Wednesday 15 October 2014
Image, above: The non-profit company MarsOne plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars by 2025. Pictured is an artist's rendering of a series of habitats. Solar panels (in the foreground), would supply the colony's electricity, while a system to extract water from the soil (in the background) would supply drinking water. The intention is that MarsOne will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. Crews of four will depart every two years, starting in 2024. Its first unmanned mission will be launched in 2018. See Hour 4, below, for an extensive discussion of how to do this by an extraordinary team of MIT grad students and their enterprising professor. Photo by courtesy of MarsOne; with thanks.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, in re: Most recent report is the that Hong Kong police beat up a protestor; hitherto, they were admired for their mild behavior, Now we see that four authors have been banned. Are they stuck in the 1950s? No – Xi has been raised on a pure diet of Marxism has no clue about classical writings. Since he tenth Century, the highest peak of Chinese culture has been attained by intellectuals, who reached that apex in affair and regulated manner. What's just happened is that the words of perhaps the greatest living Chinese intellectual an 84-year-old emigre, who's published widely, has taught at Harvard, Yale and Princeton – the only one ever to do this. Tremendous erudition, great humor, low key, and with a gift for the zinger. His words are widely admired. He's written on classical Chinese literature to politics to culture. Years ago he wrote of "Chinese fascism." "Why are the Chinese people enslaving themselves? His response to a question on why he never has visited Mainland China was, "Confucius never went to Ch'in [an atrociously ruled place], so I've never gone to China." These words stang. Who is more to be respected, Xi or Prof Yu? Almost all Chinese people would say, Prof Yu. I studied under Prof Yu almost forty years ago, and since then have been actively involved in work with him. Chinese people have the same God-given rights that the rest of us do. He's the one man who stands up to the Chinese tyrants, and is a hero to millions of us. He wrote about Sunflower protests in Taiwan and was banned. The Beijing tyrants are foolish – big, strong guys with armies and police, and he writes a few words on a piece of paper and they stand trembling. Prof Yu is relaxed, calm, at ease, and completely fearless. He cannot be won over by emoluments (has been offered boatloads of money by Beijing). It’s the casualness of his dismissal of the PRC that's especially painful to the tyrants. He simply doesn’t take them seriously, sees them as having no standing, just a bunch of crooks and murderers. Decades ago we studied CCP policies – house the homeless, cure the sick, feed the hungry – but all that never happened; the outgoing vice-president, Wan, has $2.7 billion in his personal accounts. The only way to get that sort of ocean of cash is by reaching out and taking staggering sums from the natl budget daily. Maoism is not a real system, Clement Atlee says, "They're absolutely incorruptible" - ! The censors aren’t smart enough to read books, so they work on newspaper articles. In China under the Communist party this is mafia politics.
Book Ban Rumors Boost Authors in China Having a book banned in China is often a marketing coup for publishers selling copies abroad. In the age of social media, this dynamic appears to be playing out on the mainland as well. Unconfirmed rumors began circulating over the weekend that China’s media regulator has banned the publication and sale of books by some mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese authors known to be critical of China. Booklovers responded by going online to castigate regulators, and at least one retailer moved to take advantage of the publicity by running a promotion on the supposedly soon-to-be-scarce books.
The allegedly blacklisted writers include prominent liberal economist Mao Yushi, newspaper columnist Xu Zhiyuan, Chinese-American historian Yu Ying-shih and well-known media personality Leung Man-tao. “These days, smothering someone is as good as crowning that person—previously unnoticed but now many people are interested in his views and works,” one user wrote on Weibo, referring to the rumored ban. “A ‘smothering’ order is a reading list.” . . .
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research and author of China Alone: The Emergence from, and Potential Return to Isolation, in re: http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-economy-low-inflation-hampers-debt-escape-heard-on-the-street-1413360454
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Larry Johnson, NoQuarter, in re: NIH and nurses in the age of ebola.
