A Long Mission to ‘Mars’ for Colombian Man

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Diego Urbina is finally on his way back to Earth. It has been a very long trek and he still has the journey home to contend with. He has been on Mars with five other members of the crew of the Mars 500 project and all should be returning on November 5th. The project began June 3rd, 2010 and is a very realistic simulation run by the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency.


When Urbina emerges from the isolation chamber, he hopes to keep working in space engineering and operations and help put humans on Mars (“This time for real!”).
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thats neat. too bad the real issue with the test is getting it to really work. you have to get the ship that can get there and back. and have to hope that your aim is perfect when you take off.both for the trip to mars and the trip back otherwise you are lost in space forever.
 
Exavior said:
thats neat. too bad the real issue with the test is getting it to really work. you have to get the ship that can get there and back. and have to hope that your aim is perfect when you take off.both for the trip to mars and the trip back otherwise you are lost in space forever.
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We got a number of satellites out there (and to various other planets) without major issue. That was many years ago. If you honestly believe there's a strong likelihood we'd send a ship out, and that ship would miss Mars entirely and get lost in space forever...
 
Urbina beat out 300 other candidates for the two ESA slots in the isolation chamber. The other crewmembers are from Russia, France and China.
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Translated as "drew the shortest straw of 301 straws"
 
Exavior said:
thats neat. too bad the real issue with the test is getting it to really work. you have to get the ship that can get there and back. and have to hope that your aim is perfect when you take off.both for the trip to mars and the trip back otherwise you are lost in space forever.
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Nah, getting a ship there and back, not that big a deal all said and done. Getting living humans there and back without them getting pissed at each other and going insane due to the cramped quarters and time it takes to make the trip?? That needed some testing first.
 
I wonder how they plan to deal with weightlessness over such a long period? Kinda a major problem that is always ignored. They better get started building the spinning gravity thingy in orbit because it's going to have be goddamn huge to be of any use.
 
i think there is a really big difference between on earth isolation and real deep space isolation.
 
niconx said:
I wonder how they plan to deal with weightlessness over such a long period? Kinda a major problem that is always ignored. They better get started building the spinning gravity thingy in orbit because it's going to have be goddamn huge to be of any use.
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There was a guy in space in zero gravity for over 2 years, which is about the time we estimate a round-trip with a few month stay would take (with current technology anyway). He lost a ton of muscle and bone mass, but he didn't die or anything.

People on a Mars mission should be able to get some decent exercise on Mars too. It only has about 1/3rd the gravity of earth, but that's infinitely more than zero-G. Of course exercising also uses a lot of oxygen, which will be in finite supply (unless we can figure out how to bring and successfully grow a lot of plants).
 
travbrad said:
There was a guy in space in zero gravity for over 2 years, which is about the time we estimate a round-trip with a few month stay would take (with current technology anyway). He lost a ton of muscle and bone mass, but he didn't die or anything.
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A little less than 1.2 years actually. And he didn't die or anything however he couldn't walk either. Which is fine when you can stay in a hospital and recover but if you're going to mars that's unacceptable.
 
silent-circuit said:
We got a number of satellites out there (and to various other planets) without major issue. That was many years ago. If you honestly believe there's a strong likelihood we'd send a ship out, and that ship would miss Mars entirely and get lost in space forever...
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Getting there wouldn't be where i would be concerned as much as getting back. I was watching a show a few years back and they were reshowing it here a few days ago and i caught some of it. How EASA had this planned out was that they would have to line this up perfectly. they would have a short window where they would send it off from earth once every 22 months if i recall. then to come back they again would have a certain window to hit to have it in the right spot for earth to catch it.

