[space] Is Mars-one a scam?

[Mazon Del]

But the Radiation DOESN'T hit you. At sea level, the atmosphere is roughly the equivalent of 10 meters of water. Radiation doesn't break through that.

Venus' atmosphere seems to be doing allright without a magnetosphere.

Actually some of it does. The car industry had a bit of trouble with this something like 5+ years ago. They had incidents because cosmic rays (a form of radiation) from the sky was occasionally flipping bits inside the cars computers. Generally speaking this didn't result in too great of an issue (the computer has some sort of error, but continues on its way) but sometimes it would make the car think that the accelerator had been floored or the brakes slammed down.

[Nibb31]

So (not having read all 50 pages)

You should, if you want to participate in the discussion.

....... wouldn't it be a good idea for a Mars One to be robotic and prove that water can be mined and prove that crops can be grown and prove that shelters will be radiation proof? And also store up emergency stores of these in advance of humans going anywhere near?

The first manned mission could be a very short one to set up the above and other people follow when its successful.

Mars One is specifically a one-way manned mission as the basis of a TV show. What you suggest would not be Mars One.

[VirtualCLD]

Can you provide a source for that? Cosmic radiation in orbit or even at altitude is not uncommon, but it's is extremely rare near sea level. Even then, I don't see why it's more noticeable in vehicles as opposed to every computer controlled/managed piece of machinery (I'm going under the assumption that cosmic radiation in consumer electronics is less noticeable because they aren't life threatening if they crash).

[Dedjal]

If radiation is not a problem on Mars, then why is the surface sterile?

[SargeRho]

Radiation is a problem on Mars for unprotected life forms. And we do not know if its surface is sterile. We only have explored a tiny tiny fraction of it. It's like going to the Sahara Desert and concluding that there is no liquid water on the surface of Earth.

[Dedjal]

Radiation is a problem on Mars for unprotected life forms. And we do not know if its surface is sterile. We only have explored a tiny tiny fraction of it. It's like going to the Sahara Desert and concluding that there is no liquid water on the surface of Earth.

Uhm.. Sahara is one of the most humid areas on earth, but that was besides your point, though.

And forgive me, but while I understand your comparisment, it was a tad poorly.

But the message got across, so it was adequit I suppose.

But based on what we know today theough our studies and data collected, the propability that the surface is pretty much sterile, is high.

But as on earth, there must exist caves etc. On mars. Which increases the chances of life existing.

[Ralathon]

Uhm.. Sahara is one of the most humid areas on earth, but that was besides your point, though.

Where the hell do you get your information?

The Sahara desert has a very low humidity. It is still a paradise compared to Mars, but relative to other places on earth its dry as a bone. How can you even think that a desert is more humid than an ocean?

[Karriz]

So (not having read all 50 pages)....... wouldn't it be a good idea for a Mars One to be robotic and prove that water can be mined and prove that crops can be grown and prove that shelters will be radiation proof? And also store up emergency stores of these in advance of humans going anywhere near?

The first manned mission could be a very short one to set up the above and other people follow when its successful.

Their plan is to build the base and have all the life support systems running before sending in any humans, so that's what they will do, sort of.

Of course, even that'll cost plenty of money. I'd be surprised if they are able to send the little probe that's planned for 2018.

[Dedjal]

Where the hell do you get your information?

The Sahara desert has a very low humidity. It is still a paradise compared to Mars, but relative to other places on earth its dry as a bone. How can you even think that a desert is more humid than an ocean?

If you say so. Do you get an heart attack if I say that the southpole is one of the dryest places on earth aswell?

[shynung]

If you say so. Do you get an heart attack if I say that the southpole is one of the dryest places on earth aswell?

Dry, as in, no liquid water? Yeah, maybe. Dry, as in, no water at all? There's ice all over the place.

[Seret]

Dry, as in, no liquid water? Yeah, maybe. Dry, as in, no water at all? There's ice all over the place.

It's definitely dry as in very little precipitation. Being cold will also make the air very dry, you just can't get a lot of water into air that cold.

But no, the Sahara desert does not have high humidity. Although the original statement didn't make any distinction between relative and absolute humidity, you'd normally have to assume people are talking about relative, since it's the one that matters.