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, in re: My assessment is that the govt of Pakistan is weakened, that the military has assumed much control. That Lashkar-e-Toiba is empowered. This year it all escalated further to areas southward. The new govt in India is more interested in economic dvpt. How strong the Pakistani military is depends on how strong the govt is – can be thrown ut in a military coup. Civilian govts are worried; facing serious internal challenges. M worry is the internal radicalization of the country, and I hold he army primarily responsible – after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the army has got used to using radical groups and staging low0-inttensity conflicts. Thousands of American soldiers have died from this. Osama bin Laden lived for a decade in a garrison town. We would like Pakistan to move in the direction of democracy. China and Pakistan call each other "all-weather friends." How does that triangle work with India? Beijing is very careful – has a huge mil relation w Pakistan, incl nuclear weapons, but is also concerned abt radical Islam entering Xinjiang. The new PM on the day he was sworn in invited the PM of Pakistan to come to the celebrations. We'd love to have relations with Pakistan such as we have with our other neighbors. "You cannot nurture vipers in your backyard and hope that they’ll bite only your neighbors." At present, the gunfire has stopped, with some dead and other injured along the Line of Control.
.. .. ..
Firing across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir was a regular feature till 2003. Most of the firing used to occur when Pakistan sought to infiltrate members of armed radical Islamic groups like the Lashkar eTaiba, (trained by the ISI) across the Line of Control (LoC).
When Pakistan overplayed its hand using regular forces in the garb of "non-state actors" to capture the strategic Kargil heights on the Indian side of the Line of Control in 1998-1999, New Delhi used its full firepower to evict the intruders. Nawaz Sharif rushed to the White House to have it bail him out on July 4, 1999. He was forced by Clinton to agree that Pakistan would respect the "Sanctity of the Line of Control" and end all infiltration.
When infiltration continued, India responded with massive firepower, forcing Musharraf, who had ousted Sharif, to agree to a ceasefire in November 2003, which he respected as long as he held office till 2007. Musharraf also assured India in writing in January 2004 that "territory under Pakistan's control" would not be used for terrorism against India. He honoured this assurance, also.
Things started worsening after Musharraf left. Infiltration was stepped up and things came to a head when terrorists armed and trained in Pakistan came across the Arabian Sea and launched a massive terrorist attack on Mumbai, resulting in the deaths of 167 people, including deliberate targeting of citizens of US, UK, Singapore and Israel This attack was carried out by the Pakistan-based international terrorist group the Lashkar eTaiba, whose leaders even now roam freely in the cities of Pakistan.
The infiltration across the LoC is primarily by Pakistani nationals who are members of the Lashkar eTaiba. They receive covering fire from the Pak army to cross the LoC. And it is this covering fire on Indian border posts which provokes an Indian response.
Pakistan goes regularly to the UN claiming that the UN should mediate with India. India notes that the UN Resolution in 1948 required Pakistan to vacate the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir and the Administration of the entire State was to be undertaken by India before the wishes of the people of Kashmir could be ascertained. Fearing losing the State in this process, Pakistan did not withdraw from areas it had seized.
After two conflicts (1965 and 1971), India and Pakistan agreed in 1972 that all issues and differences will be settled peacefully and bilaterally. In 2007, we came close to agreeing to a framework for a settlement of Jammu and Kashmir. The framework involved maintaining the sanctity of the Line of Control, while opening out the entire State progressively for free movement of goods, services, people and tourism. This followed two years of secret "back channel diplomacy". Pakistan disowned this process when Musharraf was ousted. (Steve Coll wrote a detailed article about this in the New Yorker a few years ago).
The view that the entire issue of Jammu and Kashmir should be settled bilaterally and directly in negotiations between India and Pakistan is backed by the US, UK, France and Russia. China which is said to be an "all weather friend" of Pakistan has remained silent. The UN Secretary General, like his predecessors has conveyed that the issue should be settled in talks between India and Pakistan.. This is where matters rest.
.. .. ..
