2024, a Mission to Mars. Is that even possible at all?

[Akar]

I mean, obviously the solution to the effects of zero gravity is to have gravity, but I think Flinn was asking more along the lines of "is there anything you can do in a low gravity or zero g environment to offset those effects, akin to how you can exercise to offset the degradation of your musculature"

[Flinn]

Akar has it

I mean any medication, therapy, procedure, and the sort

[Sir Adrian]

According to the studies I linked, we don't even know what the long term effects of zero gravity and low gravity on the immune system are - could be everyone gets cancer, could be nobody gets sick at all, probably somewhere in between, we dunno - while for the nervous system most experiments were on the scale of what happens when exposed to space radiation, low gravity, hyper-gravity, etc.


Thing is our bodies are designed to function for the gravity here on earth, and you can't really substitute gravity with pills.

[Cookiegod]

Let's get right down to the bone aka the most important muscle which only men have. And yeah it atrophies and no you cannot train it. You cannot pump blood there in weightlessness. You can't reproduce the cool scene from the expanse, or at all, for that matter. That muscle will wither away and with it your chance to produce offspring in a natural manner.

According to the studies I linked, we don't even know what the long term effects of zero gravity and low gravity on the immune system are - could be everyone gets cancer, could be nobody gets sick at all, probably somewhere in between, we dunno - while for the nervous system most experiments were on the scale of what happens when exposed to space radiation, low gravity, hyper-gravity, etc.

Thing is our bodies are designed to function for the gravity here on earth, and you can't really substitute gravity with pills.

You can't even test that because 1) you need to amass a serious number of test cases for that and 2) you can't control for the cosmic radiation which don't worry baby will blast your DNA to shreds in a ridiculous time frame.

By the way, the only way I know of to create artificial gravity is applying centrifugal force on occupants of the spacecraft through rotation. The simplest way I can think of to do so would be to have two rockets instead of one, have them connect to one another with a cable, such that what will be the ceilings will point towards each other, and then activate some trusters to have them spin around the shared center of mass.

Couple of problems with that which everyone here should be well aware of. It wouldn't be exactly easy to change course whilst the spin would be happening. The distance between the two spacecraft would have to be large to avoid movement sickness whilst still allowing for sufficient force, necessitating a stronger rope, and generally, the larger the distance between the two opposite ends, the better. The spacecraft would not be allowed to have several floors, btw., as moving away/towards the center would increase the centrifugal force experienced.

If we now once more remember the cosmic radiation because of the shielding necessitated by it, then we can remember that the spacecrafts would have to be very heavy, which in turn would require some serious thought to be put into the structural aspect of it all (stresses, mainly). Not unsolvable by our current technological provess, admittedly, and quite easy to calculate, easier than most cable stayed bridges for that matter, the real trouble would be the serious amount of money necessary to send such significant payloads into space, which brings any responsible decision maker right back to the crux of the issue: Why the hell did we want to do this in the first place? When did robots suddenly stop being good enough?

[PointOfViewGun]

Do exist a solution or a cure for those problems, at the moment?

There have been attempts but no breakthrough nor the possibility to test things out in the long term. There are countless factors to considers. Even membrane fluidity changes under different gravity conditions. In any case, I think, they day we can fix effects of lower gravity on humans is the day we are capable of easily curing diseases like Alzheimer.

Not sure if this has been posted yet.
Bottom line is the worst long term neurological effects can be lessened or even avoided with crude artificial gravity - which is within our technological means, if expensive. The real problem is the immune system which requires earth gravity to function properly and we don't really know the long term effects of low gravity on it.
Yes. Experiments on mice placed in a centrifuge on the ISS showed that you can lower the negative effects with artificial gravity. Theoretically we have all we need to build a ship-sized centrifuge but I don't think it's affordable at this point in time.

This is possible in space, but not on Mars.

[Sir Adrian]

Good thing mars has gravity then.

You can't even test that because 1) you need to amass a serious number of test cases for that and 2) you can't control for the cosmic radiation which don't worry baby will blast your DNA to shreds in a ridiculous time frame

I'm assuming that if we ever go beyond the moon the ships will at the very least be shielded from most if not all known space radiation.