[Mazon Del]

Can you provide a source for that? Cosmic radiation in orbit or even at altitude is not uncommon, but it's is extremely rare near sea level. Even then, I don't see why it's more noticeable in vehicles as opposed to every computer controlled/managed piece of machinery (I'm going under the assumption that cosmic radiation in consumer electronics is less noticeable because they aren't life threatening if they crash).

I assume you are referring to me with this. Any google searching for things like "Cosmic Radiation Car Malfunctions" and the like should bring up articles about it all. I was having trouble finding the specific piece of info that I was wanting, but what the general assumption is that the radiation that was causing the problem was beta radiation? Which they described as being the radiation that occurs after something like a particle of cosmic radiation hits something. The thing that was hit now goes flying off at high energy much like a billiard ball would. That particle can cause damage as well. So while the atmosphere DOES provide shielding, it also provides a medium for the beta radiation/particles. Note: My terms might be horribly incorrect, but the basic idea is real.

[VirtualCLD]

I assume you are referring to me with this. Any google searching for things like "Cosmic Radiation Car Malfunctions" and the like should bring up articles about it all. I was having trouble finding the specific piece of info that I was wanting, but what the general assumption is that the radiation that was causing the problem was beta radiation? Which they described as being the radiation that occurs after something like a particle of cosmic radiation hits something. The thing that was hit now goes flying off at high energy much like a billiard ball would. That particle can cause damage as well. So while the atmosphere DOES provide shielding, it also provides a medium for the beta radiation/particles. Note: My terms might be horribly incorrect, but the basic idea is real.

Ah yes, I see that now. For the most part, the articles refer to the Toyota unintended acceleration defect and one of those causes was a software error that could be caused by either a stack overflow or a bit change ( http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?SourceCode=20131104tbc&Commentary_ID=140&_t=Software+bugs+found+to+be+cause+of+Toyota+acceleration+death#.U7Hu9BnD_qB warning: heavy bias against Toyota ). While they don't specify what could cause an accidental bit flip, one possible source is cosmic radiation. Unfortunately that is extremely difficult to prove, especially if it's a soft error (I. E. It goes away after power cycle). I must admit that I help design IC chips for a living and the chips I work on often find their way into ground, air and satellite applications. So I am familiar with rad hard design and testing. However, in terms of electronics for Mars One, rad hard design is pretty well understood and there are a lot of things you can do to mitigate it. As an example, SpaceX Falcon uses triple FPGA voting system to avoid bit errors due to radiation. Now I don't know if they use something like Xilinx's rad hard FPGAs which is expensive and has the triple voting built-in, or if they have 3 separate industrial or military grade FPGAs and roll their own external triple voting system. Either way, these kinds of things can be done for Mars One, plus they should still see a lot less radiation on Mars surface than in the Van Allen belts or Geo (where many satellites operate for long periods of time). Overall, I would say that surface radiation would be more if a concern for people's health, and it even so, they have a lot of other technical hurdles that I am not convinced they can solve.

Edited June 30, 2014 by VirtualCLD

[Pingonaut]

I was watching the Apollo 11 Mission Audio and in the comments someone said "I hope we get to Mars one day" or something to that effect. In that comment section was someone defending Mars One as if it were a religion, and I couldn't believe it. Do people actually still believe Mars One is a legitimate company intending to do the things it says?

I just don't understand the thought, there. A company claims to send people on a complete and full mission to Mars, with all of the supplies they need. Okay, that's not too out there. However, when they say that their astronauts are going to be chosen via a contest, where anyone with absolutely no experience in anything space can become one of their astronauts and that they'll have a reality show on Mars, that's when it became clear to me that it wasn't a legitimate company.

My question is, what is the reasoning behind the belief that Mars One is a legitimate intent?

[xcorps]

The same reasoning behind the "NASA didn't really land on the moon" silliness.

As in, no reasoning. Just a warm fuzzy feeling they get from cognitive dissonance.

[Pingonaut]

The same reasoning behind the "NASA didn't really land on the moon" silliness.

As in, no reasoning. Just a warm fuzzy feeling they get from cognitive dissonance.