Hour Two
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Mike Davis, University of Hong Kong Law School, in re: Hong Kong protests. Protestors fairly dug in; the reported beating of an innocent protestor by the police reignited public passions Dunn if the govt will keep making these missteps, At an impasse now. You’d think the govt would eventually learn – but they don’t. During weekdays, the crowds shrink; on weekends, get bigger. The beating wasn't a case of mild struggle – it was a brital, vicious kicking of a cuffed man on he ground. Much public concern. Obvious to everyone that it's the HK govt that could solve the problem – speak with protestors, t hen convey tat to Beijing, which seems to be clueless. Even the Beijing puppet Li Kai-shing has said, "We've heard you!" Who authorized pepper spray? The authorities are obviously frightened by the civilians. A lot of the protest leaders committed to nonviolence can pull back, but others are not in that camp and are uncontrolled. Problems almost always blamed by Beijing on "foreigners." It's created a confrontation, stirred up challenges to its power. Beijing had huge warning by Occupy Central, should have had a game plan – but doesn’t. It thinks it can create a harmonious society by repression; Beijing doesn’t have any clue how to manage a liberated society. Everyone camped out in Admiralty.
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Bob Collins, former senior Pentagon analyst now based in South Korea, in re: the latest on Kim Jong-eun. Kim Jong-eun, the porky and youthful leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, went missing for some weeks. Any time a DPRK Supreme Leader ("L'etat c'est moi") isn't seen often to proclaim his power, people begin to wonder what’s going on. During that time the primary advisors to the Supreme Leader understand this, and pay a lot of attention to anyone who might lead a cup. Ergo, turmoil and stress for internal security advisors. The May 24 measures – South Korean economic sanctions vs the North (Don’t give 'em anything till they make some concessions). A delegation went to Inchon; then an exchange of live fire across the DMZ in response to propaganda leaflets on balloons; the South returned live fire. These pamphlets are extremely annoying to the DPRK as they challenge the legitimacy of the regime in the north. People in ROK who live on the border are angry about the pamphlets because they think they’re in danger from the North's fire.
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Aaron Back, WSJ Heard on the Street, in re: China Not Ready to Bet House on Housing China still has ammo left to combat its housing slump. But even the heavy artillery held in reserve may not be enough. Earlier this week, the country's central bank unveiled a basket of piecemeal measures to support housing. These included encouraging banks to issue more mortgage-backed securities, and allowing more people to qualify as first-time buyers, giving them preferential mortgage terms. China is in the midst of a serious real-estate correction. Nationwide property prices have fallen by 3.1% from April through September, according to the China Real Estate Index System. That may not seem dire, but it is equal to the previous price decline, over a longer period, between August 2011 and May 2012. Meanwhile, government data show total housing sales fell 10.9% from a year earlier in the January-August period.
Previous corrections all were due to deliberate government policies to cool the market, including curbs on apartment purchases at the local and national level. Prices were quick to rebound once Beijing loosened the reins. This time is different. There was no policy trigger for the latest downturn, and prices have kept sliding even after dozens of local governments have lifted restrictions on property purchases. This suggests the correction is the result of a buyers' strike. Ordinary Chinese seem to have been shaken out of their conviction that property can only rise over time, similar to the psychological turn seen in the U.S. in 2007. A recent central-bank survey of households found that only 19% of respondents see prices going up in the next three months, down from 36% a year ago.
The true test may be yet to come. Beijing could still break out the big guns, by cutting current down-payment requirements of 30% for first-time buyers and a punitive 60% for second-time buyers. But if the public still believes the market has further to fall, even these measures may not succeed in luring them back to the market. The nuclear option is a broad economic stimulus. That might be the only thing that could bring Chinese housing back -- just don't count on it.
