Futurist Foresight
Buzz wants to send you to Mars and this is why that’s a good idea.
Buzz Aldrin Wants To Send People On A One-Way Trip To Mars
In a wide-ranging interview with PopularScience.com, Aldrin talks about a mission to Mars, 34 years of sobriety and the future of American leadership in space.With enough money and enough might, humans could probably get to Mars in the next couple of decades. It’s a proposition made all the more relevant by the continuing findings of the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity. It would be a mammoth undertaking, but it’s possible, at least in concept. But should humans go, and should we stay? Will we? Buzz Aldrin thinks so.
Aldrin releases a new book today, “Mission to Mars,” in which he argues a future U.S. president should commit by 2019 to sending humans to Mars, and not returning them safely to Earth. It will take a brave leader to suggest something like this, but brave leaders have sparked space exploration before, he says.
His plan centers around something called a Mars Cycler, which Aldrin first conceived of nearly 30 years ago. It would create a “celestial triad of worlds,” hubs for the ebb and flow of passengers, cargo and commerce among Earth, the moon and Mars. The ships would be new designs—he says he’s “incensed” that most current space exploration prototypes look like Apollo—and he doesn’t want them to use solid rocket motors, a “technology that keeps popping up out of the casket.”
“Let’s take a page from commercial airliners and ratchet ourselves up from the disposable Dixie-cup model,” he writes.
The Cycler would need several steps to get off the ground. First, the project would include a practice run on the big island of Hawaii. A habitat module or some other system component would be remotely delivered by some robotic technology, probably controlled by a satellite or via radio link from Houston. Secondary components would have to be air-dropped together, with extreme precision. Then things get real. The first off-planet element would be a control center or habitation module, delivered to the L2 Earth-moon gravity-balancing point. That, in turn, would become a place from which controllers would manage the remote landing of the first moon habitat. Eventually, all this practice would lead to a remotely controlled delivery of the first stages of a Mars base.
“If we persevere on this path, we can reach out some 200 million miles to Mars before 2035—66 years after Neil Armstrong and I flew the quarter-million miles through the blackness of space to touch down onto Tranquillity Base,” Aldrin writes. “There’s a historical milestone in the fact that our Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place a mere 66 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight.”
I was intrigued, so I decided to ask to him about this. It turned out Buzz was eager to talk. As I quickly realized, conversations with Buzz are not necessarily back-and-forth. When he’s excited about something, he’s going to tell you about it, tangents and all. I wanted to ask if I could yell at the moon with him, but we didn’t get that far before his people pulled him offline for another interview.
PopularScience.com: Why would you want humans to stay on Mars permanently?
Buzz Aldrin: The uniqueness of that has yet to be fully reached. We bring people back. But the purpose of going to Mars is for humans to first begin to occupy, permanently, another planet in the solar system. The astronauts or pilgrims, whatever you might call them, are going to be very historically unique human beings. And the leader of an Earth organization who makes a commitment to history—of humans living on Earth, to begin permanent settlement/occupation of not the moon, but of another planet—this leader will have a legacy for history that will supersede Columbus, Genghis Khan or almost any recognized leader. I guess religiously, that might include Jesus Christ and Mohammed and Abraham and David. They are obviously going to be remembered for their contribution to human history.
This will probably take two decades from commitment, and result in the non-return of humans from the surface of Mars. They would occupy a permanent Mars base, built previously from a moon of Mars, and my favorite selection is the inner moon, Phobos. Over a period of three different visits to the moon Phobos, the Mars base will be assembled remotely, from sequentially-landed large elements, habitats and whatever else, that are to become the permanent base.
PS: How would the Mars Cycler get people to Mars?Aldrin: I was motivated to improve the U.S. strategy of going back to the moon in 1985. That’s a long time ago. Going back to the moon would be a great achievement for tourism adventure flights. But it resulted in the Aldrin Cycler, which was published in ‘86. It included cycling spacecraft between Earth and Mars, back and forth. It was really the first major disclosure of a new strategy of transportation for permanent transportation economics, of delivering human beings from the Earth to Mars.
The cycler consists of two mated together, side-by-side connected, interplanetary spacecraft. It’s the very basic component of future projections by my USV, unified space vision, which is my personal-experience replacement for President Bush’s vision for space exploration.
