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Ideas on a future manned Mars
ustrax
post May 31 2006, 06:49 PM
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Are you awared of any psychological, philosophical, antropological studies on a future manned mission and possible settlement on Mars?

Basically, and this is a point I would like to be discussed and developed, I believe that the humans envolved in such quest will develop a sense of mission, evolving, as time goes by, in a kind of mystical experience, in spite of all the efforts developed to keep their minds occupied and executing their scientific work.
The fact of being the first ones, the fact of being the Primus in an alien world will originate an ambiguous feeling: the nostalgia of mother Earth, proud, fear, curiosity, exploration, survival...
In spite of being the executors of Humanity's most advanced technological saga, all the primitive, basic instincts will arise and, on that process, trying to understand the magnificence of their adventure, they're role on it, there are questions that will not be immediately answered and then, in order to fill in the gaps, the spirit will search, using external and internal references, one truth, that will, due to the never experienced nature of their condition, the only one.
But this is only my opinion, a pilgrim's one...
Any other?


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RNeuhaus
post May 31 2006, 07:43 PM
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At this moment, we are spending like in the year 1500 where there were a wave of explorations initiated by Portugueses and Spanishes navegants as the first and later comes others european countries such as England, French, Belgium and German. They had the instinct to explore beyond than the Europe land. Now we have revived our instinct of the explorer soon after we got mastering the power system to launch a man to space.

Hence, the man is only animal who has the deep instinct of discover something new, not comparing any animal word in the Earth which are most concerned in defending their territory and survival.

At the year 1500, the man had conquered the new world in Americas to have a better life with more water, more space, more wealth, more food and more territory to govern. Now at the year 2050 the man would conquer space not only as the past man does but for a better human specie survival.

Rodolfo
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Marz
post May 31 2006, 08:16 PM
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QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ May 31 2006, 02:43 PM) *
At this moment, we are spending like in the year 1500 where there were a wave of explorations initiated by Portugueses and Spanishes navegants as the first and later comes others european countries such as England, French, Belgium and German. They had the instinct to explore beyond than the Europe land. Now we have revived our instinct of the explorer soon after we got mastering the power system to launch a man to space.

Hence, the man is only animal who has the deep instinct of discover something new, not comparing any animal word in the Earth which are most concerned in defending their territory and survival.

At the year 1500, the man had conquered the new world in Americas to have a better life with more water, more space, more wealth, more food and more territory to govern. Now at the year 2050 the man would conquer space not only as the past man does but for a better human specie survival.

Rodolfo


I'm not sure homo sapiens are the only animal with an instinctive drive to explore.... I'd argue a larger percent of humanity are more comfortable in familiar and controlled surroundings. I'd assert that the average dolphin has actually a more instinctive drive to explore than the average human, at least in terms of geography. Most "pilgrims" in America came here not to explore but to escape... and most early explorers were interested in finding resources to exploit and not in being an enlightened pilgrim. While I'm willing to label Cook and Magellan as heroes in exploration, I think they are exceptions in history. I know Star Trek has a catchy themesong and prose to the contrary, but try looking at our history... it often is not as noble as we'd prefer.

But this is an interesting, and huge topic. To me, I think the mindset of a manned mission, with a specific timeline and planned return to Earth has a vastly different perspective of a settlement where the colony plans/hopes to make Mars a permanent home.

I think the Mars Research Station has attempted to answer, or at least define questions, of the social and psychological components of a science-return mission. Mostly, I think they try to work on specific questions, like sleep patterns, human-equipment interactions, project scheduling, etc. I don't think they can capture the, "OMG, earth is a dot and Mars is huge and I'm paving history".
http://www.marssociety.org/mdrs/