More Pain in Store for Hong Kong Retailers For Hong Kong retailers that have filled their baskets with Chinese money, escalating protests signal lean times ahead. Shares in prominent shopkeepers were among the hardest hit on Monday, after police tactics including pepper spray and tear gas failed to disperse pro-democracy protesters over the weekend. Jeweler Chow Tai Fook, cosmetics chain Sa Sa International and apparel-brands owner Trinity all fell at least 3%
Protests that began around government offices have spread to vital commercial neighborhoods. Sa Sa alone has at least 18 stores in the affected areas. More worrying, the disruptions seem unlikely to die down before the start of China's weeklong national holiday on Wednesday, when mainland tourists typically come to Hong Kong in droves to shop. This is no small matter. Mainlanders dodging China's taxes -- excise taxes on cosmetics are 30% -- have become a major driver of the local economy. Last year, they . . .
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Christian Whiton, http://bit.ly/nkBabyHuey
Hour Three
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS New Survey USA poll showing Nunn up 3 11alive.com/story/news/pol… helps explain why Ds pouring more $$$ into GA: politico.com/story/2014/10/…
@DavidMDrucker Just as in #KSSEN for Roberts, the GOP cavalry coming to rescue in #SDSEN for Rounds: argusne.ws/1yAesBG h/t @ArgusMontgomery Rounds draws more national support http://t.co/kmX8n84vdI
FiveThirtyEight @FiveThirtyEight Current chance of GOP win:
fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/s… (1 of 2)
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Sohrab Ahmari, WSJ London, in re: Iran Tries to Open for Business ;Firms want investors to be ready whenever sanctions end. Next month marks the anniversary of the Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear-weapons program. In exchange for a freeze on some of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities, the Geneva deal eased sanctions on Tehran. The sanctions relief, the Obama administration assured Congress, would be limited and reversible in case talks fail. In the words of Secretary of State John Kerry : “Iran is not open for business.”
Many businesses seem to think otherwise. Consider the Europe-Iran Forum, scheduled to be held in London on Oct. 15 and 16. The forum brings together global law firms (Dentons Europe), business consultancies (FTI), marketing firms ( WPP ), auctioneers (Sotheby’s ) and telecom providers (MTN), among many others, to “prepare and evaluate the post-sanctions trade framework and investment opportunities” in Iran, according to its brochure.
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re: After ebola scare, airline stocks tank. Putin to met Poroshenko; everything whopperjaw. Plunges. When you see this kind of volatility on one day, you an be sure it'll [be more volatile} soon. This is the best time to deploy your cash. High-frequency traders: the robots have been slightly managed.
Hour Four
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show; Prof. Olivier de Weck; Sydney Do, Andrew Owens , Koki Ho, Sam Schreiner, all of MIT Strategic Engineering. (1 of 4)
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show; Prof. Olivier de Weck; Sydney Do, Andrew Owens , Koki Ho, Sam Schreiner, all of MIT Strategic Engineering. (2 of 4)
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show; Prof. Olivier de Weck; Sydney Do, Andrew Owens , Koki Ho, Sam Schreiner, all of MIT Strategic Engineering. (3 of 4)
Wednesday 15 October 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show; Prof. Olivier de Weck; Sydney Do, Andrew Owens , Koki Ho, Sam Schreiner, all of MIT Strategic Engineering. (4 of 4)
AN INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT OF THE TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY OF THE MARS ONE MISSION PLAN
Sydney Do, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States; Koki Ho, Samuel Schreiner, Andrew Owens, Olivier de Weck, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Prof Olivier de Weck. and students: Sydney Do, Andrew Owens , Koki Ho, Sam Schreiner
This group issued a paper on Mars colonization, 35 pages of analysis to create a useful tool to simulate what it would take to support a habitat on Mars, incl how to launch the Martian crew, keep them there, grow food, and all the other questions. MarsOne is a private endeavor to create a colony on Mars with one-way trips. MarsOne starts with precursor missions to Mars in 2018, then the first crew leaves for Mars in 2024 with regular flights at a 26-month interval, when Mars is in the proper orbital position for Earth to Mars missions.
