Mars Beyond Human Landing Achievement?

[Lanfranc]

Selling advertising is in no way a realistic way of funding a permanent colony on Mars. Who pays for the supply flights once the buzz has died down and they can't sell the advertising? I'm concerned that they're so eager to condemn some very brave altruistic people to a nasty death. Personally I rate the chances of them actually getting any boots on the red planet as very low.

Yeah. I saw Bas Lansdorf from Mars One give a presentation at a space convention in Belgium last year. Whilst I don't think it's a scam by any means, it's clear that they are facing some incredibly large obstacles and challenges, many of which they don't seem to have credible solutions for, and that the time frame is pretty damn optimistic as well. And then there's the whole idea of funding it through a reality TV show, which seems frankly bizarre. A complete pie-in-the-sky project.

[andrewas]

We need to find water on mars itself. Just like we drill for oil here wed do the same on Mars, but with water. Once you drill and find water you build the hab module over it. As for the radiation. Well...fill the walls with feces. Lmao as nasty as that sounds its very practical.

Except that sewage is useful for farming, and you can just pile martian soil over your habitat to provide radiation shielding. Or dig out an underground base. It has been proposed for use for the flight to Mars, however, where theres no room for farming and the mass budget is tighter.

[Albert VDS]

I think the Inspiration Mars mission is a good step up for future missions.

If they manage to get the money and make the trip then image what this would do for space exploration.

Just like Apollo 8's Earth rise, a similar photo of Mars could bring space exploration closer to the public.

[Pingonaut]

Yeah. I saw Bas Lansdorf from Mars One give a presentation at a space convention in Belgium last year. Whilst I don't think it's a scam by any means, it's clear that they are facing some incredibly large obstacles and challenges, many of which they don't seem to have credible solutions for, and that the time frame is pretty damn optimistic as well. And then there's the whole idea of funding it through a reality TV show, which seems frankly bizarre. A complete pie-in-the-sky project.

I think they know they're not really going to Mars, they're just using the plan as an excuse for a new reality TV show.

[Seret]

I think they know they're not really going to Mars, they're just using the plan as an excuse for a new reality TV show.

Plausible.

[metaphor]

I think the Inspiration Mars mission is a good step up for future missions.

If they manage to get the money and make the trip then image what this would do for space exploration.

Just like Apollo 8's Earth rise, a similar photo of Mars could bring space exploration closer to the public.

In my opinion, Inspiration Mars is the most likely to succeed of all the recent space-related startups. Their mission is simple, plausible, and doesn't have any big showstoppers. And Dennis Tito has deep enough pockets to fund a substantial portion of the money needed.

[Kilmeister]

I hadn't seen the Inspiration Mars project before, but their goals are a lot more realistic than the Mars One project. It's also a prerequisite for what Mars One is trying to accomplish. Just like Apollo 8, before you land, you should make sure you can actually get there with a manned crew. All the preparation in the world for landing and setting up a colony on Mars would be in vain if something unexpected comes up during the journey there. The unfortunate thing about this mission is that there is no monetary return for accomplishing it. And, sadly, despite the wealth of knowledge and experience this would provide, without an immediate monetary return, there's little chance of getting the funding needed for it. But I guess there is still room for some optimism, because by skipping the landing portion, the cost is significantly reduced.

[metaphor]

Yep, all the technology needed for Inspiration Mars pretty much exists currently. The only thing that might be a problem is fitting a redundant life support system within such a small capsule. The system by itself is small enough, but you want to add a lot of spare parts for such a long journey (without any access to resupply like the ISS). Another technical issue is the high Earth re-entry speed, but the current heat shields have a pretty big margin so it's probably enough to support it. Otherwise, it's a single launch on a Falcon Heavy, no other maneuvers during the entire flight until Earth re-entry.

A precision landing on Mars like Mars One is proposing is still an untested technology. They would have to design and test a system which did that before sending people on it. And this is not including all the preliminary work they are proposing, like the rovers and a communications satellite in Mars orbit, and the resupply ships afterward, requiring many launches from Earth. The cost for Mars One's plan is probably more than 10 times as much as Inspiration Mars.

[Pingonaut]

That Inspiration Mars thing is really cool! They've got actual achievable goals, and they're not trying to make it into a TV show. Best of luck to them.

[metaphor]

Their website is a little lacking though, but they've just started with outreach.

Wikipedia's page has more info including the trajectory.