A settlement is a tougher question to address, and would have a very different feel from a limited visit. The book "Red Mars" tried to play around with these ideas. One interesting idea was that the first settlers would be emotional contradictions - they'd be persons that must outwardly exude qualities of astronauts & brilliant engineers/scientist to be selected as Settlers, but at the same time have a personal reason that makes them willing leave everything behind. The "pilgrims" seemed to have 3 main factions: those that wanted to make mars more earthlike, those that wanted to keep mars pristine, with settlements only "fishbowls" apart from the planet, and those that simply considered it an extension of earth's resources to be exploited (i.e. not a pilgrim's perspective).
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_*
post May 31 2006, 08:31 PM
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We are still a bit far from Mars colonies... But this topic is however relevant, as one of the toughest difficulties of a manned Mars mission is that the crew will have to remain locked for months or years at several into something the size of a van... Terrible psychological challenge, not to call it a torture. Russians have some more experience about it, and this experience is not reassuring: some lengthy missions resulted into severe disputes among crew members, and even in at least one instance in a fight with injury.

But don't you know, to remain locked at several people into a narrow space for years with no distractions is a common custom on Earth... in monasteries and similar places, of several religions, people undertake years long retreats in cells and narrow spaces, seeing nobody, even not speaking to nobody. And without any other kind of distraction, no games, no TV, no work other than meditation, and of course without sex in any form...

In the case I know the best, tibetan Buddhism, three years retreats (seven years at a whole) are a common practice, and when you see a lama, in most cases he did this. And there are already such retreat centers in Europe, in France, Spain, Switzerland, USA, New Zealand... not to speak of numerous christian monasteries where people use to do this for ages.

And most of the time, these people pass the test, they bear living several years into such harsh conditions, where we cannot even imagine to be able to do so ourselves. Why? because they already have a spiritual preparation: mastering concentration and emotions, having a strong motivation, and a clear purpose in mind. And also an efficient psychological discipline, and methods which allow them to cope with any kind of problem which could arise. So they are able to do this where most of us will flee after 15 days.

So the idea is to apply such methods to an eventual long duration space mission. Anyway I don't see any other solution.

Of course, as you noticed, ustrax, there are spiritual stakes into colonizing Mars. And, in the instance where a Mars mission crew would use such spiritual methods, and a spiritual master would be part of the crew, it will have much other effects than just allowing them to bear the travel...




QUOTE (Marz @ May 31 2006, 08:16 PM) *
A settlement is a tougher question to address, and would have a very different feel from a limited visit. The book "Red Mars" tried to play around with these ideas. One interesting idea was that the first settlers would be emotional contradictions - they'd be persons that must outwardly exude qualities of astronauts & brilliant engineers/scientist to be selected as Settlers, but at the same time have a personal reason that makes them willing leave everything behind. The "pilgrims" seemed to have 3 main factions: those that wanted to make mars more earthlike, those that wanted to keep mars pristine, with settlements only "fishbowls" apart from the planet, and those that simply considered it an extension of earth's resources to be exploited (i.e. not a pilgrim's perspective).



Such contradictions show us how complex would be the establishment of a plan to Mars. And beyond this appear all the contradictions of manking, between those who seek for a spiritual meaning, or simply happiness, and those with much more material and short scope motives in life.

So we cannot just let a restricted team make the plan. A scientist team will have science goals, a business team will have exploitation of resources in mind, other will hope to build a better society on Mars, etc. So the discution must involve much more people.
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ustrax
post May 31 2006, 09:16 PM
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I believe that martian settlers, not on a return mission, will be the first of a new human species, I like to call it Homo Viator, the ones who walk, travel, based in the knowledge of their predecessors.
Or they're educated in a close environment all their lifes before departure or they're going to have access to thoughts like this and they will take it surely to Mars with them, and develop them in situ, in spite of a spiritual or psychological guidance. At their own way.
And then we can start talking about that new species. W can start talking about some indivduals, different from the others, with the will to expand their concepts, believers and creators of a new world.
The difference makes the kind and they will have that difference. They will be still humans in shape, but the better ones: intelligent, educated, physically the jewel of a species...
Maybe they'll rise monuments towards Earth.
And that will first be home and then a temple...

I'm starting to like this topic... wink.gif


QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ May 31 2006, 08:43 PM) *
At this moment, we are spending like in the year 1500 where there were a wave of explorations initiated by Portugueses and Spanishes navegants...


