Mars!

[rockershovel]

Watched two consecutive documentaries about Mars on BBC4 last night. They suffered a bit from obviously being to some extent, overlapping and particularly in the case of the earlier one, distinctly outdated ( there is no 2020 Mars mission, for one thing, and SpaceX etc got no mention) but it was interesting stuff. 

 

The trend to spacesuits apparently designed by Pixar seems to be nothing new (No 2 Son described the recent SpaceX suits as “like Buzz Lightyear, but wearing wellies”). 

 

I also hadn't realised quite how many of these things there were.. 

[Edwin_m]

Mars missions are like buses, you wait ages for one and then...

 

Something to do with the relative positions of the planets in their orbits, means that now is the optimum time to launch a Mars mission, explaining why there have been several in the last few weeks.  

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I admit to bafflement with the whole idea of moving to manned colonies. Never able to go outside and relax in your bathers? Look at the trouble people have with wearing masks. Canned air for the rest of your life? Madness.

 

Did either of these progs mention the rational way to set up a viable colony off Earth? It is very obvious that the economical way to rapidly achieve sufficient genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding is to only send young females prepared to have plenty of children: one by artificial insemination and the rest by embryo implantation. No Jimmy Kork, Spuck, Snotty required, only the Uhura's and Chapel's need apply...

[rockershovel]

1 minute ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

I admit to bafflement with the whole idea of moving to manned colonies. Never able to go outside and relax in your bathers? Look at the trouble people have with wearing masks. Canned air for the rest of your life? Madness.

 

Did either of these progs mention the rational way to set up a viable colony off Earth? It is very obvious that the economical way to rapidly achieve sufficient genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding is to only send young females prepared to have plenty of children: one by artificial insemination and the rest by embryo implantation. No Jimmy Kork, Spuck, Snotty required, only the Uhura's and Chapel's need apply...

 

I think you would find that the problem of convincing people not to go outside without a surface EVA suit, would be quite quickly solved...

 

 

One thing I find rather amusing, is the whole “Mars Habitat Project” thing. From what I can see, well-meaning enthusiasts spend several weeks at a time living in plywood “habitats” in Alaska or somewhere similar, egged on by a community of like-minded souls on the Internet. They write up their “conclusions” which they send to NASA, who politely thank them, then drop them in the bin unread. I suppose I have a niche point of view, but I can’t take such things seriously, having had first-hand experience of what really goes on among a small team, spending long periods in an isolated work environment, and the amount of sheer drudgery, report-writing, planning and prep, actual execution ... I dare say other forum members with marine or service experience, will take the point. 

[rockershovel]

10 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

I admit to bafflement with the whole idea of moving to manned colonies. Never able to go outside and relax in your bathers? Look at the trouble people have with wearing masks. Canned air for the rest of your life? Madness.

 

Did either of these progs mention the rational way to set up a viable colony off Earth? It is very obvious that the economical way to rapidly achieve sufficient genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding is to only send young females prepared to have plenty of children: one by artificial insemination and the rest by embryo implantation. No Jimmy Kork, Spuck, Snotty required, only the Uhura's and Chapel's need apply...

 

I’d reckon that a new can of “canned air” would be something of a luxury, considering where the day-to-day stuff was likely to have been.. not even being locked up with Uhura, Sigourney Weaver and Sandra Bullock would be Worth that 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

13 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

...One thing I find rather amusing, is the whole “Mars Habitat Project” thing...

I don't now recall the author, but a sci-fi short I read in my teens has left its mark. Essentially the argument was that we do not exist independent of our environment. A colony living in an environment significantly different from Earth, will become a new species psychologically, once solely populated by 'natives' born into it.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

Something to do with the relative positions of the planets in their orbits, means that now is the optimum time to launch a Mars mission, explaining why there have been several in the last few weeks.  

 

The amount of energy required to get to Mars, and hence the size of the rocket needed, depends upon where in their orbits Earth and Mars are. Without additional measures like gravitation slingshots the lowest energy approach (which pretty much equates to "only practical one") is to fire off a rocket in an elliptical orbit where the closest point to the Sun is Earth orbit and the furthest Mars orbit, and then use a bit more to stop yourself coming back to Earth. Of course you need Mars to actually be at that point in its orbit when your spacecraft gets there...  Earth and Mars return to the same relative positions in their orbits just over every two years, which is why you get a flurry of Mars missions launching at that rate.

[Flying Pig]

3 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Did either of these progs mention the rational way to set up a viable colony off Earth? It is very obvious that the economical way to rapidly achieve sufficient genetic diversity to avoid inbreeding is to only send young females prepared to have plenty of children: one by artificial insemination and the rest by embryo implantation. No Jimmy Kork, Spuck, Snotty required, only the Uhura's and Chapel's need apply...

 

Apart from avoiding inbreeding, genetic diversity gives natural selection more to work with when adapting a population to a new environment. Since Africans carry much more genetic variation then the rest of humanity put together, it would be best to send a cargo of mostly Uhuras with a few from elsewhere in case the genes for being, say, pasty and freckled turn out to be unexpectedly beneficial.  Probably bung in some Tibetans too for tolerance to low atmospheric oxygen (apparently inherited from a Denisovan ancestor).  Expect rapid divergence from Earth standard as useful alleles spread rapidly through a small population, assuming that the colony manages to survive several generations.  When it does finally collapse, the corpses that the rescue mission has to bury may look quite odd.

 

Or just stick to robot probes, with the advantage that you don't have smelly terrestrial organisms tramping about contaminating the place, and learn about operating permanently isolated colonies somewhere closer to home where you can get there quickly if things go very wrong.  The moon perhaps, or even low earth orbit (space stations like Mir and the ISS are only very tentative first steps, frequently replenished from home).