Professor de Weck: Our group started research on human exploration of another planet in 2004 from an integrated point of view, then focused on the Moon, starting with sortie missions and increasing them to longer sojourns. We submitted a proposal, the Interplanetary Supply Chain – to US govt and two private groups – realizing that logistics are critical. The best Earth-based comparison is Antarctica: the real advances to establishing bases there were the airplane and mechanized transport. These let us have a permanent presence there. Our proposal was second among 3,000 submitted, for which we got funding from NASA. SpaceNet. The Constellation program no longer exists; rather, we're focussed on Mars. We’ve taken this integrated concept and in principle applied it to Mars – but Mars is different, being much farther away, and one can launch only every 26 months. Growing food, being fully self-sustaining, need addtl elements. Envtl control and life-support systems are essential. In previous discussions, we’d thought of those things as exogenous, but in fact they're the main driver of demand.
Crops: everyone will be vegetarian. Our simulations were based on publicly available data including data on the MarsOne website. The habitat layouts will look like simulations and MarsOne technologies, life-support, etc., plans. In a functional sense, our models correlate precisely with MarsOne (which MarsOne says is comparable to the Intl Space Station).
Engineering guesses on crop-growing in space – we had to design our own system, based on early to mid-2000s BioFlex NASA program. Also, extract valuable resources – e.g., water and gas – the most experience we have in such things is some in Hawaii. ISRU - in situ resource utilization - is a major part of the MarsOne mission plan and future human activities on other planets.
Is the Martian surface a desirable place to live? Has some challenges – radiation, for example – living under soil might help; also dust storms. Other architectures proposed: tunnel underground or into the sides of hills; but we used lined up Dragon capsules for our analysis, which is what MarsOne plans to do with support habitats & food habitats lined up behind them.
Crop growing: excess oxygen can be very toxic; no known ways yet of removing it in space. Technology of oxygen removal is currently used on the ground, in hospitals, but much different from space – gravity level, radiation, others. Requires very high reliability and different performance. For ISRU and O2 removal, we need further technology dvpt.
In situ resource utilization: all needs to be based on sound science. NASA and others have invested in this. The Moxie experiment in the Mars 2020 launch will extract oxygen. . . . Extract resources from soil and the environment, On Mars, we think we can take in the CO2, separate the oxygen, and potentially extract minerals from the soil. Each requires a lot of thermodynamics, a cascade of reactions. Scaleability is [important]. Can do some things in principle, but after several batches of some kinds of filtration, the filters get clogged.
In the universetoday.com space news website, MarsOne say they have a completely different Mars mission from your analysis and that their mission is based on existing ISS technology. MarsOne claims the mission in your analysis has nothing to do with the MarsOne mission. The study's authors rejected this MarsOne claim on several grounds, including the fact that their study was based on ISS life-support as well as NASA and aerospace industry baseline architectures for Mars landers, lunar landers, short-stay habitats, etc. The aerospace community has converged and agreed on a life-support system for the lunar surface.
Using processed urine for drinking water, while established here on Earth, worked for only a while. After a bit, the calcium build-up made it infeasible. As for "a bridge too far" – maybe not start with one-way missions but go for a few dozen days then return home with enough contingency supplies to see you through. Regarding resupply and food for the Martian colony, it might be cheaper to resupply the colony from Earth. Koki: In our analysis, spare parts were key. O2 removal system, doesn't yet exist, but our later sections in the paper model it and assume it exists. Even so, taking food is better than growing, because growth requires an inventory of spare parts,as things will break. Considering all the spare parts for the growing system, taking food is probably more cost-effective.
In Reddit, 3D technology: could send raw materials for machine tools to space for a space-based 3D printer. Yes, very interesting – a small 3D printer is now on the ISS for experiments. Circuit boards, controllers, valves – too complex right now, but simpler things could be made in space. Print spares on demand. US Defense Logistics Agy is interested in replacing vast warehouses. Risk-pooling: a lot of spare parts will end up not being used, but you don’t know ahead of time which ones. By risk-pooling and local mfrg, can reduce the inventory, cost, and launch issues.
Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy. If something grave "went south," what are the plans for rescue? Who's responsible? If no technology has been made for a return Mars capsule, rescue would be hard. Have just read ______ ; if you don’t have a return vehicle . . . I don’t know what the contingency plan would be in that case. Using soil: depends where you are on Mars. The 2008 Phoenix found subsurface water in the polar regions – can process to drink, polarize for oxygen for breathing and propellant; also CO2 (in high proportion but thinner than on Earth); a small amt of nitrogen and argon. There are some minerals, of which we know little, but postulated that there are useful ones there. Mars gravity is about one-third of Earth's. We haven't addressed human survivability in that; still have to look in to that and dvp a technology. ISS has had a sustainable habitat since 2000, astronauts live in a zero-G environment so we have some data on human health there. Think abt artificial gravity, and how people will live in low gravity; our study made the assumption that low gravity is survivable because that was the assumption used by MarsOne. Dr Space: I believe a MarsOne-type mission can be done if it's based on solid engineering, life support issues, etc. Most likely the time line would be different from the current MarsOne mission and the costs would probably be higher than planned for MarsOne; but yes, I believe a MarsOne-type of mission could be carried out in our future.
.. .. ..
MIT team independently assesses the technical feasibility of the proposed Mars One mission.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office October 14, 2014
In 2012, the “Mars One” project, led by a Dutch nonprofit, announced plans to establish the first human colony on the Red Planet by 2025. The mission would initially send four astronauts on a one-way trip to Mars, where they would spend the rest of their lives building the first permanent human settlement.
It’s a bold vision — particularly since Mars One claims that the entire mission can be built upon technologies that already exist. As its website states, establishing humans on Mars would be “the next giant leap for mankind.”
But engineers at MIT say the project may have to take a step back, at least to reconsider the mission’s technical feasibility.
The MIT researchers developed a detailed settlement-analysis tool to assess the feasibility of the Mars One mission, and found that new technologies will be needed to keep humans alive on Mars.
For example, if all food is obtained from locally grown crops, as Mars One envisions, the vegetation would produce unsafe levels of oxygen, which would set off a series of events that would eventually cause human inhabitants to suffocate. To avoid this scenario, a system to remove excess oxygen would have to be implemented — a technology that has not yet been developed for use in space.
Similarly, the Mars Phoenix lander discovered evidence of ice on the Martian surface in 2008, suggesting that future settlers might be able to melt ice for drinking water — another Mars One goal. But according to the MIT analysis, current technologies designed to “bake” water from soil are not yet ready for deployment, particularly in space.
The team also performed an integrated analysis of spare-parts resupply — how many spare parts would have to be delivered to a Martian colony at each opportunity to keep it going. The researchers found that as the colony grows, spare parts would quickly dominate future deliveries to Mars, making up as much as 62 percent of payloads from Earth.
As for the actual voyage to Mars, the team also calculated the number of rockets required to establish the first four settlers and subsequent crews on the planet, as well as the journey’s cost.
According to the Mars One plan, six Falcon Heavy rockets would be required to send up initial supplies, before the astronauts’ arrival. But the MIT assessment found that number to be “overly optimistic”: The team determined that the needed supplies would instead require 15 Falcon Heavy rockets. The transportation cost for this leg of the mission alone, combined with the astronauts’ launch, would be $4.5 billion — a cost that would grow with additional crews and supplies to Mars. The researchers say this estimate does not include the cost of developing and purchasing equipment for the mission, which would further increase the overall cost.
Olivier de Weck, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems, says the prospect of building a human settlement on Mars is an exciting one. To make this goal a reality, however, will require innovations in a number of technologies and a rigorous systems perspective, he says.
“We’re not saying, black and white, Mars One is infeasible,” de Weck says. “But we do think it’s not really feasible under the assumptions they’ve made. We’re pointing to technologies that could be helpful to invest in with high priority, to move them along the feasibility path.”