I don't think there is a strong likelihood that we would send a ship there and have it entirely miss the planet. But i do think that they need to plently of planning also to make sure they pick the best window for when to launch and when to come back to ensure everything works as planned. i do recall one show (don't recall if it was the one they were reshowing here a few days back or another one as i didn't catch the entire reshowing) though talking about them sending something there in advanced to give them more fuel once they arrived for the trip back home. If they can't get them extra fuel then of course they have to plan the 520 day trip perfectly to know when they will leave earth, how long it should take for them to land, how much fuel should be used while they are on the surface if any, and then how much they will need for the trip back. You also have the task of building the space craft that holds enough fuel for all of this. thats not just something they have laying around to take off a shelf somewhere.
 
How about this... they send up an unmaned probe with a payload of supplies (fuel, food, oxygen, etc.) before they send up a crew. That way they will have an easier time ( less weight) and not have to worry as much about return supplies.
 
the first thing they would need to do is create a functioning space station around mars. Then work on getting from the planet back to the station.
 
cyclone3d said:
How about this... they send up an unmaned probe with a payload of supplies (fuel, food, oxygen, etc.) before they send up a crew. That way they will have an easier time ( less weight) and not have to worry as much about return supplies.
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Plans I have read about do not only that, but send autonomous factories years ahead of the humans to manufacture large amounts of oxygen, water, fuel and other necessities that would not be feasible to send there from Earth.
 
What happen to the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) that they say they were going to test? Read that it will take about 40 days to get to Mars with that propulsion.
 
cyclone3d said:
How about this... they send up an unmaned probe with a payload of supplies (fuel, food, oxygen, etc.) before they send up a crew. That way they will have an easier time ( less weight) and not have to worry as much about return supplies.
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They are actually planning on doing that from what I've gathered with James Cameron interview since he's part of NASA project mission to Mars.
 
sfsuphysics said:
A little less than 1.2 years actually. And he didn't die or anything however he couldn't walk either. Which is fine when you can stay in a hospital and recover but if you're going to mars that's unacceptable.
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Hmm my memory of the number was a bit off I guess. I still think it's feasable though. The trip to mars is significantly shorter (9months vs 14), and there's less gravity on Mars to prevent them from walking.

Obviously it's a huge problem in the future of manned space exploration though. Mars is already pushing the limits of what our technology and bodies are capable of, so anything beyond that seems impossible right now (Mars is too but more for political/social reasons).
 
I dont know why, but when I read "Mars 500" I thought of "The Houston 500"...dont google that. :eek:
 
Exavior said:
Getting there wouldn't be where i would be concerned as much as getting back. I was watching a show a few years back and they were reshowing it here a few days ago and i caught some of it. How EASA had this planned out was that they would have to line this up perfectly. they would have a short window where they would send it off from earth once every 22 months if i recall. then to come back they again would have a certain window to hit to have it in the right spot for earth to catch it.
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Haven't thought of that. How DO they plan on getting back? I don't think a lunar lander is going to cut it.


Also, how long would it take to reach the moon if you had an engine capable of accelerating at a constant 1G?

Point the engine at earth and blast away at 1G. And then halfway to mars, turn the ship around and point it at mars so you decelerate at 1G. That should take care of artificial gravity. Assuming we have an engine like that, how long would it take to get to mars?
 
silent-circuit said:
We got a number of satellites out there (and to various other planets) without major issue. That was many years ago. If you honestly believe there's a strong likelihood we'd send a ship out, and that ship would miss Mars entirely and get lost in space forever...
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Dr. John Robinson begs to differ.
 
Sly said:
Haven't thought of that. How DO they plan on getting back? I don't think a lunar lander is going to cut it.
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Kamikaze ? As in dont go back at all ?

Then there would be some experienced "pioneers" to welcome and teach new arrivals. :)
 
Check out the Mars series of books. IIRC, NASA is actually using some of the ideas that the author wrote about in the trilogy to get people there. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Excellent books.
 
Sly said:
Also, how long would it take to reach the moon if you had an engine capable of accelerating at a constant 1G?

