Posted on 05/10/2015 6:37:58 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The "Journey to Mars Challenge" will give a $5,000 award to each of the three winning participants who describe an original idea that could assist the human exploration of Mars. The proposal must be "technically achievable, economically sustainable, and minimize reliance on support from Earth," NASA wrote in a statement about the challenge.
"This could include shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interactions and medicine, but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative elements beyond these examples," NASA added.Because launch costs are considered one of the key barriers to space exploration generally — and Mars exploration, especially — NASA says it could use some ideas on what to bring on these missions and how often to resupply them.
The resupply aspect is especially important to the space agency because resupply opportunities to Mars would happen only every 500 days; the respective orbits between Earth and Mars make it more difficult to send spacecraft at other times. By contrast, the International Space Station has resupplies every few weeks or months.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.space.com ...
How so, tougher? We saw the Apollo astronauts moving around with no problem. How is a near zero atm. pressure tougher than a 0.01 atm. pressure? Well, there's temperature, but like I say, it didn't bother the astronauts, although I guess they did avoid the "noon sun". But still, I find it hard to think that this is a deciding issue. If you had a base, you could stay inside as necessary.
Transgender bathrooms for sure
And safe zones where they can’t listen to Fox News
Dig down, way down to the center of Mars. And over the hole put up an aluminum sealed fully oxygenated atmosphere. Set up cell collectors and pipe electricity down to the inside to light up the cavern. Grow greens, and try to iniate some kind of life that they bring from the Antartic, something that likes COLD and dry.
The temperature differential between day and night on the moon is far more extreme than it is on mars. That .01 atmosphere is considerably more than the hard vacuum of the moon. There’s also the 2 weeks of day and night of the moon vs 26 hour martian day.
The nearness of the moon makes it a smarter test bed. We’ll need to be living on the moon to in the future if we intend to be a spacefaring race anyway.
Plus, I’m assuming you suggested it for a reason.
Not only that, but I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.
I guess "closer" covers it, but it doesn't really. It took the mighty Saturn rocket ( which we no longer have !!! ) to send three men to the moon, so what about Mars? ... never minding the years long versus days long journey? The energy requirements are made all the more greater by the greater mass of Mars.
It just seems to me that if we were in a position even to realistically contemplate a manned journey to Mars, building a moon base would seem so easy that we might as well do it first, as a staging point if nothing else.
Send some deep penetrating nuclear warheads to see if you could wake it up tectonically and to melt the ice.
How about just get astronauts into space again.
It just seems to me that if we were in a position even to realistically contemplate a manned journey to Mars, building a moon base would seem so easy that we might as well do it first, as a staging point if nothing else.
* * *
A successful permanent settlement on the moon would be politically fraught. If someone made a go of it there, they’d be sitting in a tactically superior position to all nations on Earth, if it ever came to another big shootin’ war. Rocks are cheap. (Read “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” if you’re not familiar with it.)
Mars is lots further away, and politically, that’s probably an advantage.
To keep the astronauts safe we should send Secretary Kerry to negotiate with the Marslims.
They must roll out their metallic space blankets and bang their foreheads into the red Martian dirt five times a day.
yeah but aiming towards Mecca will be difficult
Good point. And if they accidentally point their buttocks towards Earth, Barry will trade them to ISIS for five times as many Muslim jihadists to-be-named, after QB Brady gets a stern brow-beating from an old man with very bushy eyebrows.
Don’t go.
I am not solving their problems for a mere $5,000.
How about ditch the designated hitter?
Hire more African-Martian policemen in the troubled Olympus Mons region.
This is really about how to keep NASA funding safe.
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