My most
admired Andrew L. Chaiklan "threw down the gauntlet to me" last night
during the Planetary Radio podcast. He described sending humans to Mars as
"The Mount Everest of space exploration." He pointed out that a
broken toilet on the spacecraft could be a fatal event for the astronauts on
board. (He had a good point there.) He did not see humans on Mars before the
2050s.
I do not have an engineering or
scientific degree. I am not an ex-astronaut. I don't have a NASA pedigree.
Explore Mars, Inc., The Mars Society, or the National Space Society would never
invite me to be a guest speaker or panel member. I have been studying the idea
of a manned mission to Mars since I saw the film Flight to Mars at the King
Center Drive-In theater in 1954.
In
simple language, here is how we get it done by 2033 as follows:
1) Leaving
astronauts in "a tin can" for 6 months as they fly to Mars is totally
unrealistic. We need to cut the travel time down to 30-45 days. This can be
done with nuclear-type engines. This is not some new technology that we need to
invent. We had a nuclear engine that could power a spacecraft ready to go in
1969. For some unknown reason, President Nixon canceled the program.
2) There is
an old saying in engineering KISS (Keep it simple stupid.) Things that are a
matter of life and death for astronauts like toilets, water filtration and
recycling systems, food preparation systems, life support systems, etc. need to
be as simple as possible. They need to be easy to fix.
3) Dennis
Tito is a man who earned my respect. He made a lot of money as an investment
manager. He paid the Russians a fortune to give him a ride to the International
Space Station. He conceived a daring plan to send two humans on a flight around
Mars. He specified that the two crew members would be a highly compatible
domestic partnership. For the first flight, it was going to be a man and a
woman. Later flights could have gay couples. It was a brilliant idea! Such
people would get along together well. They would give each other love, warmth,
and sexual pleasure. I would add that the candidates for these places on the
spacecraft need to have the most rigorous medical examination including DNA
tests. We could not afford a medical emergency en route to or on the surface of
Mars. I would specify that one crew member should be an MD with surgical
skills.
4)
Conventional wisdom says that we land astronauts on Mars. They return to earth.
I advocate for a one-way trip. The people landing there would become colonists.
They would start a new life on Mars and have children there.
Some readers like Elena have a firm belief
that we have too many problems here on earth. We should not be spending money
sending humans to Mars. People from the space advocacy organizations will
calmly and correctly point out that expenditures for space exploration are less
than 1% of the US budget.
I have an even better answer. An Oakland
author named Mary Roach wrote a brilliant little book a few years ago called
Packing for Mars. Here is the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packing_for_Mars
She put her heart and soul into the
project. She went to Russia and trained to be a cosmonaut. She spent time doing
training for the International Space Station at Johnson Spaceflight Center. She
ended the book talking about how cold, dangerous, and unforgiving space was. I
sensed that she was going to end the book advocating against the human
exploration of Mars. She surprised me with the following final words that I
will paraphrase now as follows:
"If we don't send humans to Mars, they
won't spend the money on social programs. What in the heck, let's go ahead and
do it!"
I will leave you to reflect on that!
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