Fans of the Dutch-based Mars One Reality TV Program, we have a
problem, Houston
According to a research paper done by five (5) MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduate students, the first set of
colonists on Mars One in 2024 will die
within sixty eight (68) Days of Our Lives style as reported in the article “The
reason Mars One colonists could die will surprise you”, published October
9, 2014 by Eric Mack, CNET News.
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The MIT graduate students who did this PSA(Public Service Announcement) type study As the World Turns, no doubt
possibly upset that they were not selected to for Mars One, are follows:
1. Post
graduate MIT Student, Mr. Sydney Do
2. Post
graduate MIT Student, Mr. Koki Ho
3. Post
graduate MIT Student, Mr Samuel Schreiner
4. Post
graduate MIT Student, Mr. Andrew Owens
5. MIT
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems, Dr. Olivier
de Weck
The main reason for this morbid prediction is that
the My Favourite Martian colonists will basically suffocate to death due to an
improper mixture of breathable gases. This is not to mention that the project
budget of US$6 billion will explode, thanks mainly to sending spare parts to
keep equiptment running.
No matter how much TV sponsorship Mars One will get from people across the world
to watch the first Gilligan
Island
As expected, CEO of Mars One Bas Lansdorp has responded by
defending their plans, stating Everything is Awesome and it's just Men at Work,
quote: “There are many problems between today and landing humans on Mars, but
oxygen removal is certainly not one of them”.
So are they just upset about not being among the
lucky 200,000 Jeopardy contestants selected from among those who had signed up
in 2013 to be a part of the Mars One
Reality Show with an Oprah Winfrey giveaway at the end as reported in the
article “200,000
Apply For One-Way Trip to Mars”, published Sept. 11, 2013 By TIME Staff, TIME.
Or are the 200,000 Martian heading on a One Life to
Live one-way ticket ride, where they are shown to American ad the World is Not
Enough, suffocating to death on live TV as pointed out in the article “Think You
Could Live on Mars? Think Again”, published Oct. 13, 2014 by Jeffrey
Kluger, Time.
Stay tuned for a preview of the new Soap Opera
coming 2024 titled “One Life to Live on Mars One”.
MIT
Study on Mars One – Game of Thrones as All Men must Die
According to the MIT
Study, the first four (4) colonists that will be landing in 2024 will get
to spin the Wheel of Fortune and choose how they'd like to die in the next sixty
eight (68) days:
1. Suffocation
2. Starvation
3. Incineration
But before Death comes knocking on their door, the
first problem they'll face is constructing the Mars One Habitat in the first place as
noted in the article “MIT
outlines why the Mars One mission will fail”, published October 14 2015 By
Robin Burks, Techtimes.
According to the Mars
One website, the modules will be lifted up to the Red Planet using six (6)
Falcon Heavy rockets. Problem is, the four (4) astronauts who will be sent up afterwards
will have to spend most of their days Lost in Space recovering those modules as
they'll be scattered across Mars.
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It might be possible to make sure they all land in
the same general area using GPS and other telemetry data, so that problem is
somewhat solvable. A module might be left in orbit with as TV Camera so as to
film the four (4) Martians, Survivor Style, as they spend their first few days
putting their Mars One Habitat together
before they run out of food and Oxygen (O2) in their pods.
Interconnecting the modules might not be so easy,
even with a planet that has 40% the gravity of Earth, stuff that weights 4.54
Kg (10lb) on Earth would weigh 1.81 kg (4lb) on Mars. Thus, objects are still
heavy to lift even on Mars, never mind what you saw in the movie John Carter.
The amount of energy they'd have to expend just
dragging modules scattered as far apart as 1 kilometer would be very draining,
even if they all landed in the same general area.
Mars One can
make thing easier by using inflatable Bigelow AeroSpace's Bigelow Expandable
Activity Module as described in my blog article
entitled “Bigelow
AeroSpace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module - Italian Mafia Bigelow
AeroSpace Alpha Station Casino using inflatable BEAM Modules” to get their
settlement up and going quickly.