“One of the great insights we were able to get was just how hard it is to pull this [mission] off,” says graduate student Sydney Do. “There are just so many unknowns. And to give anyone confidence that they’re going to get there and stay alive — there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Do and de Weck presented their analysis this month at the International Astronautical Congress in Toronto. Co-authors include MIT graduate students Koki Ho, Andrew Owens, and Samuel Schreiner.
Simulating a day on Mars
The group took a systems-based approach in analyzing the Mars One mission, first assessing various aspects of the mission’s architecture, such as its habitat, life-support systems, spare-parts requirements, and transportation logistics, then looking at how each component contributes to the whole system.
For the habitat portion, Do simulated the day-to-day life of a Mars colonist. Based on the typical work schedule, activity levels, and metabolic rates of astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), Do estimated that a settler would have to consume about 3,040 calories daily to stay alive and healthy on Mars. He then determined crops that would provide a reasonably balanced diet, including beans, lettuce, peanuts, potatoes, and rice.
Do calculated that producing enough of these crops to sustain astronauts over the long term would require about 200 square meters of growing area, compared with Mars One’s estimate of 50 square meters. If, as the project plans, crops are cultivated within the settlers’ habitat, Do found that they would produce unsafe levels of oxygen that would exceed fire safety thresholds, requiring continuous introduction of nitrogen to reduce the oxygen level. Over time, this would deplete nitrogen tanks, leaving the habitat without a gas to compensate for leaks.
As the air inside the habitat continued to leak, the total atmospheric pressure would drop, creating an oppressive environment that would suffocate the first settler within an estimated 68 days.
Possible solutions, Do says, might include either developing a technology to extract excess oxygen or isolating the crops in a separate greenhouse. The team even considered using nitrogen extracted from the Martian atmosphere, but found that doing so would require a prohibitively large system. Surprisingly, the cheapest option found was to supply all the food required from Earth.
“We found carrying food is always cheaper than growing it locally,” Do says. “On Mars, you need lighting and watering systems, and for lighting, we found it requires 875 LED systems, which fail over time. So you need to provide spare parts for that, making the initial system heavier.”
Twisting the knobs
As the team found, spare parts, over time, would substantially inflate the cost of initial and future missions to Mars. Owens, who assessed the resupply of spare parts, based his analysis on reliability data derived from NASA repair logs for given components on the ISS.
“The ISS is based on the idea that if something breaks, you can call home and get a new part quickly,” says Owens. “If you want a spare part on Mars, you have to send it when a launch window is open, every 26 months, and then wait 180 days for it to get there. If you could make spares in-situ, that would be a massive savings.”
Owens points to technologies such as 3-D printing, which may enable settlers to manufacture spare parts on Mars. But the technology as it exists today is not advanced enough to reproduce the exact dimensions and functions of many space-rated parts. The MIT analysis found that 3-D printers will have to improve by leaps, or else the entire Mars settlement infrastructure will have to be redesigned so that its parts can be printed with existing technology.
While this analysis may make the Mars One program look daunting, the researchers say the settlement-analysis tool they’ve developed may help determine the feasibility of various scenarios. For example, rather than sending crews on one-way trips to the planet, what would the overall mission cost be if crews were occasionally replaced?
“Mars One is a pretty radical idea,” Schreiner says. “Now we’ve built a tool that we can play around with, and we can twist some of the knobs to see how the cost and feasibility of the mission changes.”
Tracy Gill, a technology strategy manager at NASA, says the tool may be applicable for assessing other missions to Mars, and points to a few scenarios that the group may want to explore using the settlement-analysis tool.
“This [tool] can provide a benefit to mission planners by allowing them to evaluate a larger spectrum of mission architectures with better confidence in their analysis,” says Gill, who did not contribute to the research. “Included among those architectures would be options ranging from completely growing all food in situ with bioregenerative systems, to packaging all food products from Earth, to various combination of those two extremes.“
Some of the students on this project were supported by NASA fellowships.
.. .. ..