Point the engine at earth and blast away at 1G. And then halfway to mars, turn the ship around and point it at mars so you decelerate at 1G. That should take care of artificial gravity. Assuming we have an engine like that, how long would it take to get to mars?
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Getting to Mars at a with an acceleration rate of 1G would take about 2 days. This should be your first hint that sustaining a 1G acceleration is difficult.

Now, you've got a few little problems to solve before you can do that. If you can invent a 100% efficient anti-matter drive, for every kilogram of ship and payload mass, you will need something like 10 kg of matter and 10kg of antimatter for a trip to Mars. For drives with significantly less efficiency, you will need significantly more fuel.

VASIMR made a big splash because, with an efficiency of 60%, it's vastly more efficient than other methods currently available. It would theoretically get to Mars in 39 days if you can feed it that much fuel. A good article about that can be found here.
 
well does putting a man on Mars accomplish anything big besides being a really cool feat and proof of concept?
I'm not saying its pointless but I think the limited resources should be used for researching more important issues in space exploration.
 
eon said:
well does putting a man on Mars accomplish anything big besides being a really cool feat and proof of concept?
I'm not saying its pointless but I think the limited resources should be used for researching more important issues in space exploration.
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If we can't even send a man to Mars, then we limit ourselves to space observation rather than exploration. Which will be great when we can observe the hell out of a killer asteroid all the way down to the earth's surface, or observe the human race fouling its nest until it drowns itself in waste with no way off the planet's surface.
 
evilsofa said:
Getting to Mars at a with an acceleration rate of 1G would take about 2 days. This should be your first hint that sustaining a 1G acceleration is difficult.

Now, you've got a few little problems to solve before you can do that. If you can invent a 100% efficient anti-matter drive, for every kilogram of ship and payload mass, you will need something like 10 kg of matter and 10kg of antimatter for a trip to Mars. For drives with significantly less efficiency, you will need significantly more fuel.

VASIMR made a big splash because, with an efficiency of 60%, it's vastly more efficient than other methods currently available. It would theoretically get to Mars in 39 days if you can feed it that much fuel. A good article about that can be found here.
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Thanks for answering even tho i somehow typed 'moon' instead of 'mars' :) (must have been more tired than i thought)
 
evilsofa said:
If we can't even send a man to Mars, then we limit ourselves to space observation rather than exploration. Which will be great when we can observe the hell out of a killer asteroid all the way down to the earth's surface, or observe the human race fouling its nest until it drowns itself in waste with no way off the planet's surface.
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well we are obviously not ready for real exploration so I dont see whats to big rush of trying to set up a mission to Mars with technology that wont do much else. Ofcourse iterative, trial and error progress can be useful but again, I think we'd be better served trying to develop better technology before doing Mars missions
 
sfsuphysics said:
A little less than 1.2 years actually. And he didn't die or anything however he couldn't walk either. Which is fine when you can stay in a hospital and recover but if you're going to mars that's unacceptable.
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Wikipedia says:
"Upon landing, Polyakov opted not to be carried the few feet between the Soyuz capsule and a nearby lawn chair, instead walking the short distance. In doing so, he wished to prove that humans could be physically capable of working on the surface of Mars after a long-duration transit phase"

So he could walk. At least technically for a bit, not sure his recovery time etc.

An example long mission (not 39 day VASMIR trip) is this:

"The mission would take about 440 days to complete with three astronauts visiting the surface of the planet for a period of two months."

Which is almost the same duration as Polyakov, except a Mars crew would have the benifit of Mars gravity for 2 months in the middle. No hospital there, but also only 1/3 gravity, so they could walk on Mars. Then if they're weak after the trip back, they would have a hospital. It seems plausible anyways.

I'm interested in how they're going to recycle everything, shield radiation and blast off from Mars safely.
 
Korben Dallas said:
If I was given a choice to fly to Mars with no way back home. I would do it. No joke.
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I'm pretty sure sure I read an article which said, after a group of restaurants were asked the same question, the vast majority had the same answer as you.

So the problem isn't a lack of volunteers. It's a lack of anyone giving a #@$!.
 
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