let alone warp drives. The Nuclear Salt Water Rocket will do very nicely thank you.

Well, I said "starting" and I'll include any kind of nuclear propulsion that's not "dumb" like RTGs. There are so many aspects to nuclear propulsion that aren't launch-ready even if we understand the technology. Project Orion I said "starting" because that was demonstrated working interstellar technology... started in the 1950s!

The international stage is getting so so so complicated. 10 years ago I would have said it was as simple as the US playing nice with China in space but now that "simple" seems 100,000x more complicated and Russia / the US seem headed for at least marriage counseling. I love the ESA but they're not the ones who are going to push proliferation issues for exploration in space.

Honestly, bottom line is I do agree with you, we should be splitting atoms to get around our solar system, starting years ago!

11 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

I disagree. We now know that life is amazingly adaptable and is found in extraordinarily inhospitable environments on earth. So I think it’s almost a dead certainty that if humans go to Mars then organisms - be they bacteria or whatever - will contaminate the planet and will evolve to live there.  So, we’re faced with deciding how important is the scientific question of whether life has developed independently in (at least) two different places in our solar system? The presence of humans on Mars could very well muddy any future discoveries of life on Mars, especially if it’s similar (e.g. DNA or RNA based).   Personally I think the question is far more important than boosting national prestige or flattering the personal egos of the likes of  Elon Musk. 

It’s not as though I’m saying humans should never go there. I’m merely suggesting we should have a moratorium on human exploration of say up to a century or until an international committee deems it safe to go there because the important scientific questions on life have been answered way or the other. 

I don't want to argue with you because I'm 50-50 on the thing. I said before "I get there" and I do, it's infinitely harder to un-screw something you've screwed on this subject.

I can't even get myself to 60-40 one way or the other because the aforementioned "out of Africa" argument gets me 60-40 one way and then I can easily be like, "there's really not too much harm if any on waiting on a species-scale" to go the other.

Edited October 24, 2021 by HiveIndustries

[DaveS]

For an in-depth not-too-technical look at rocket pollution check out This Article and Video

[HiveIndustries]

5 minutes ago, DaveS said:

For an in-depth not-too-technical look at rocket pollution check out This Article and Video

I've watched that video 3 times!

It's so hard to predict if we'll get to the scale of it mattering before coming up with alternate means of propulsion. If we're launching Starships like they're passenger planes with methane closed-cycle engines that's a clear problem but is that realllly the near term future? When you get to the 20+ year range can we reallly speculate what the preferred propulsion method much less required fuel for orbital launching is?

Also, when you get to those time scales, it's pretty obvious hydrogen will be a major component of industry making it and the tech to store it more developed. In a world where hydrogen is plentiful I think making things less polluting becomes a whole lot easier in rocketry (even if currently flawed as per the video).

Edited October 24, 2021 by HiveIndustries

[HiveIndustries]

Speaking of Perseverance, you'd really think NASA would be better about collimating their sample tubes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_sample-return_mission#/media/File:PIA24742-MarsPerseveranceRover-SampleTube233-20210806.jpg

[Ouroboros]

21 minutes ago, HiveIndustries said:

I don't want to argue with you because I'm 50-50 on the thing. I said before "I get there" and I do, it's infinitely harder to un-screw something you've screwed on this subject.

I can't even get myself to 60-40 one way or the other because the aforementioned "out of Africa" argument gets me 60-40 one way and then I can easily be like, "there's really not too much harm if any on waiting on a species-scale" to go the other.

Oh … I’m not arguing. I’m debating.  

I think it would be unfortunate if in say 60 years time long after humans started inhabiting Mars that microbes are found surviving in some place on Mars and the question is unanswerable of whether they are indigenous Martian life forms or taken there by humans   

[wulfrun]

35 minutes ago, DaveS said:

First of all cancel all non-essential air travel (Most *is* non essential) and stop making cement. These outweigh any current or near term foreseen space travel by many orders of magnitude.

No argument here, perhaps my wording wasn't good enough. Public perception of vast sums and vast resources. It doesn't look good and reality may end up not being the deciding factor.

[dmki]

manned missions to mars are going to be fabulously expensive, even if you go for a billionaire's dream of employees on a suicide mission, i don't think the wealth available to even the richest of our current crop of vein billionaires have a fraction of the cash needed. That leaves political projects to mars, I don't think there is a country on the planet that does not have sufficient domestic government funding issues that would not make diverting cash to a manned mission to mars a toxic political project.