This as the Martian dust storms that frequently kick
up on the planet can be very fierce and even in a spacesuit, you can easily get
killed if you’re caught in a really violent one that may have Category 5
hurricane winds.
Time now for a commercial break sponsored by
Bigelow. We’ll be back with you preview of the new Soap Opera “One Life to Live
on Mars One” after these messages!
Mars
One Base camp up – Staying Alive means eating Vegetables and Pond Fish
But let's assume the best for now and somehow they
succeed in putting together their habitats and plant a few crops of food. This
is necessary as it’ll be another two (2) years before supplies are scheduled to
be sent up to them, taking approximately seven (7) months for supply rockets to
reach them from Earth.
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MIT Graduate student Sydney Do estimated that they'd
need 3,040 calories from their food to stay alive in the harsh Mars environment.
So the MIT research students estimate that the four (4) astronauts would plant the
following crops to provide a reasonably balanced diet:
1. Beans
2. Lettuce
3. Peanuts
4. Potatoes
5. Rice
6. Wheat
Already there are other problems with the Mars One Estimates as it relates to size of
the greenhouse, assuming that they could build one from day one, as growing
food is important. They also estimate that they'd need a greenhouse about 200
square meters, as opposed to 50 square meters as estimated by the Mars One planners.
Mars One plans
calls for the greenhouse to share the same space as the living quarters of the
four (4) astronauts. Also, they'd need to extract water from Martian soil for
growing plants in the greenhouse, growing Fish in their aquaponics farm in the
greenhouse as well as for general hygiene, as you can STILL get cholera in
space.
Travelling to the polar ice caps to get ice and melt
it to get liquid water might not be such a good idea, the MIT
Study points out. Recycling water as they do on the ISS (International
Space Station) using the same technology might help though!
One such necessary recycling technology is shower
that recycles water made by Orbital Systems to recycle water used for bathing
and general bathroom hygiene as explained in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “Orbital
Systems Shower of the Future is a Water Recycler for your Favourite Martian”.
Heating Martian soil to free liquid water not only
requires energy that needs to be harvested from solar panels, an untested concept
but the ice might contain unknown Martian microbes, causing sickness, Andromeda
Strain Style!
Plus, that’s energy that’ll be needed to run the Mars One Base, recharge Batteries to last
the night and do the necessary scientific work required to make the trip
worthwhile.
So will our four (4) adventurers survive on veggies and
fish alone or will they become cannibals and eat each other? Stay tuned as the
new Soap Opera “One Life to Live on Mars One” returns after these messages!
Mars
One Base Greenhouse – Too much Oxygen is a License to Kill
But let’s think positive and say they overcome that
minor hiccup as it relates to food from the greenhouse.
As the Lettuce matures, peaking at about thirty (30)
days after planting, it pushes the Oxygen (O2) level past a concentration
of 0.3 mol per dm-3, which is unacceptably high. This could tip the
balance of Oxygen (O2) to Nitrogen (N2) to the point
where it could cause an explosion.
Being hungry humans, the four (4) would consume the
lettuce along with re-hydrated meat-in-a-can and fish. Lettuce goes well with
that, causing the Oxygen (O2) level to drop back down to safer
levels.
But the danger returns thirty (30) days later at the
sixty eight (68) day mark when the wheat and rice mature, pumping more Oxygen
(O2) and raising the Oxygen (O2) levels back up to 0.3
mol per dm-3.
With too much Oxygen (O2) inside the
living habitat an unknown space-tested technology to exclusively remove the
excess Oxygen (O2) without removing the nitrogen needed to
pressurize the pods, their Nitrogen (N2)/Oxygen (O2)
mixture will become unbearable. Death from suffocation is certain in sixty
eight (68) days with the excess Oxygen (O2) again raise the Spectre
of Death by Explosion once more.
Ironically, the Mars
One residents might exit, stage left even before that, dying of exhaustion
due to starvation and even Carbon Dioxide (CO2) poisoning. This is
as albeit the food thus far is nutritious, the caloric intake would be way
below the 3,040 calories that are needed to stay active on Mars.
