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People On Mars in 2023?

Pushtrak

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/mars-one-plans-human-colonization-of-mars-by-april-2023/

While we dream about living or visiting a Martian planet, Mars One is executing the most ambitious privately funded space mission yet. The company has set a deadline for April 2023, the month that a human being will first set foot onto Mars.

With NASA’s budget cut, privatized space travel has become the next frontier for wealthy businessmen with dreams of becoming the real-life Tony Stark. Among the dreamers, there are some that are acting out on loftier ambitions. Forget the moon; the team from the Mars One project is setting out to make the colonization of Mars a reality.

The private Dutch company Mars One has set an ambitious deadline for the first permanent Mars colony: April 2023. For those who opt to settle on Mars, there will be no turning back. Their residence on the dusty planet would be permanent, although every two years, the established colony would welcome new residents, thereby slowly growing the Mars-based community.

Mars One initially plans to send over four astronauts in a journey that will take a mind-numbing seven months. Come 2033, the program hopes to have over 20 astronauts living on Mars.

If you’re skeptical about Mars One’s plans, you should be, but the project has the backing of the 1999 Physics Nobel Prize winner, Professor Dr. Gerard T Hooft, and the interest of several major privately operated commercial space corporations and suppliers that are capable of building the equipment and gear necessary to make the mission a success.

“This is going to be private enterprise, only private firms are going to contribute. No political mumbo-jumbo, no tax-payer’s money will be involved,” Dr. Hooft said in a statement.

The plan will begin only four years from now in 2016, when a communications satellite and a supply mission will be sent to Mars. Come 2018, a rover will be transported to Mars with the purpose of seeking an ideal location and best living condition to prepare for the permanent human settlement on the red planet. On 2020, the living capsules, supplies, life support unit and a rover tasked with reassembling the settlement components will be sent to Mars, preparing the colony for habitation. The first four astronauts will begin their journey on September 2022, landing on the planet on April of 2023.

Mars One plans on funding the continuous mission through a media spectacle that will allow anyone to stream and monitor the progress. In other words, such a widely publicized event would be prime real estate for advertisers and sponsors.

The aspiration is lofty, but private exploration is taking off — literally. Just last month, the privately built and launched Space X Dragon capsule was able to link with the International Space Station. Private corporations like Virgin Galactic, Space X and even Red Bull are racing to become the next household name that children will be talking about for generations to come.

Check out Mars One’s video below and let us know in the comments below if you’d be willing to leave the comforts of Earth to spend the rest of your life on a Martian planet.

More @ http://mars-one.com/

So, they're planning on 4 in 2023, and to have 20 up there in 2033. I'm not going to speak on the likelihood of them making the 2023 date, but the point I will make is it seems 10 years on, maybe they ought to be hoping for more than that to be up on Mars?

Being on another planet would be quite an experience, but being one of the early adopters, so to speak, one of those astronauts.. It'd be quite something to adapt to. Going on a one way journey somewhere, well, the precise 4 that would go up would have to be chosen. They will only have each other to "entertain" each other.

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Pushtrak

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Combining this with the length of time it would take to terraform Mars makes it seem ambitious at best. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if it's unattainable, it just appears to be at the outset.

Contact them. Let them know, so they don't spend billions on something that will never happen. Oh, maybe they know more on the issue than we?

hardCopy wrote: »

I'm a bit confused as to why people would go. People usually explore for some sort of gain, e.g. Columbus seeking new spice routes, pilgrims seeking new lands free from persecution in America, prospectors seeking gold in the American West.

This planet only has so many resources. With the population rising as it is, there will come a time when we will need to have another planet to go to. And seeing as these things take time, it would probably be good for us to be ready before we absolutely need it to be ready.

I could see the case for it if we found unobtanium there and had a way to retrieve it or if Earth was completely overcrowded.

Because working on a solution when you are already deep in the problem is a good idea? No, ideally you'd avoid the problem.

TPD

I wonder if there's any amount of training someone could begin tomorrow to be one of the four in 2023.

squod

TPD wrote: »

I wonder if there's any amount of training someone could begin tomorrow to be one of the four in 2023.

Stop masturbating

the groutch

they'd be better off going to Blisstonia

wexie

A Dutch entrepeneur is planning on sending a team of volunteers to Mars, and combining the whole effort with reality TV (mostly for funding I gather).

Would you go?

Ten years of training for the trip, but no way back (that's provided you actually get there)

http://mars-one.com/en/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18506033

JohnMarston

No. I like gravity. And not being in a tin can.

Nodin

...doesn't seem to have thought it through. Or hes just scamming a few bob.

Knex*

Can we nominate cnuts people to go instead?