[PointOfViewGun]

Good thing mars has gravity then.

Except it doesn't have enough of it. That's the problem.

[Common Soldier]

According to the studies I linked, we don't even know what the long term effects of zero gravity and low gravity on the immune system are - could be everyone gets cancer, could be nobody gets sick at all, probably somewhere in between, we dunno - while for the nervous system most experiments were on the scale of what happens when exposed to space radiation, low gravity, hyper-gravity, etc.


Thing is our bodies are designed to function for the gravity here on earth, and you can't really substitute gravity with pills.

We know what the long term effects of zero gravity, we had men in space for a year We have no idea what the long term of low gravity are (Mars or Moon)

[Common Soldier]

Except it doesn't have enough of it. That's the problem.

We don't know that. We do not know what the biological effects of low gravity are. We don't know for certain why the Mars atmospheric presdure is so low, if it lost a demser atmosphere, was it only because of Mars lowe gravity? Do not know.

[PointOfViewGun]

We don't know that. We do not know what the biological effects of low gravity are. We don't know for certain why the Mars atmospheric presdure is so low, if it lost a demser atmosphere, was it only because of Mars lowe gravity? Do not know.

We actually do know a lot about some of those. Astronauts with long term missions under micro gravity conditions have extensively deteriorating eye sight. If you spend a few years in space, you'll go blind. We know that in general long term effects of lower than Earth gravity is not good for humans or animals for that matter.

[Sir Adrian]

We know what the long term effects of zero gravity, we had men in space for a year We have no idea what the long term of low gravity are (Mars or Moon)

A year is barely short term. We're talking about a 7-9 month trip to Mars, living on Mars for 3 years and then another return trip of 7-9 months.

Except it doesn't have enough of it. That's the problem.

We have the means to create hypergravity. In fact just about any airforce has a centrifuge for g-force training. It's not exactly cheap but if you already payed the cost of getting there... Even if you stay in it 6 hours per day it's sill better than nothing.

[PointOfViewGun]

We have the means to create hypergravity. In fact just about any airforce has a centrifuge for g-force training. It's not exactly cheap but if you already payed the cost of getting there... Even if you stay in it 6 hours per day it's sill better than nothing.

That's not a feasible solution, especially for a colony that will house at least hundreds of people. The power requirement alone would be demanding. Constant change in gravity would likely create more problems.

[Sir Adrian]

We're not talking about civilian colonies Seth. We're talking about research missions of a handful of astronauts that stay there 3 years. We are 100 years to early to be talking about colonies on mars. Besides I like to thing we are not so moronic to colonize Mars without first colonizing Luna and straightening out all the wrinkles such as energy and gravity and food.

[Akar]

There's no nitrogen on mars

The second most common gas in Mars atmosphere is Nitrogen.

[PointOfViewGun]

We're not talking about civilian colonies Seth. We're talking about research missions of a handful of astronauts that stay there 3 years. We are 100 years to early to be talking about colonies on mars. Besides I like to thing we are not so moronic to colonize Mars without first colonizing Luna and straightening out all the wrinkles such as energy and gravity and food.

The colony I was talking about was a scientific colony. With a station that far away they would slowly need to create something similar to the Arctic station. The ground centrifuge idea for Mars to combat lower gravity is simply not feasible.

[Flinn]

So is that logic to assume that before going to Mars and do anything there in person, we need to do that on the Moon?

As far as I know, while there are obvious differences between Mars and the Moon, there are some important similarities that would make the experience made on the Moon invaluable for a future manned exploration of Mars.

Besides, it's common to say that leaving the Moon surface is easier than the Earth's one (because of different escape velocity of course), which means that we could potentially assemble bigger/heavier ships (I'm thinking about the issue with shielding) and bla bla. Of course we should ship most of parts from the Earth to the Moon before assembling them, but the only alternative to assemble "big" ships would be in the Earth's orbit, and all in all I think that it's better to do a similar work in low gravity and with a floor below you, than in micro gravity and floating with no references. Besides, there are studies about using local moon resources to produce at the least a part of the hull of those ships.

Thoughts?