As a Portuguese I'll try to answer you tomorrow in the light that remained from those days... wink.gif


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Marz
post May 31 2006, 09:59 PM
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QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ May 31 2006, 03:31 PM) *
So we cannot just let a restricted team make the plan. A scientist team will have science goals, a business team will have exploitation of resources in mind, other will hope to build a better society on Mars, etc. So the discution must involve much more people.


Excellent point. The book "Red Mars" addresses this too. Initially, the First Settlement is controlled directly from a multinational Mission Control center on earth... but Earth is very, very remote and the decision makers are not experiencing the "ground truth". I'd tend to think that even under the best circumstances that eventually the Settlement will begin taking more and more control over their own destiny as they gain more self sufficiency. They'd stop thinking of themselves as representitives of Earth, but as martians.

Of course, this assumes a colony could become totally self-sufficient... a *very* difficult stretch. How, for instance, can you replace a failed computer chip without mother Earth to look after you? And how can a "low-tech" society on Mars ever survive?

And perhaps the first pioneers will build their monuments towards Earth... but their children might be the first Homo Viator - developing as an infant in low gravity and sterile air, never experiencing a body of liquid water larger than a pond, never seeing an open expanse of living wilderness under a dynamic sky, but instead a desolate landscape. Would they long for Earth with some imprinted memory of the ocean, or would they dream of Mars? Would mankind's history be theirs, or does their history begin at T0 - the day the Pioneers landed?
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RNeuhaus
post Jun 1 2006, 03:56 AM
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Up to now, we are still dependent on the Earth's biosphere (air, water and food). I don't think that the man will conquer and live on Mars. It is much more difficult than to send man to live and work in Antartic station in spite of the fact both will have similar pragmatical purposes with improving the understanding of science. A good example is that any other extraterrestres haven't colonized on Earth because our biosphere is not comfortable for them. Hence, I think the human being will be confined to live only on Earth. Then, why the man is interested to go Mars, it is driven by psicological factor: proud to conquer other planets but they won't live on Mars unless our organism is undergone with some mutations so that we can "breath" normally or live only on high concentrations of CO. These species will look like the reptils who has strong skins and does not need much water (I am not sure of it and I am just supposing it).

About going to Mars for business purposes with resources explotation and trip for tourism. At this point we are still to far due to our still primitive propulsion systems. Perhaps, this might be the next good reason for going to Mars so often only after we have got a robust and strong propulsion systems.

The last step, is to settle down on Mars as the last effort for human specie survival. This might happen in several hundreds years from now, the only witnessers will be our grandsons.

Rodolfo
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_*
post Jun 1 2006, 08:23 AM
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QUOTE (Marz @ May 31 2006, 09:59 PM) *
but their children might be the first Homo Viator - developing as an infant in low gravity and sterile air, never experiencing a body of liquid water larger than a pond, never seeing an open expanse of living wilderness under a dynamic sky, but instead a desolate landscape. Would they long for Earth with some imprinted memory of the ocean, or would they dream of Mars? Would mankind's history be theirs, or does their history begin at T0 - the day the Pioneers landed?


I think creating an independent colony on Mars will be very difficult.
There are technical reasons: such a colony should be really self-sufficient, so far as, as you say, to build its own computer chips. And the number of skills required for this is staggering: raising children, teaching, care the ills and intellectually disabled, cultivate, build, work metal, plastic, chemistry, electronics, biology, doing art, tackling psycological problems... such a community would require a complete set of human activities and maybe more than 10 000 persons, to simply survive.

Mars also is not the best choice for a colony. On Earth, people could land on a south pacific island with only some hens and seeds, and use available resources, wood, stone, and still survive for centuries. This is because our bodies are designed to live into Earth biosphere, and to use its resources, either it is into a tropical forest, a desert or in an icy country. The minimum survival was only four, in the case of a given bedouin tribe, I don't recall the name. On Mars, we would need heavy and sophisticated tech to live there. On a more Earthy planet, this problem would not arise (we would have biological contamination instead, if the planet already has life).

