Floating home prototype sinks at inauguration - GIF

[mklotz]

Awaiting suitable juxtaposition of Mars and Earth; Is it there yet? Is it there yet? Is it there yet?

I'm convinced that man-on-Mars hype is just NASA's way of keeping their name in view and getting research funding. Just because we put a man on the moon 53 years ago doesn't mean that putting men on Mars is any where near feasible now. Here are some reasons why I say that...

How many people would have to go? A lot of bad things, mechanical and human, can happen on a nine month journey in a can with nothing available beyond what is onboard. Multi-skill tasking is only possible up to a point. Think you can teach a mechanic to perform surgery?

Their spacecraft needs to contain enough of everything - food, water, medicine, fuel, sanitary stuff, etc. - to sustain all those people for two years. It also must contain the return craft or possibly become the return craft if it's light enough to boost itself off Mars. We don't have or envision boosters big enough to launch that from earth; it would need to be assembled, tested, and verified in orbit, something we've never done at this scale, ISS notwithstanding. In addition to carrying or serving as housing, it needs to carry some kind of surface vehicle; the astronauts can't just walk around after landing.

The psychological problems of locking a group of people in a can (they'll have to live in one for at least three months while on Mars as well in transit) is, in my opinion, both untestable and unsolvable. They've got to cooperate closely to survive and bickering, jealousy, or hatred is going to affect that badly.

I could go on but that's enough for now. I'm sure you can all think of other problems that aren't going to be solved in a year or two of study.

I'm sure that someday we'll put humans on some of the rocky planets and moons but I'm not so naive as to believe I'll be around when it happens. For now, stick with robotic vehicles. They've served us very well in the past. They have better "senses" than humans, are cheaper and easier to get there, and we don't feel so bad when one of them dies.