JohnMarston

Arnold

bee_keeper

af_thefragile wrote: »

NASA was all geared up for Moon landings, setting a moon base and a Mars mission too with the Constellation Program.

Then Obama decided he needed more money to kill people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and that was obviously more important than any sorta pointless space travel and hence yeah, it's gonna be a long time before we'll be going back to the moon and beyond again...

investment in space is pretty small compared to what it was in the 1960,s , after the moon landing , a plan was drawn up to land on mars by 1981 , when nixon saw the multi billion dollar cost , he binned the idea , the end of the cold war really put the kibosh on serious space investment

im 34 , id be surprised if thier is a mars landing by the time im seventy

bee_keeper

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Let's be honest - we're not ever going to colonize Mars. It's completely uninhabitable. And where else are we supposed to colonise? We're not going to get to the nearest galaxy even with the best technology. Plus, I'm ignoring all that hocus pocus of wormholes, sounds like bull to me when I read it.

maybe not mars but their will eventually be colonys on other planet , your looking at at least another thousand years

movies have given us an over inflated sense of technological advancement , movies like total recall or avatar where in a mere hundred years , settlements are possible :rolleyes:

General Relativity

JohnMarston wrote: »

No. I like gravity.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where do I even start?

Cina

Mmmmm, Mars. *drool*

Pushtrak

Cina wrote: »

Mmmmm, Mars. *drool*

Heh heh, snickers.

ScumLord

General Relativity wrote: »

And you'll be alive to see us take our first baby steps into the Universe. Count yourself among the lucky. We only learned to fly ~110 years ago.

I feel really bad now, am I the only one that hasn't learned to fly yet?

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

I'm all for science, but only science that gains us knowledge. How exactly do we benefit from taking the risk of sending individuals to Mars?

I think it's just an ego trip.

The human race ultimately needs to get off this planet, the sooner the better, we are actually running out of certain elements on the planets, we're going to have exhausted our helium supply within a hundred years I think. If we leave it too long we could very well end up stuck here.

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Of course I'm aware of these benefits, but my point is...would it not be better to have sophisticated robots perform these jobs?

No, as we all know from the terminator documentaries robots would only screw us over and keep mars for themselves.

The other thing about space is there's the massive amounts of material just floating around in it. Even water is just floating around in space. Once we have a good replacement for our earth space ship (which is basically what this planet is) with the major upgrade of being able to go anywhere we want it to go, we could survive quiet well in space as we'd have unlimited resources.

Earth is ultimately a doomed planet, the human race and really life on earth as a whole can only guarantee it's survival by spreading it as far and wide as possible.

nyarlothothep

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

ScumLord

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back.

They're making that sacrifice so that others in the future will be able to come and go with ease. People did this hundreds of years ago when they first went to the new world, they knew they'd more than likely never see their families again.

shizz

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

The idea is that putting resources into bringing them back takes away from setting up the colony. Eventually steps will be put in to bring people too and from.

I for one am not for this method anyway. With proper investment and development we can bring them back initially.

Helix

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

not being able to come back is just in the beginning. it's the first step to get people there and start building a colony. eventually, when that colony is big enough, and the teething problems have been sorted out, it's pretty much a given that they'll build something capable of returning people and things to earth. we won't see it on our lifetimes, but to suggest that it's never going to happen is a bit silly

you seem unable to grasp the bigger picture

Pushtrak

ScumLord wrote: »

I feel really bad now, am I the only one that hasn't learned to fly yet?

Don't feel too bad. That means you don't have to migrate at inconvenient times of the year.

The human race ultimately needs to get off this planet, the sooner the better, we are actually running out of certain elements on the planets, we're going to have exhausted our helium supply within a hundred years I think. If we leave it too long we could very well end up stuck here.

When I read that about the helium supply, my reaction was "What the..." had to look that up. http://digitaljournal.com/article/321439

Finding it hard to believe shouldn't be surprising given that

Earth by no means has an infinite supply of helium, in fact it is highly limited on this planet despite it being the second-most abundant element in the universe.

The world's second-lightest element, which is crucial to the usage of equipment such as MRI scanners and neutron beams, is disappearing so fast that experts are warning it could be gone as soon as 2025. Due to a law passed in 1996, helium has become "too cheap to recycle" and the sharply declining stock of the gas could ultimately spell doom for the medical industry says The Independent.

That certainly isn't good.[/understatement]

The other thing about space is there's the massive amounts of material just floating around in it. Even water is just floating around in space. Once we have a good replacement for our earth space ship (which is basically what this planet is) with the major upgrade of being able to go anywhere we want it to go, we could survive quiet well in space as we'd have unlimited resources.