Worst part is that he's trying to make Mars One seem like the underdog, saying that the odds are against them but they'll prevail.

[vger]

I don't see any reason to think it's not legitimate. They probably just have too much confidence.

And seriously, if you're going to spend the moolah to put people on another planet, why WOULDN'T you do a reality show? Might as well milk it in whatever ways you can. So what's it going to add to the cost of the mission that would be more than a footnote on a budget? A few camcorders and transmission power? For the cost of a Mars colony, that's not even peanuts.

[Pingonaut]

I don't see any reason to think it's not legitimate. They probably just have too much confidence.

I don't see any reason to believe it is legitimate. Their astronauts will be people who made videos saying they have nothing to live for on Earth, who have no experience or background in anything to do with spaceflight or science, and their funding comes from random sources. They're not serious.

[vger]

I don't see any reason to believe it is legitimate. Their astronauts will be people who made videos saying they have nothing to live for on Earth, who have no experience or background in anything to do with spaceflight or science, and their funding comes from random sources. They're not serious.

So you're saying what, it's the largest amount of time ever wasted on a prank in human history?

[Pingonaut]

So you're saying what, it's the largest amount of time ever wasted on a prank in human history?

*money grab or simply a massive flaw/failure. yeah. Give me reasons to believe otherwise.

[vger]

*money grab or simply a massive flaw/failure. yeah. Give me reasons to believe otherwise.

Because it actually makes less sense than shoddy management.

Unless there's some hidden "for entertainment only" fine print somewhere, there'd probably be an investigation underway by now. Fraud is a very big no no.

[linkxsc]

I think mars1 wants to be legit, but they can't possibly be. It would be great, maybe later. But you gotta shoot for the moon before going for the stars man. Even if everything went great, people would be there, till they die. Its not even like you could call home (delay ranges from a few mins to dozens, hope you like texting with long delays) or that there would be much to do there. Yeah they say they'd have some work to do, but most of it would be sitting around waiting for more people to get dropped off.

At least on the moon its a short 3-4 day jaunt over there. The whole thing that mars1 wants to spend years putting up could be managed in 1 year with the moon (remember, each part takes a couple years jsut to get to mars). And if .... goes wrong, they can actually come back. Psychological problems would be very limited. Heck you could rotate people out every few months with a moon one. Almost all teh stuff that could be done on mars could be tested out on the moon. The hydroponic food, the solar power systems, the longterm effects of people living in pods. it would give us a 3rd data point in teh "gravity vs no-gravity" on health effects. Only major problem is that the moon has markedly less water to work with and no carbon (most of the hardware Ive read from mars1 would be to extracting water and carbon from the martian soil)

Heck they could even experiment on a lot of other crap with a moonbase. I'm sure every kerbal engineer has turned out a spacetug, ship that never sees any surface again after it launches the first time. Theres always that radio telescope on the opposite side of the moon shielded from all the interference from earth. Mars is just too far away, and too big of a step.

[Vanamonde]

Merged into the existing Mars One possible-scam thread.

[Sky_walker]

Well, it has every sign of it being a scam.

And there is no slightest chance for them to get it going in a deadlines they announced.

The thing that mazes me though is that they keep on gaining support from various bigger or smaller institutions and companies.... even though good 90% of their project is made of "potential suppliers" / "negotiated vehicles" / "concept studies". There isn't anything I know of that they'd actually design - and that would be mandatory even if we account for 2 years delay to their original plans that we currently know of.

BTW: For those curious - last Monday (21st) they had a Q&A on twitter: https://twitter.com/MarsOneProject

This podcast pretty accurately describes the *ahem* calibre of your typical Mars One groupie. I don't know if the people behind Mars are deluded or scammers, but either way, they ain't going to Mars.

http://thefpl.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215:episode-140-is-there-anyone-with-a-life-on-mars&catid=1:podcasts

OMG, I laughed!

Edited July 27, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Pingonaut]

This podcast pretty accurately describes the *ahem* calibre of your typical Mars One groupie. I don't know if the people behind Mars are deluded or scammers, but either way, they ain't going to Mars.

http://thefpl.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215:episode-140-is-there-anyone-with-a-life-on-mars&catid=1:podcasts

LOL! That's hilarious!