I tried to change the name of the book, but it was just too late to add an “s,” so it would be “Missions to Mars,” not “Mission.” My plan for the future is unique in a sense, because it implies human permanence at Mars. Humans transported to the surface of Mars by cycling spacecraft. It’s kind of complex, but every other synodic period, a cycler delivers to Mars. That means you would need two cyclers, one for the first, third, fifth, ninth odd number of 26-month opportunities, and the other cycler, for 2, 4, 6 even-numbered synodic periods. It’s a major improvement on the Aldrin Cycler, that was first discovered/invented/worked out, but not patented, in 1985.
PS: What’s your Unified Space Vision?Aldrin: It unifies five elements of space policy: 1) exploration; 2) science; 3) development; 4) commercial; and 5) security. Many, many people have verified that that is national space policy, those five items. We unite those five elements strategically by comparing and integrating our five elements of space policy with every other country internationally. Like ESA, JAXA, China, India, Germany—all of those space policies of other internationals are essential to be integrated into my unified space vision, because of the moon. At the moon, the U.S., in my opinion, needs absolutely to lead an international lunar base. This discourages commercial human landings on the moon by government subsidy. Let’s not have the taxpayers paying for a big rocket, a lunar landing, so that commercial human beings from the U.S. can dig up and mine and occupy the international lunar base.
PS: In the book you mention that your nickname at NASA was “Dr. Rendezvous,” because your MIT doctoral thesis was about two piloted aircraft meeting in space. Is that why are you interested in this cycler concept?
Aldrin: It’s ironic. My selection as an astronaut was unique because I had not been trained as a test pilot. So my application, along with Ed White, my very close friend who graduated West Point and was killed in the Apollo [1] fire, he and I applied in 1962 for the second group. Ed was selected, I was not. I made it in the 1963 selection of astronauts, because of the change of not requiring test pilot training, which I had intentionally avoided. But I had written my thesis on space rendezvous at MIT, and was very motivated for the space future, in the Air Force or anywhere else.
That’s some background as to why you are interviewing me after two autobiographies. In 1973, I wrote “Return to Earth,” which was made into a movie in 1976. But it dealt only with mental health issues and depression. It did not include alcoholism recovery, and I now have 34 years of sobriety from alcohol. The most recent autobiography, “Magnificent Desolation,” described my recovery from alcoholism.
PS: What do you think of space tourist Dennis Tito’s plan to swing around Mars and back? Is this how you envision a future Mars Cycler working?
Aldrin: Sort of. It has the essence of a gravitational swingby of Mars, to bring the spacecraft back in as short a time as possible. Those times occur in 2016 and 2018 but not again until 2031. We probably can’t make 2016, but we can make 2018. That would bring the spacecraft back, if successful, just prior to the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing.
PS: Does the cycler plan borrow a page from modern airlines?
Aldrin: Absolutely. Airlines, private industry, followed the government system of airplanes to deliver the mail. The government system to deliver the mail from one city to another, and then reuse the airplane. It led obviously to transporting not just mail, or cargo, but the private delivery of human beings between city and city and back.
Now there is the commercial potential of transportation of human beings from the surface of the Earth, to Earth orbit and potentially to swing by the moon, and back to Earth. Or to swing by Mars and return to Earth, and be the delivery system of us, or international human beings, from Earth to Mars. Then we’re not expending the vast resources that would be needed to bring people back from Mars.
PS: How should we get started? What’s the most important aspect?Aldrin: The first element, before the retirement of space shuttle, was supposed to be to deliver a test bed to the space station. Long-duration life support systems, separate from the station but connected. The second element would be a prototype of an interplanetary habitation module, delivered to the space station, which could become a safe haven for astronauts at the station to abandon a disabled space station, separate in this hab module, and be returned to Earth. The third, fourth and fifth iteration is further testing of the interplanetary space vehicle, referred to in my book, in low-Earth orbit, to the moon, in cycling orbits, to L2 and L1, and to lunar surface as the first element of the international lunar base. That would be to test radiation, systems, etc to support other nations’ human beings on the surface of the moon.