[simontaylor484]

Never mind that how would the layout perform in those conditions that iswhat everybody needs to know surely?

[Reorte]

Just now, simontaylor484 said:

Never mind that how would the layout perform in those conditions that iswhat everybody needs to know surely?

 

In lower gravity? Easier derailments, lower traction (think of the issues of getting enough weight into some models on Earth). But it might help in getting realistic water and smoke effects, unless you're trying to model how they'd behave on Mars! Unless you've got enough shielding the radiation might sometimes mess up your DCC controllers.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

25 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Never mind that how would the layout perform in those conditions that is what everybody needs to know surely?

And imagine the reaction when a missed production date means 'the latest most wanted' doesn't make it for the supply ship launch window.

[Ben B]

5 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Mars missions are like buses, you wait ages for one and then...

 

Something to do with the relative positions of the planets in their orbits, means that now is the optimum time to launch a Mars mission, explaining why there have been several in the last few weeks.  

 

Ah, well... if we are close to Mars, then of course Mars is close to us too. Though the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

 

...theyyyyyy saiddddd

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Ah, well... if we are close to Mars, then of course Mars is close to us too. Though the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

 

...theyyyyyy saiddddd

 

Don't worry - they come in peace:

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

I think NASA already knows who lives on Mars.

 

[Hroth]

As is well known

 

Quote

A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play

 

but if they're green, don't eat 'em...

[APOLLO]

Who needs NASA !! Mars - The Jubilee 45698 back in the 60's a Bank Hall loco.

 

A day out in Manchester with mum & dad back around 1964 when the line was mostly four tracked she was at the head of the premier 17-10 Manchester Victoria - Salford - Wigan Wallgate - Southport businessman's express.  A real flyer of a train back then.

 

Dad timed her - She did the 17 miles Salford to Wigan Wallgate non stop in 17 minutes.

 

 

The brand new EMU's via Chat Moss take 25  (granted it's a bit longer this way) !!

 

Anyway - be careful landing on Mars - and DON'T take Heinz beans there !!

 

 

Brit15

 

 

 

[Flying Pig]

9 hours ago, Reorte said:

Unless you've got enough shielding the radiation might sometimes mess up your DCC controllers

 

If you haven't got enough shielding indoors, you probably won't live long enough to receive your first shipment from your favourite box shifter, so that isn't going to be a problem unless you want to extend into the garden.  In which case your main worry will be how to get rails through the airlock.

[iL Dottore]

I think that unless you terraform the planet, Mars can only be a relatively limited colony. However, expanding into space is, I believe, a good idea but we should aim towards colonising the asteroid belt.

The asteroids are an immensely rich source of ores and minerals as well as “dirty ice“ - which can provide all kinds of interesting organic molecules and water (and thus air).

 

The biggest problem facing humanity when colonising the solar system is the discrepancies in gravity and, in space, the absence of gravity. Our limited experience in space so far has shown that a lack of gravity, or even microgravity, causes all kinds of problems for the body. This can be overcome by having a rotating habitat in the astroid belt, the centrifugal force providing a pseudo gravity. In such a habitat the closer you are to the surface, the more the gravity will be like earth normal - but there again the closer you are to the surface, the closer you are to solar radiation (thinking about it, I suppose the idea would be to spin the habitat at such a rotation that the surface is something like 1.5 times earth gravity and thus any layers above 1.0 g would be dedicated to shielding).

 

Another advantage to setting up shop in the astroid belt is that it is a very unforgiving environment. This would mean that the stupid, the foolish and the careless  would have a very short shelf life indeed. Such an environment would also mean a near total absence of the “non-job“ (such as “diversity awareness officer” and the like).  

 

Putting this all together (having solved the problem of the absence of gravity by rotating the habitats) this could well mean that in very few generations the “Belters” (To steal a term from Larry live in) would be much fitter, psychologically, socially and physically, than their earth bound cousins.

Edited August 11, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[Jeff Smith]

Well, this has been fun, but back to the intent of the topic......enough informed recent novels have been written to give a general depiction of what an exploratory base could look like, ie The Martian.  Historically serious science fiction writers often predict with considerable accuracy what eventually transpires in broad terms.  Sometimes the timing is far off, eg 2001, and obviously innovative and unanticipated inventions or discoveries throw things off.  Assuming the world is not destroyed in war or by global warming it's highly likely that Mars will be colonized in one way or another.......advances in propulsion systems to shorten the flight time would probably help this the most.

[PatB]

12 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Ah, well... if we are close to Mars, then of course Mars is close to us too. Though the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

 

...theyyyyyy saiddddd

 

Wasn't it midnight on the 12th of August when it all kicked off? Anyone fancy pointing a telescope that way tomorrow, just in case?

[Ben B]

1 hour ago, PatB said:

 

Wasn't it midnight on the 12th of August when it all kicked off? Anyone fancy pointing a telescope that way tomorrow, just in case?

 

Well I would, but I'll probably just be busying myself about my various concerns... unaware that I'm being scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water...

[New Haven Neil]

3 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Well I would, but I'll probably just be busying myself about my various concerns... unaware that I'm being scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water...

 

...who have just spotted Covid and gone to Jupiter instead!  

[Hibelroad]

There is a plan to retrieve samples left by the latest rover and return them to earth. Let’s hope that the chances of them coming from mars are better than a million to one. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Hibelroad

[Reorte]

6 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

......advances in propulsion systems to shorten the flight time would probably help this the most.

 

When setting up a Martian colony the question would then be (if you could have such a system) whether it's better to use that to get there faster or carry more equipment.

[raymw]

It'll never happen while we eat mashed potatoes.