[Akar]

I think that's our most likely long term use for the Moon, as a staging area to more easily send supplies to more distant parts of the solar system. The moon is composed mostly of silica and aluminium oxide with magnesium, iron oxide, and lime as less common but still common elements. So I imagine it's theoretically feasible to construct a ship on the surface out of those elements, but I'm not familiar enough with what it would require to say for sure. I'm not sure how easy it is to synthesize fuel out of those materials, however, which is not as great of a concern for setting up on Mars which has plenty of hydrogen to convert into fuel.

and all in all I think that it's better to do a similar work in low gravity and with a floor below you, than in micro gravity and floating with no references

My understanding is that most of these structures/constructions will be constructed by robots (akin to how we currently work on the ISS) rather than by what would essentially be construction workers in space suits.

before going to Mars and do anything there in person, we need to do that on the Moon?

I don't think it's necessary, but I sure as hell don't think it would hurt to have as much experience on foreign stellar bodies as possible.

[Flinn]

My understanding is that most of these structures/constructions will be constructed by robots (akin to how we currently work on the ISS) rather than by what would essentially be construction workers in space suits.

ah that's a good point, which I did not consider. Anyways, my experience with the production processes tells me that we are still far from having a completely automatic assembly line on Earth, and it's even far away in time for space construction.
My main concerns about that are that a) automatic production makes sense (and repays itself) only when it's meant for mass production and b) the closest I've seen with my eyes to something being fully automatic is the Lego factory (the one in Denmark) where they have like 300 molding machines working continuously and the whole printing and stocking process is automatized.. still they need humans to switch molds and check/clean them, plus they have a team of mechanics always ready to intervene there should be an issue in any point of the automatic production/stocking line (IIRC the factory is working like 16 hours in advance, so that if some part of the production queue stops, they have 16 hours to repair it before they will actually start to pile a delay.

So, you can't really have a fully automatic production, that is (not as of today nor in the near future), at the minimum you'll need people for the maintenance and urgent interventions. Remote control is still a possibility, though, isn't it?

[Akar]

Remote control is still a possibility, isn't it

Of course, and I believe that's what they do on the ISS as well as occasionally with the various rovers. Now obviously doing it from Earth's surface to the Moon or ISS to the Moon or whatever isn't necessarily an issue since the light delay from Mars is a bit under a second (and a bit over a second and a half for a round trip), it can become an issue if we want to do it on Mars. Mars has a light delay from Earth of around 20 minutes give or take. That means the time it takes to send and then receive a signal is around 40 minutes. That makes remote controlling systems incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible. In that case it would likely be a mixture of AI/pre-programming for the majority of operation, with human intervention when needed (similar to how we operate rovers).

Of course, that's only for the initial stages before we send humans to Mars. Once we have human operators in orbit or on the surface, the light delay is once again fairly trivial.

I foresee us likely launching unmanned supply missions to Mars before we ever send the first human there. That way they already have all of the resources they need to survive already and don't have to worry about the extra weight on the journey there. It's possible we could even launch preassembled robotics and structures over there as well, but I have no idea how feasible that is.

automatic production makes sense (an repay itself)

Cost shouldn't necessarily be an issue when it comes to science. The purpose of science isn't to do it as cheaply as possible with the greatest possible return.

[Flinn]

Cost shouldn't necessarily be an issue when it comes to science.

I agree, it shouldn't.. too often it is, in many scientific fields (medical, for instance). But that's for another discussion I guess.

Of course, and I believe that's what they do on the ISS as well as occasionally with the various rovers. Now obviously doing it from Earth's surface to the Moon or ISS to the Moon or whatever isn't necessarily an issue since the light delay from Mars is a bit under a second (and a bit over a second and a half for a round trip), it can become an issue if we want to do it on Mars. Mars has a light delay from Earth of around 20 minutes give or take. That means the time it takes to send and then receive a signal is around 40 minutes. That makes remote controlling systems incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible. In that case it would likely be a mixture of AI/pre-programming for the majority of operation, with human intervention when needed (similar to how we operate rovers).

Yes in any case I mean remote control of machinery to build-up/assemble ships in orbit, so definitely they should be anywhere close to the construction/assembly facility