Fresh from a second year of operating the Mars Society-sponsored "habitat for humanity" at Devon Island, near the Arctic circle, the organization has now set its sights on planting a twin research station in Utah. That structure is now on display at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a popular tourist stop among exhibits of NASAs past, present, but somewhat still-hazy future.
The second Mars habitation module is to be planted within hundreds of square miles of Utah territory, and to be up and operating by mid-November. The Mars Society plan is to carry out year-round analog research between the Devon Island and Utah-based encampments. Each offers a unique setting to rehearse methods, techniques, and try out technologies that better equip future explorers to live and work on Mars, Zubrin said.
Each of the habitats comes equipped with a red, green and blue "flag of the future" - a "flag of a people yet to be," Zubrin told the gathering of some 700 conference-goers.
"We want to make it happen," Zubrin said. "With credibility and public recognition you can do much more. You have to run the flag up high enough."
Whether a humans-to-Mars program is a public or privately-financed initiative doesnt matter, Zubrin said. "Our task is just to make it happen," he said.
Of mice and men
A new potential project of the Mars Society involves working with Silicon Valley whiz-kid and multi-millionaire Elon Musk. A multi-pronged effort is being scripted to wrestle with the issue of long-duration exposure to microgravity, both in getting to Mars, and then living and working as a captive of the planets less than one Earth gravity.
Musk and the Mars Society are discussing privately building and launching what has been now tagged as the "Translife" project. The purpose of this idea and other concepts being reviewed is to help move life to Mars.
Musk and a cadre of well-to-do, technology-oriented entrepreneurs have banded together to do feasibility studies focused on giving humans an ability to become a multi-planetary species, he said.
"Were trying to make things happen here," Musk said. A preliminary design of the Translife craft has been completed, and discussions are underway with both Russian and American scientists and engineers to fabricate a mini-Apollo capsule measuring 3.3-feet (one meter) in diameter.
This project is seen costing in the range of $10 million, Musk said.
To be launched in 2003 on a Russian booster, the craft spins along its primary axis. That carefully controlled spin creates Mars gravity conditions along the outer rim of a chamber within the craft.
Onboard the craft is a crew of mice, sustained in a small habitat.
Staying aloft for upwards of six months, the miniature spacecraft will validate the use of artificial gravity as a countermeasure to bone and muscle loss. At present, astronaut and cosmonauts orbiting Earth experience significant physiological deconditioning. Any long trek to and from Mars of people is sure to compromise their physical well-being, unless artificial gravity is provided, both Musk and Zubrin reported.
Doubling up on planets
"Of all the things that we can do that are important, creating a civilization on Mars and having humanity go from being a single planetary species to a multi-planetary species is, arguably, one of the most fundamental things that could be achieved in the history of any species," Musk said.
Doing things in space costs hundreds of millions to potentially billions of dollars to make any research head-way whatsoever, Musk said. That has been clearly demonstrated by NASA, he said.
"NASA is not healthy in the sense of being an effective user of tax-payer dollars," Musk said Space exploration can be done for a fraction of what is currently spent on space exploration, starting at the ground level by using converted Russian Cold War missiles.
Musk said other privately-financed space exploration projects are also being studied. Among them, a Mars transit mission that may or may not carry life. It would fly out to 1.5 astronomical units from Earth, studying deep space radiation and effects on organisms. A third project centers on landing a craft on Mars to test out on-the-spot processing of fuel and evaluate long-term growth of food crops.
Zubrin said that these types of space projects can be guiding lights that allow life from Earth to develop on Mars. "It is, in a sense, almost a scandal" that so little has been investigated regarding artificial gravity and the hazards of interplanetary voyaging, he said.
Must-have hardware
Mike Griffin, an executive vice president of Orbital Sciences in Dulles, Virginia, said "getting to Mars is hard, but not impossibly hard."
However, a roster of capabilities is needed, many of which appear to be below the radar screen of NASA.
Top candidates for must-have-in-hand hardware, Griffin said, is a heavy-lift booster, robust and durable Mars suits, and closed life-support systems to sustain crews on lengthy missions to Mars.
Furthermore, Griffin said, there needs to be a much greater understanding of how to "live off the land" once crews reach the Red Planet. "When we go to Mars, we need to use Mars," he said.
Griffin said there is a mis-match of NASAs planetary exploration projects that dont feed into supporting humans-to-Mars. Similarly, the International Space Station (ISS) project offers little in the way of research and technology useful for sending crews to Mars anytime soon.
"I cant come up with a reason why we need the ISS to go to Mars," Griffin said.
Even as a way of bringing together a band of countries to help foster human Mars exploration, the ISS project has stirred ill-will, Griffin said. The ISS has shown us how not to work with the Russians and has "poisoned" the minds of policy makers, Congress, and budgeteers that the idea of going to Mars internationally is workable, he said.
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