Re: Space travel by humans is not possible now

Fred J. McCall wrote:
jacob navia <jacob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:Ian Parker wrote:
:> I want to move hundreds of kilometers. I want to move out of the
:> Meridian Planum. To do that you require agility. AI is needed to avoid
:> obstacles. This AI is the sort of AI that we saw driving round Las
:> Vegas. I want to be cable of moving at Las Vegas type speeds on Mars.
:> :
:Yes, that is possible with robots driving slowly. For faster speeds you
:can send a balloon and travel dozens of kilometers per day. The balloon
:would inflate in the day, and stop in the night.
:

Or you can send men and travel more than "dozens of kilometers per
day" and not be just flying over stuff at random and ignoring
everything between touchdowns.



Men CAN'T TRAVEL IN MARS.

As I have explained to you over and over again, they need a VERY heavy life support system, that maintains a temperature differential of more than 100 Centigrade between the Mars surface and the insides of their
home.

The HUGE energy requirements needs an isolated "home" for them, that can
be heated to the right temperature without too much loss. This implies
absence of windows since they would lose too much heat when outside is
-100 Centigrade.

The equivalent in earth would be to maintain a temperature as in the hottest Sahara desert in a house in the south pole.

Warming is (of course) only ONE of the requirements of the life
support system. THEN there is breathing, i.e. humans need oxygen
that doesn't exist in the marsian atmosphere. So they have to carry
an oxygen producing and maintaining circuit. The CO2 must be
eliminated too. Add that to the "vehicle".

Then, humans need food, and waste disposal. If they are going
in a field trip they would need a VERY heavy vehicle, that would
take a LOT of energy just to move around. They can't go just
in spacesuits since at night they would FREEZE OVER in a few hours.

All this makes completely IMPOSSIBLE to use a balloon. You would
need an enormous and heavy vehicle in MARS.

Another problem is fuel. Since there is no oxygen, they would need to
carry the oxidant AND the fuel.

Another interesting problem is the radiation level. Because of the thin
atmosphere, the Mars surface is bombarded with highly energetic
particles that make rocks radioactive. Humans need to be shielded
from that.

Since the vehicle is so heavy that it is impossible to fly, they have
to drive. The problem is, such a heavy vehicle can't easily be supported
by the mostly sand marsian surface and would sink or make heavy tracks
in the terrain.

A light robot like spirit or opportunity could get free from the
treacherous sand. Not so with such a heavy vehicle that would be
needed to carry the human's life support!

There are no highways in Mars. No roads that could support a very
heavy thing rolling around. Traveling by surface would be much
SLOWER than a lightweight robot or a robotic balloon.

And yet another interesting problem: The redundancy and spare parts of the life support system would stay at the "home base". The humans
can't go VERY far away from the spare parts since they would risk dying
at the first problem with the life support system.

And these are the most evident problems. Other problems aren't even
mentioned.

I repeat:

HUMANS can't move in Mars.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Space travel by humans is not possible now
    ... :>:can send a balloon and travel dozens of kilometers per day. ... :Men CAN'T TRAVEL IN MARS. ... :need an enormous and heavy vehicle in MARS. ... :the life support system would stay at the "home base". ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Space travel by humans is not possible now
    ... :Men CAN'T TRAVEL IN MARS. ... No explanation where the power for maintaining such a huge temperature ... astronauts and did not have any life support. ... :in a field trip they would need a VERY heavy vehicle, ...
    (sci.space.policy)
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