Ideas on a future manned Mars Options

[ustrax]

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?

[RNeuhaus]

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

[Marz]

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).