I would be shocked if we did a manned mission to mars this century

[HiveIndustries]

15 minutes ago, wulfrun said:

No argument here, perhaps my wording wasn't good enough. Public perception of vast sums and vast resources. It doesn't look good and reality may end up not being the deciding factor.

This is short sighted backwards, imho. As a species we should constantly try and increase our production and consumption of energy and transportation is obviously one of the places this energy is manifested in useful ways.

Perhaps we should stop blaming people for their personal behaviors and start investing in the long-term harder ways we're avoiding that are needed to solve the equation.

It could not be any clearer that hydrogen is the future, or at least the one we should be pursuing in earnest for air travel and it could not be any more equally as clear that there are many obstacles that can and do need to be overcome to get there that we're only giving passing glances at.

You could even marry these two issues (mars+transport), perhaps if we (the US) mandated 0 emission rockets that could make point to point suborbital hopping a reality. It's not like Musk has been shy about postulating the possibilities.

[wulfrun]

11 minutes ago, HiveIndustries said:

This is short sighted backwards, imho. As a species we should constantly try and increase our production and consumption of energy and transportation is obviously one of the places this energy is manifested in useful ways.

I'm guessing this is meant to be provocative but you seem to overlook the fact that, for now at least, we live on a finite planet. Constantly increasing energy production and consumption isn't possible in this scenario.

[ONIKKINEN]

There are far too many unsolved or untested variables for this to happen any time soon, 2038 would be early. Testing propellant production in a large enough scale to be usable and building a habitat out of martian materials are the big ones i think. Both of these probably require some sort of drone depot on Mars to build them.

 

Launching with enough propellant to do a round trip is not really possible with current tech and probably not changing soon, the fuel for the return journey has to come from Mars. Testing is slow because the launch window to mars is only once every 3 years, so i dont think we have only 4 test cycles before boots on mars so nowhere near 2038 in my opinion.

 

Why not just pack more propellant then? Because of the tyranny of the rocket equation. Propellant goes up a lot and delta v goes up a bit. Launch mass goes up exponentially because of the new increased mass. Chemical propellants suck and a delta v of 20km/s is near the upper limit from Earth = not enough. New technologies with higher specific impulse thrusters are still in their infancy and so far none are serious enough to be usable for out-of-launchwindow flights, which would be required for a quick trip not requiring a built habitat on Mars.

 

I know nuclear propulsion could be implemented quickly but its a pr nightmare. Dont think thats going to happen anytime soon. Every time NASA has launched RTGs on their spacecraft there has been an investigation on the potential damages caused if it goes wrong, and that has been difficult to explain already. An actual nuclear reactor in space is a big no-no for many reasons.

 

Ion engines have high enough specific impulse to fly to Mars anytime, even outside a launch window, BUT they have low enough thrust that it would take a year to accelerate, so not very helpful in this case.

[DaveS]

34 minutes ago, dmki said:

manned missions to mars are going to be fabulously expensive, even if you go for a billionaire's wet dream of employees on a suicide mission, i don't think the wealth available to even the richest of our current crop of vein billionaires have a fraction of the cash needed. That leaves political projects to mars, I don't think there is a country on the planet that does not have sufficient domestic government funding issues that would not make diverting cash to a manned mission to mars a toxic political project.

I would be shocked if we did a manned mission to mars this century

A one-way trip isn't a suicide mission if you're setting up a colony, with people expecting to live out their (Long, hopefully) lives there. I doubt the Pilgrim Fathers (What about the mothers? Much more important)  on the Mayflower were expecting (Or even wanted) to return to England.

Your assumption that billionaires want their employees to commit suicide is dangerously close to political.

[DaveS]

Vasimr.

[DaveS]

And any Mars base with any long term ideas had better include a maternity unit in their medical centre.

[7170]

I’m not sure what your all talking about. I  visited Mars several years ago. A lovely place though a little hot in the summer.
 

I admire how some people like to prepare for a trip and pack for the worst. But even so, packing for a six month trip is a little extreme given Mars is only about two hours south of Lyon in France by road. No need for a tricky landing either, a good road network is already in place so  any car will do.

Hmmm, I’ll get my coat.....

As for the planet, I think it is still a pipe dream, 30 plus years would be my bet, but I would love to be wrong and it be much sooner! I don’t think there is really the political will at the moment.

 

[HiveIndustries]

6 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Your assumption that billionaires want their employees to commit suicide is dangerously close to political.

Musk talks about it openly man, I don't think it's political. The only thing up for debate is the word "suicide" which I, probably like you, would disagree with but certainly worth debating.

