And the Skylab case you mention was up for less than 3 months. Shannon Lucid spent 188 days aboard Mir, and according to her, when she got on the ground, she was barely able to move under her own power. No doubt, she'd fare better on Mars after 6 months in space, but having been in situations where things like speed and reflexes count, its not something you want to risk. Astronauts who've spent just a few days or weeks in space report that one of the biggest problems they encounter upon returning is that they're habituated to the way things work in microgravity and they have to remind themselves that once they're back on Earth, they can't "park" a tool in mid-air as they're used to doing.
That's like saying because you're able to row a canoe out into a large lake, you can take that same canoe from Spain to the Americas with no problems.
Not at all. You mistakenly think that the increase in time and distance of a manned Mars mission compared to a manned lunar mission results in an exponential increase in danger.
Yeah, it does, actually. You forget that, unlike you, I've actually built shit that's gone into space, and have had to worry things like hardware endurance. I will agree that NASA makes it out to be more risky than it probably is, but I also recognize that one doesn't have very much margin for error in such situations. According to Gene Krantz, in his book, every mission had to deal with an issue that could have easily resulted in the death of the crew. Note that two shuttle missions, which weren't even going as far as the Moon, resulted in the deaths of astronauts. It is hard, very hard, to design gear that has to undergo extreme conditions for short periods of time, without failing. When you stretch that time into periods as long as months, it gets even harder. A plane that loses an engine, can, in theory, make an emergency landing with relative safety. If a mission to Mars can't fire its engine when it needs to, the crew won't find itself in Albuquerque, instead of Las Vegas, like they expected, they'll find themselves headed into deep space, with no hope of rescue. Which kinda sucks, especially if you know that you won't pass by another planet (of any sort) before you run out of food or oxygen. At least sling me by Jupiter, or one of the outer system planets before I go, so I can see something that no one else has.
My point is that the increase in time and distance doesn't increase danger exponentially. The fact that Mars is 60 times further than the moon in flight time does not necessarily make it 60 times more dangerous.
Aside from the bone density, muscle loss, and eye problems, for sustained flights to and from Mars, it would make a lot of sense to be able to grow plants along the way, both as a source of oxygen and food. That is much, much easier with some level of gravity so the plant knows up from down and the growth medium stays in the pot instead of floating around. And for serious maintenance tasks that require any kind of drilling, sanding, or scraping, gravity keeps the metal particles from floating around and ending up in people's lungs and eyes. Virtually everything is vastly easier for us to do in the presence of gravity, such as peeing, pooping, cooking, eating, sleeping, and working. Zubrin's approach will work if everything goes perfectly. The problem is that it still requires public funding and the public doesn't like to fund failures and Congress is allergic to risk and bad PR. People can row across the Atlantic, but that's a bad way to establish routine travel and colonization. People would rightly question the expense. Elon's approach is preferable, where he lowers the cost per pound to orbit such that the Mars ship can have enough mass and equipment to make the journey with a large margin for unanticipated problems, equipment failures (redundancy adds weight), radiation shielding, and more than ample supplies and resources. He wants to go to Mars as part of a long-term, sustain effort to move there.
Musk's approach will never get off the ground. You have to have the "row across the Atlantic" approach first in order to establish "routine travel and colonization". Starting with "colonization" makes no sense whatsoever.
We've been rowing there since the 70s with Viking. Since the 60s if you count Mariner (it was just a flyby).
Not really. All the unmanned missions were on rather limited budgets due to political considerations. Even Viking (which was originally named Voyager) was originally more ambitious but had to be cut back because Congress was convinced it was a prelude to a manned Mission to Mars which was viciously opposed by many in Congress such as Mondale and Proxmire.
I'm not sure if they were considered part of the Apollo program but two astronauts at least were killed in a plane crash while flying a jet trainer.
Study finds cosmic rays increased heart risks among Apollo astronauts CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 28 (Reuters) - Apollo astronauts who ventured to the moon are at five times greater risk of dying from heart disease than shuttle astronauts, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, citing the dangers of cosmic radiation beyond the Earth's magnetic field. The study by researchers at Florida State University and NASA found that three Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, or 43 percent of those studied, died from cardiovascular disease, a finding with implications for future human travel beyond Earth. We certainly need more data and the sample size is too small, but if just six to twelve days outside the Van Allen belt does that much damage then there is no freakin' way we could get to Mars without full radiation protection. And that raises the next thorny problem. There's no way to have such radiation protection when walking around on the moon or Mars, so such excursions might have to be limited to a week or so cumulative surface time, and that's lifetime exposure.
Armstrong supposedly died from a botched surgical procedure and Jim Irwin had a family history of heart problems. I wouldn't put too much credence in that study.
Until we know more, my suggestion is we only use morbidly obese astronauts for deep space missions. Their hearts have more radiation protection due to their enormous thickness of fat. The limitation is probably hatch size. And even if the problem still occurs, who cares? They're morbidly obese and were going to die of heart disease anyway. <--- Should be a program manager at NASA
This study is a lot like someone here a few years ago saying we would never have colonies in space or on other planets because "no child has ever been conceived in space". Which considering the extremely rare number of instances men and women are believed to have actually had sex in space (six or seven times from what I've read) makes it utterly ridiculous to draw conclusions.
Given that every minute of their waking day is planned, and the only rec time they have is what they can steal by accomplishing a task early, not to mention that they're wired up and monitored so doctors can catch a health problem before it develops, I'm sticking with the official records.
I'm interested in where Dayton might have read this. After googling for an ogling I came up snake-eyes.
I think it's happened. Was just wondering the other day whether they would sterilize one sex on a planned-return Mars mission, or trust that birth control would work out.
Good. Not a deal breaker for manned Mars missions. The astronauts choose to take the risks anyway. Send them and be done with it.
