Billionaires Wanted to Fund Private Mars Colony
Aug 25, 2015 13:25:41 GMT -6
Nugget, Mystic Wanderer, and 5 more like this
Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2015 13:25:41 GMT -6
This is So Cool,,,,Could the first Mars colony be called Buffettville, or Zuckerburgh?
The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet, beginning with the touchdown of the first four pioneers in 2027. The biggest challenges facing the project are financial rather than technical, so a big donation from a deep-pocketed person concerned about his or her legacy could make a huge difference, Mars One representatives said.
Mars One "is so ambitious and — I think 'crazy' is the right word — that we might actually get a phone call from a billionaire who says, 'I want to make this happen. I want the first city on Mars to be called Gatesville or Slim City," said Mars One co-founder and CEO Bas Lansdorp, presumably referring to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu. [Images of Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project]
"That will change everything," Lansdorp said Aug. 13 at the 18th annual International MarsSociety Convention, which was held in Washington, D.C.
Do and Owens walked the audience through the steps Mars One aims to take in advance of the 2027 crewed landing. The organization aims to launch a Mars lander and an orbiting communications satellite in 2020, a scouting rover and second commsat (which will circle the sun instead of the Red Planet) in 2022, and six separate cargo missions in 2024. The 2024 launches will loft a second rover, two human habitats, two life-support units and a "supply unit," according to Mars One's website.
The organization has estimated that taking these steps, and then landing four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2027, will cost about $6 billion.
Do and Owens said that's overly optimistic. It cost NASA about $102 billion in today's dollars to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969, the two grad students pointed out. And Mars One's plan will require 14 separate launches, they added, as well as the development of seven new systems, including an intelligent rover; technology capable of delivering to the Martian surface payloads at least 7.5 times as heavy as the 1-ton Curiosity rover, which is the heftiest thing ever landed softly on Mars to date; and life-support systems of unprecedented endurance and reliability.
"Can they do all of this — accomplish these development challenges — for $6 billion in the next 12 years?" Do asked the audience. "Our belief, based on the data, the analysis that we've made and the historical analysis that we've done, is that no, they cannot do this, and it is infeasible."
Mars One's long-term vision involves launching new crews of four toward the Red Planet every two years to keep building up the off-world settlement. (There are no plans at the moment to bring any of these pioneers back to Earth.) The organization estimates that each of these subsequent crewed missions will cost about $4 billion. [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]
But the costs associated with such a growing colony would rise unsustainably over time, as a result of the ever-increasing need for spare parts (which in turn would require more landers and more launches), Do and Owens said.
"Spares are a very, very significant problem," Owens said. "This was really the fundamental conclusion of the paper that we wrote a year ago — the Mars One strategy of one-way missions is inherently unsustainable without a Mars-based manufacturing capacity."
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The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet, beginning with the touchdown of the first four pioneers in 2027. The biggest challenges facing the project are financial rather than technical, so a big donation from a deep-pocketed person concerned about his or her legacy could make a huge difference, Mars One representatives said.
Mars One "is so ambitious and — I think 'crazy' is the right word — that we might actually get a phone call from a billionaire who says, 'I want to make this happen. I want the first city on Mars to be called Gatesville or Slim City," said Mars One co-founder and CEO Bas Lansdorp, presumably referring to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu. [Images of Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project]
"That will change everything," Lansdorp said Aug. 13 at the 18th annual International MarsSociety Convention, which was held in Washington, D.C.
Do and Owens walked the audience through the steps Mars One aims to take in advance of the 2027 crewed landing. The organization aims to launch a Mars lander and an orbiting communications satellite in 2020, a scouting rover and second commsat (which will circle the sun instead of the Red Planet) in 2022, and six separate cargo missions in 2024. The 2024 launches will loft a second rover, two human habitats, two life-support units and a "supply unit," according to Mars One's website.
The organization has estimated that taking these steps, and then landing four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2027, will cost about $6 billion.
Do and Owens said that's overly optimistic. It cost NASA about $102 billion in today's dollars to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969, the two grad students pointed out. And Mars One's plan will require 14 separate launches, they added, as well as the development of seven new systems, including an intelligent rover; technology capable of delivering to the Martian surface payloads at least 7.5 times as heavy as the 1-ton Curiosity rover, which is the heftiest thing ever landed softly on Mars to date; and life-support systems of unprecedented endurance and reliability.
"Can they do all of this — accomplish these development challenges — for $6 billion in the next 12 years?" Do asked the audience. "Our belief, based on the data, the analysis that we've made and the historical analysis that we've done, is that no, they cannot do this, and it is infeasible."
Mars One's long-term vision involves launching new crews of four toward the Red Planet every two years to keep building up the off-world settlement. (There are no plans at the moment to bring any of these pioneers back to Earth.) The organization estimates that each of these subsequent crewed missions will cost about $4 billion. [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]
But the costs associated with such a growing colony would rise unsustainably over time, as a result of the ever-increasing need for spare parts (which in turn would require more landers and more launches), Do and Owens said.
"Spares are a very, very significant problem," Owens said. "This was really the fundamental conclusion of the paper that we wrote a year ago — the Mars One strategy of one-way missions is inherently unsustainable without a Mars-based manufacturing capacity."
link
(the little red fella is the ghost of Mars Guy 1... the little blue fella, is the ghost of his, likewise dead, Ma, who urged him to take the offer)