They’d soon start to slack off on replanting and an
excess of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) might build up if they start raising
fish in their makeshift aquarium using the water they melted from the Martian
Soil.
“One Life to Live on Mars One” will be back after
these short commercial breaks. We'll be exploring a “what if” scenario where
the first four (4) Martian don't die.
Mars
One Colonists after 68 Days - Too many Astronauts spoil the Space Station
But the problems don't end there.
Let's say the colonists manage to successfully
deploy some technology that can discriminate Oxygen (O2) from Nitrogen
(N2) and remove the excess Oxygen (O2) while preserving
the correct Oxygen (O2) /Nitrogen (N2) mixture.
According to CEO of Mars One Bas Lansdorp, he claims that they
can use oxygen concentrators that are used to remove excess oxygen from
hospitals and operating theaters via a process called Pressure Swing
absorption as described in the article “The
reason Mars One colonists could die will surprise you”, published October
9, 2014 by Eric Mack, CNET News.
Problem with this idea that the MIT
Study revealed is that it hasn't been space-tested on the ISS
(International Space Station). Many things that work on Earth have to be space
tested to see if they’d work in a zero-gravity situation, let alone on a planet
with 40% gravity.
If it were deployed on the Mars One Mission
Examples of technology similar to Pressure Swing
absorption readily come to mind. One such is the University
of Southern Denmark 's Oxygen (O2)
absorbing Cobalt Crystals as explained in my blog article
entitled “University
of Southern Denmark Oxygen-phillic Cobalt compound - Organo-Crystalline Cobalt
means Conquest of Outer Space and Ocean is Possible”.
Also, they can utilize Laser Pyrolosis to convert excess
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) to Oxygen (O2) and Carbon as
explained in my blog
article entitled “University
of California Team decompose Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen using a UV Laser - How
Gas Pyrolysis can create lighter Spacesuits and Life on other Planets”.
If they had the situation under control, survived
past the sixty eight (68) days mark and one hundred and thirty (13) days or two
(2) years later more colonists came, they’d create more problems as noted in
the article “Humans
won't last more than 68 days on Mars, MIT finds”, published Oct 15, 2014 by
Kounteya Sinha, Times of India.
First, there would have to expand the greenhouse to plant
more food to make sure everyone has the required 3,040 calorie high nutrition
diet to make it through the Martian Day. It would also require more equiptment
as well as result in more wear-and-tear in their currently deployed equiptment.
The MIT
Study point out that this will result in subsequent re-supply mission
requiring as much as 62% of their payload would be stocked with spare parts to
fix damaged equiptment. Also, they'd need some fifteen (15) Falcon Heavy
rockets laden with supplies costing some US$4.5 billion dollars added to the
modest US$6 billion budget that Mars One
had set.
3D Printing spare parts using Martian soil as the
starter material requires sophisticated 3D Printing technology which hasn't
been space-tested and just doesn't exist as yet to produce precision parts and
components needed for most high-end space-tested gear.
Mars
One 2 Earth years Later – Psychological problems and Nutritional deficiencies
The new colonists would also notice that the four
(4) Martians who had spent the initial two (2) years on Mars might not be in
such good shape both physically and psychologically, itself a worrisome problem.
We have never had human stay on the ISS longer than two (2) years; there no
telling what two (2) years on Mars will do to a human both physically and
psychologically.
Something tells me even though Mars One might have a these problems solved
by 2045, their Reality TV show concept won’t generate enough revenue to cover
the costs of maintaining the colony.
What can I say, that’s show business!
I suspect by the time the other colonists join the
original four (4), it'll start to look more like Family Feud than the Brady
Bunch as human nature might start making the first Martians competitive. The
original four (4) Martians may have developed Psychological problems and
Nutritional deficiencies by the time the other 200,000 colonists come to give
them a helping hand.
Plus, with improved space travel, 3D Printing and
propulsion technology by 2045, wouldn’t a round trip to Mars makes more sense?
Regular Citizens of Earth and Scientists could come and go as they needed to
instead of worrying that they’d be coming to die on the Red Planet.
Tune in next time for another exciting episode of “One
Life to Live on Mars One”.
Here’s the link:
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