About longing for Earth, it is obvious too. Mars is a very harsh environment, with nothing to do save mineral resources (if there are. Likely there are not many, save iron). It would be much easier to build a colony into space. But psychologically too we are built for Earth. I know this, because I lived for three years into Sahara. It is a very beautiful place, indeed, with a lot of very special experiences. But at last I was longing for the greenery of France. As you say, never be able to bath on a beach or wander in a forest could be unbearable for Mars colonists. Even in Sahara, we can go out and breathe the air, we don't die at once. But on Mars, it will be far before we have a breathable air all around the planet. If so, yes, we will be able to live permanently on Mars without having to experience some kind of suffering.

About mutations, we can see peoples like the Tibetan or the Quechuas getting accustomed to high altitude (low oxygen). But this is just one adaptation of a given gene, which already needed thousands of years. To adapt to very different environments would require a coordinated change of hundreds of genes, a process needing tens of millions years.
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ustrax
post Jun 1 2006, 07:35 PM
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Even those on a temporary settlement will experience the primary feelings I made reference before.
And on Earth they will deal with difficult situations...
Mars addiction will be a major danger and I believe it will be reality.
Every person envolved, on Earth, in radical sports, extreme activities, suffer from the same 'disease': They just can't stop. And once you've been on Mars I guess no experience back on Mother Terra can rivalize or equalize that one, but those who will return will try to do in a wide field of manners. Defying life.
And when night comes, in their earthly beds, they'll have their eyes open, facing the ceiling, and, as dogs chasing bones in their dreams, they'll set foot, nce again, on 'their' Red Planet.


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ljk4-1
post Jun 1 2006, 07:42 PM
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As with most pioneers, the first generation will find their new homes
difficult to live in for many reasons. But no one on a colonizing mission
to other worlds will be doing so involuntarily. They will know the risks,
even if only in principle.

But the next generations will only know Mars or Alpha Centauri 5. Earth
will just be a story of a distant land where their ancestors grew up because
they couldn't go anywhere else until the 21st Century.

Humanity will always have some problems colonizing space, but homesickness
for Earth for our distant descendants won't be one of them.

Plus, many years down the road, they may also not quite be the same kind of
humans as we are. They may be purposefully adapted to live on their new worlds,
perhaps so much so that they could not even visit Earth if they wanted to.


--------------------
"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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ustrax
post Jun 7 2006, 04:30 PM
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Just a quote from Mr. Carvalho Rodrigues, the 'father' of the 1st (and so far only) Portuguese sattelite:

'Whenever he is installed in a new place - nominated in his cabinet of NATO, in Brussels, where he occupies, since 1999, the position of director of the Science Project -, Carvalho Rodrigues takes with him a slate board, where he writes, with chalk, the ideias that occur to him. It can seem ironic, for who is accustomed to deal with top technology, but this is the man who believes that “in the end, with all the voyages that we already made to space, we are only collecting information that will allow the draw of the maps for the Great Voyage. The Voyage that, tomorrow, we are going to make.

From here:
http://www.nationalgeographic.pt/revista/0...tos/default.asp


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RNeuhaus
post Jun 7 2006, 05:04 PM
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QUOTE (ustrax @ Jun 7 2006, 11:30 AM) *
Just a quote from Mr. Carvalho Rodrigues, the 'father' of the 1st (and so far only) Portuguese sattelite:

'Whenever he is installed in a new place - nominated in his cabinet of NATO, in Brussels, where he occupies, since 1999, the position of director of the Science Project -, Carvalho Rodrigues takes with him a slate board, where he writes, with chalk, the ideias that occur to him. It can seem ironic, for who is accustomed to deal with top technology, but this is the man who believes that “in the end, with all the voyages that we already made to space, we are only collecting information that will allow the draw of the maps for the Great Voyage. The Voyage that, tomorrow, we are going to make.

From here:
http://www.nationalgeographic.pt/revista/0...tos/default.asp

The comments is intrinsicely true. First we make a voyage map referent as a collection of information before we "make a trip".

Rodolfo
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