July 2019 would be the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. It would be the ideal time, in my estimation, for the president elected in 2016 and 2020, from whichever party, to gain the legacy of the two-decade commitment to permanence of human beings on the planet Mars. That is the essence of Buzz Aldrin’s Unified Space Vision. It’s a very unique and beautiful opportunity for U.S. leadership.
image 1: Aldrin’s newest book. credit: National Geographic
image 2: The Most Famous Footprint In History: Buzz Aldrin’s photo of his own boot print on the moon appears in his new book “Mission to Mars,” out today. credit: NASA
(via niceskynewworld)
The Dutch company Mars One is looking for colonist for Mars for 2023. They will be announcing more details about the selection process today.
“Mars One is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars through the integration of existing, readily available technologies from industry leaders world-wide. Mars One intends to fund this decade-long endeavor by involving the whole world as the audience of an interactive, televised broadcast of every aspect of this mission, from the astronaut selections and their preparations to the arrival on Mars and their lives on the Red Planet.” - Mars One
A look at what Mars may have looked like once.
Different interpretations of what Mars looked like when it had an ocean
(via thedemon-hauntedworld)
An update on Comet 2013 A1 expected to hit Mars in 2014.
Update on the Comet that Might Hit Mars
The latest trajectory of comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) generated by the Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory indicates the comet will pass within 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of Mars and there is a strong possibility that it might pass much closer. The NEO Program Office’s current estimate based on observations through March 1, 2013, has it passing about 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) from the Red Planet’s surface. That distance is about two-and-a-half times that of the orbit of outermost moon, Deimos.
(via abcstarstuff)
Another look at Mars One and its plans to colonize Mars via a reality TV show - I guess, whatever works.
Do you have what it takes to be a Martian colonist?
From the Hero Complex blog:
Mars One has announced plans to establish a colony on Mars by 2023 and they’re about to begin looking for prospective Martian pioneers.
While the requirements for NASA’s astronaut program are demanding, assuring only the finest and fittest of humans will ever make it into space, Mars One is casting a wide net. Their requirements are resiliency, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust, creativity and resourcefulness.
What about the ability to fly a spaceship or solve unforeseen, unimaginable problems being one of the first humans on an alien planet? Those, evidently, are skills that one picks up with time.
Oh, and one more thing. It’s a one-way trip.
An interesting look at the effects of long-term space exploration on astronauts.
In the first study of its kind, a team of researchers led by faculty at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Baylor College of Medicine, has analyzed data on the impact of prolonged operational confinement on sleep, performance, and mood in astronauts from a groundbreaking international effort to simulate a 520-day space mission to Mars. The findings, published online-first in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed alterations of life-sustaining sleep patterns and neurobehavioral consequences for crew members that must be addressed for successful adaption to prolonged space missions.
“The success of human interplanetary spaceflight, which is anticipated to be in this century, will depend on the ability of astronauts to remain confined and isolated from Earth much longer than previous missions or simulations,” said David F. Dinges, PhD, professor and chief, Division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine, and co-lead author of the new study. “This is the first investigation to pinpoint the crucial role that sleep-wake cycles will play in extended space missions.”
The 520-day simulation, which was developed by the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and sponsored in part by the European Space Agency (ESA), was initiated on June 3, 2010 when the hatches were closed on a 550-cubic-meter IBMP spacecraft-like confinement facility in Russia. The simulated mission, involving an international, six-man team of volunteers, involved more than 90 experiments and realistic scenarios to gather valuable psychological and medical data on the effects of a long-term deep space flight. The 520-day mission was broken into three phases: 250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the surface, and 240 days for the return to Earth.
“As the only U.S. research team involved with the Mars 520-day simulation, the study required international coordination and strong collaborations to ensure that the experiments were conducted in a thorough and rigorous manner,” said Jeffrey P. Sutton, MD, PhD, professor and director, Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and senior study author. The investigators monitored the crew’s rest-activity patterns, performance and psychological responses to determine the extent to which sleep loss, fatigue, stress, mood changes and conflicts occurred during the mission.
Measurements included continuous recordings of body movements using wrist actigraphy (a noninvasive means of estimating sleep and movement intensity), and light exposure and weekly computer-based neurobehavioral assessments to identify changes in the crew’s activity levels, sleep quantity and quality, sleep–wake intervals, alertness performance, and workload throughout the 17 months of mission confinement.