Asteroid mining will be very important in the future, no doubt. On that, I must mention Planetary Resources... http://mashable.com/2012/04/26/planetary-resources-asteroid-mining-trillions/

ScumLord

Pushtrak wrote: »

When I read that about the helium supply, my reaction was "What the..." had to look that up. http://digitaljournal.com/article/321439

Pretty socking, you'll never look at a party balloon the same way, I get annoyed at the waist when I see them now.

Feisar

Pushtrak wrote: »

Heh heh, snickers.

Don't laugh, this will be a marathon operation to complete.

[Deleted User]

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

i see what you did there

seamus

ScumLord wrote: »

Pretty socking, you'll never look at a party balloon the same way, I get annoyed at the waist when I see them now.

Makes you wonder, if it's so scarce how come helium balloons don't cost €1000 a go?

Pushtrak

Feisar wrote: »

Don't laugh, this will be a marathon operation to complete.

There'll be a great bounty in this galaxy.

ScumLord

seamus wrote: »

Makes you wonder, if it's so scarce how come helium balloons don't cost €1000 a go?

I would guess as long as they can meet demand each year that keeps cost low, once the production rate goes down meaning they can't meet demand the price will go up. It's the same with oil, it's not the dwindling supplies that making the cost go up it's that they can't get it out of the ground fast enough to meet demand so people have to fight over what's available.

nyarlothothep

ScumLord wrote: »

They're making that sacrifice so that others in the future will be able to come and go with ease. People did this hundreds of years ago when they first went to the new world, they knew they'd more than likely never see their families again.

Uh oh, that sounds like the ends justifying the means argument again. Just because it happened in the past with measurable success doesn't justify it in principle. Also totally different context. The new world with its abundance of resources and the remote though extant possibility of coming back vs a pod on a dead world...

I'm not against space colonisation, I'm all for it but this is not the way to achieve it. This is a case of running before you can walk. Do the research, the steps necessary to get to that point, to let the technology catch up with the loftier ambitions. Otherwise it's equivalent to a guy putting up a youtube video where they try to shred having practiced the guitar for 6 months. Guess what happens?

nyarlothothep

Helix wrote: »

not being able to come back is just in the beginning. it's the first step to get people there and start building a colony. eventually, when that colony is big enough, and the teething problems have been sorted out, it's pretty much a given that they'll build something capable of returning people and things to earth. we won't see it on our lifetimes, but to suggest that it's never going to happen is a bit silly

you seem unable to grasp the bigger picture

Nice, slip in a little ad hominem. Pfft, nah you see to build a spaceship on mars capable to escaping gravitational pull with limited resources is equivalent to Flynn Taggart in the Doom novels building a rocket ship from a DIY kit on the Deimos base, not going to happen, at least not until many centuries have passed. And the initial human sacrifice doesn't justify it, it's all too easy for humans to rationalise human sacrifice for the greater good, in some cases like Chernobyl this is justfied, not in this case when better approaches are availabe. Lets start with not bailing out parasite banks and bankers and diverting all that cash into space research. And maybe ending the Iraq and Afghan wars and not starting any new ones. Think of all the money that could be saved. Of course that would require a change in human attitudes which is all too difficult to accomplish, no better we go with the human sacrifice route.

ScumLord

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Uh oh, that sounds like the ends justifying the means argument again.

But the ends do justify the means here because we're talking about survival, not just the survival of humans, not just the survival of life on earth, for all we know life on earth could be it, we're could be talking about the survival of all life. We're just assuming life has happened elsewhere but we've little proof outside of maybe a few microbes.

The new world with its abundance of resources and the remote though extant possibility of coming back vs a pod on a dead world...

resources don't require life, like I already said all the resources we could ever need are just floating around in space. Mars could have been very similar to earth at one point which means it probably has very similar resources outside of the organic and o-zone.

Do the research, the steps necessary to get to that point, to let the technology catch up with the loftier ambitions.

We've sent the robot's made the models and it really is time to start putting some practical applications in.

Pushtrak

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Pfft, nah you see to build a spaceship on mars capable to escaping gravitational pull with limited resources is equivalent to Flynn Taggart in the Doom novels building a rocket ship from a DIY kit on the Deimos base, not going to happen, at least not until many centuries have passed.

Suppose you have people who are willing to make a life long committment to try to make colonizing another planet a success. This is what we have here, it seems. You are discounting people who are willing. It isn't like some dictator is throwing people to something they don't want to do.

So, the situation is having people go over and try to make this work. With more people added over time. My issue is how are they going to keep up the money? What is this talk of a reality tv show or something? If that doesn't build up money then I don't see how in the short term the funding will be self sustaining. That is the big issue as I see it.

As for a space vessel that could break orbit from Mars, well, that would be for a ways down the road. And I imagine such a vessel would be constructed on Earth, sent to Mars, and would return.