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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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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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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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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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