Data from the actigraph devices revealed that crew sedentariness increased across the mission, as illustrated by decreased waking movement and increased sleep and rest times. The majority of crewmembers also experienced one or more disturbances of sleep quality, alertness deficits, or altered sleep–wake intervals and timing, suggesting inadequate circadian synchronization.
“Taken together, these measurements point to the need to identify markers of differential vulnerability to abnormal decrease in muscular movement and sleep– wake changes in crew members during the prolonged isolation of exploration spaceflight and the need to ensure maintenance of the Earth’s natural circadian rhythm, sleep quantity and quality, and optimal activity levels during exploration missions,” said Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, MSc, assistant professor of Sleep and Chronobiology in Psychiatry at Penn, and co-lead author.
The research team concludes that successful adaptation to such missions will require crews to transit in spacecraft and live in surface habitats that artificially mimic aspects of Earth’s sleep-wake activity cycles, such as appropriately timed light exposure, food intake, and exercise. This dynamic will be necessary to maintain neurocognition and human behavior throughout the flight.
The microbiological contamination of Mars? (Well, if we`re careless anyway).
Scientists show that microbes from Earth can survive conditions found on Mars
Astrobiologists have been worried for quite some time now that the Martian surface has been contaminated with microbes originating from Earth - what got there by clinging to all the various probes and artifacts we’ve sent there. But given how severe the conditions are on Mars, it has been generally assumed that this is likely an impossibility.
A recent study now threatens to overturn this sentiment. Researchers from Russia and the U.S. have demonstrated that a hardy bacterium found in Siberia is in fact capable of surviving Mars-like conditions - a revelation that will have profound implications on how we prepare our Mars-bound artifacts for future missions.
To conduct the study, researchers from the University of Florida and the Russian Academy of sciences extracted various strains of bacteria found in the Siberian permafrost off the banks of the Kolyma River — extremophiles that can survive some of the harshest conditions that Earth has to offer. The samples were taken from a depth of 12 to 20 meters (40 to 65 feet) where the soil has an average temperature of -7 °C (19 °F).
The samples were drilled out directly from the depth of the permafrost, and without fluid (which normally serves as lubrication) to avoid any contamination. The microbes that were taken had endured their conditions deep underground for the past 6,000 to 8,000 years.
The team grew larger cultures of these microbes back at the lab at normal temperatures in preparation for the next phase. The researchers took these cultures and exposed them to similar conditions found on Mars, including a severe lack of oxygen, extreme cold temperatures, and very low pressure (about 150 times lower than the Earth’s). The experiment was run over the period of 30 days. Over 10,000 isolates were exposed to these conditions - and they all died.
Except six.
And in fact, these six surviving microbes actually did better under these conditions. Surprised by the result, the researchers took a closer look at the survivors, and following a genetic analysis concluded that they all came from the same genus: an extremely hardy extremophile called Carnobacterium.
Carnobacterium can be found in cold climates around the world, including Alaska and the oxygen-poor waters of Ace Lake in Antarctica.
Indeed, it’s a startlingly common anaerobic organism that doesn’t require oxygen for growth. And in fact, a species of Carnobacterium (CB1) is used as a food additive for vacuum or modified atmosphere-packaged ready-to-eat and processed meats. In other words, it’s the kind of bacterium that could easily make its way onto a probe bound for the Martian surface.
As the researchers note in their study, “the ability of terrestrial microorganisms to grow in the near-surface environment of Mars is of importance to the search for life and protection of that planet from forward contamination by human and robotic exploration.” Moving forward, and despite the fact that Mars has a highly irradiated surface, scientists will now have to ensure complete sterilization of all artifacts bound for the Martian surface.
The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(via abcstarstuff)
Magnificent Mars as seen from Europe’s newest deep space tracking station.
New Mars Photo Christens Deep-Space Antenna
Europe’s newest deep-space tracking station has received its first interplanetary message: a photo of a half-lit Mars as seen by an orbiting spacecraft.
(via anndruyan)
A look at dust storms on Mars.
(Though this blog deals with emerging technology, you may have noticed a few more posts like these. To me Mars is part of that future, though I will try keep these ones for Mondays - Martian Mondays, though other astronomical posts may appear from time to time).
(via abcstarstuff)