We know enough to know there's going to be damage to humans on the way and when you get there and that they're more than likely to shorten life, at least speculatively, coupled with a "one way" trip, whether or not that qualifies as suicide, isn't that fair game?

Edited October 24, 2021 by HiveIndustries

[HiveIndustries]

5 minutes ago, DaveS said:

And any Mars base with any long term ideas had better include a maternity unit in their medical centre.

I would honestly hope that every man and woman gets sterilized before they go, perhaps even as a requirement. Sex happens, rape happens, if we had executive control over this as a species, abortion wouldn't happen, right? If humans are going, sex and reproduction is a risk and complicating factor to an absolutely mission failing, resulting in death, degree unless you do the ridiculous thing you talk about, fully staffed out maternity ward with reasonable science to back up "what might happen to this child and mother."

This is a rough one but when you look at it from a numbers and risk perspective, it's kind of a scientific reality, we're meant to procreate and will put aside all logic to do it and I don't think anyone has proven intelligence, capabilities or anything space related is going to change peoples in the moment behaviors for reproduction.

[DaveS]

When I said "Long term plans" I was implying expansion into a colony. A colony needs to be self-sustaining, which means reproduction unless you're planning on sending a stream of people on one-way trips. Hoe 1/3rd (Or thereabouts) gravity will affect pregnancy and childbirth is currently unknown, but had better *be* known if a colony has a long-term future.

[DaveS]

I think a realistic, at least at first, base will need to be dug well underground, perhaps in lava tubes if any can be found.

The difference between a colonisation and exploration trip is crucial. I would not expect colonists to be expecting to return on the next "flight" but explorers might.

[HiveIndustries]

You're absolutely correct but I would hope we go through similar medical trials to what we'd do on earth for a drug on mammalian reproduction and development before embarking on something like this. Mice, primates, etc. before. Even if you've somehow made an environment for 1g and solved for radiation, who knows what we'll encounter.

The Netflix show I think does a good job of showing what the assembly line will look like back and forth to Mars. You're going to run out of competent and willing "one-way" candidates pretty quickly so you'll probably be able to plot your way back. It's worth noting that getting back from an energy standpoint is way, way, way easier and cheaper once the tech is established as opposed to initially escaping Earth's gravity well and atmosphere.

That should give you thousands of colonists, giving you 10+ years to figure out the science of reproduction on a different planetary body with vastly different characteristics across the board from what we've only known since life's inception.

Edited October 24, 2021 by HiveIndustries

[Tiny Clanger]

2027* for first settlement, according to Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars' novel . Well worth reading , along with the follow up volumes 'Green Mars' and 'Blue Mars' . KSR in these books examines the political , social, economic and ecological ramifications in what I found a most enjoyable set of novels

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

Heather

 

*altho' that date may have been pushed back a tad by a pandemic ... 

[Andy ES]

Not sure when it will be but I’m pretty sure a man and woman will plant this flag, because nobody else will has the will, drive and determination to do it.

 

[HiveIndustries]

2 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

2027* for first settlement, according to Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars' novel . Well worth reading , along with the follow up volumes 'Green Mars' and 'Blue Mars' . KSR in these books examines the political , social, economic and ecological ramifications in what I found a most enjoyable set of novels

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

Heather

 

*altho' that date may have been pushed back a tad by a pandemic ... 

Is that serious or just trying to get a book in? I honestly don't think 2027 is even remotely possible, even if we were to "moon shot" it I think we'd wind up missing it. You realistically have 3 windows to get everything right and I'd probably narrow that down to 2 in terms of anything that would involve any kind of core mission hardware being launched. I don't even think you could launch anything to gather in situ resources in time for the next window.

2027 would be difficult even for the sample return mission.

[Macavity]

Book me immediately... Frankly the *isolation* that "Covid" has prepared me for... 
Anything a MARS journey could throw at me... Ultimate/Sudden Death etc. etc. 🥳

P.S. If I could have a CAT (or two) for company... 😺

Edited October 24, 2021 by Macavity

[mikeDnight]

Is the idea to live in miserable bubbles on Mars surface, or to live deep under the ground like Morlchs?  Either way it will be a soul destroying existence. If terraforming is the plan then forget it. Mars is way too small to hold onto any meaningful atmosphere, it doesn't possess an ozone layer to block UV light, and it doesn't have a magnetosphere to act as a forcefield to protect surface life from bombardment by high energy particles from the Sun. Plus it's too cold for humans to survive unprotected. Never the less, I'd be happy to hand out one way tickets to a large percentace of  humanity.