Mars One

[Peter]

Mars One is a not for profit foundation. It is the Mission Objective of Mars One to establish a human settlement on the planet Mars in 2023. They plan to get the finances(6$ billion) through sponsers and a Reality TV show. Just recently they have opened applications for a mars astronaut.

What do you think about the Mars One project. Personally I find it an interesting project but I wonder if they'll manage to get enough money to fund it completely.

[Numsgil]

I heard about this a while back.  I think it's an interesting idea.  Sort of a gamification of space exploration.  Though assuming they got people there, once the novelty wears off (let's be generous and say 5-10 years) then what?  You have a bunch of people living in a very inhospitable place, with no real way to return to Earth and limited capability to manufacture their own technology.  They'd need regular supply drops from Earth, and even assuming a super low delta-v trajectory for the supply drops, that's a significant price tag.

I'm more excited about something like asteroid mining.  Once you can demonstrate a ROI beyond LEO, it opens the door to space commercialization, with lots of possible knock on effects.  If there's any stronger driving motivation for humans beyond curiosity it's money.  I'd expect colonization to start emerging as a natural consequence of AI beyond kinda dumb and light speed lag making remote control impractical.  One or two $100 billion mining expeditions ruined because of light speed lag more than incentivizes a permanent human presence beyond LEO.

[Peter]

It should be mostly self sufficient. An issue is that if something breaks down what they can't fix, they would need help.  I doubt that something will break unrepairable very often.

Asteroid mining is interesting. Currently those companies are mostly in the research process, I wonder at what point they'll actually start mining. Certainly it would mean quite a boost in space exploration if it gets off the ground. I doubt that'll be within ten years, but I think it can go quick once they do.

[Botsareus]

I am all for Mars exploration but I don't think a private company can cut it. We need a coordinated effort like back during the Apollo missions. Sad how the end of the cold war put a nail in the coffin of proper space exploration.

[Numsgil]

Asteroid mining is interesting. Currently those companies are mostly in the research process, I wonder at what point they'll actually start mining. Certainly it would mean quite a boost in space exploration if it gets off the ground. I doubt that'll be within ten years, but I think it can go quick once they do.

I think it's about 10 years off, actually.  There's some serious venture capital behind it, and the ROI is pretty good if you manage to bring anything back to Earth.  And technologically it's not that far fetched.  We pretty much have off the shelf parts to do the job.  It's on the edge between science fiction and risky speculative mining.

We need a coordinated effort like back during the Apollo missions. Sad how the end of the cold war put a nail in the coffin of proper space exploration.

It just shows you how ahead of its time the Apollo project and Russia's space program was.  They were probably 100 years ahead of what the natural pace of technology would have caused.

[Peter]

The space race makes me wonder at what point manned exploration is better then unmanned exploration. Determined in price/benefit. Humans would more usable. But unmanned would be cheaper. For example I don't think the Apollo project achieved much more then the unmanned Luna project from russia which costs quite a bit less. (not to confused with the actual manned flight that got canceled after the USA got on the moon first)

Because of distance the lag in space mining near earth objects would only be a few seconds of something(based one the moon with just 1,26 seconds) With the load of NEOs I can't imagine space mining would need a remote base anytime soon.

[Botsareus]

It is just an epic moment when a person steps foot on a different satellite, not to mention that mars is a solar satellite not a terrestrial one.