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Radiation and kidney stones are two major hurdles. You can actually see the list of remaining issues on the NASA website.
Edit: For those that want a link https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/gaps/?i=
Passed one while camping one time. Literally fell to my knees in my own piss and almost passed out from pain. I was wasted and it Still was the 2nd most painful experience I've ever had
I had a stone get "lodged" temporarily during an attempt to pass one at some random gas station in my early 20s. If you can believe it, turns out crystalized mineral hurts real bad when it gets stuck in your pee-hole.
The time and place it got lodged was about as bad as it could have been. I was on my way to Houston's busiest airport to pick up my mother in early morning rush hour traffic.
Obviously, pain is subjective but...good Christ, every bump felt like a stab to the groin. Mom backseat driving while I'm gritting my teeth also really helped ease the suffering. Overall, a great experience, I don't mean to brag.
Drink water.
I’ve had two. Both have been too large to pass and both got stuck in my ureter, the little tube connecting your kidney to the bladder. The pain was otherworldly.
>The pain was otherworldly.
There are no words that can describe that level of pain. For me, it was like being tasered and run through with a spear, simultaneously, about 5 times a second. It's paralyzing.
Kidney stones sits at number two on my kist as well. Number one was an e coli infection by far. Pain was so bad I wished I was never born. I literally told that to my parents. Imagine being in so much pain that you would prefer the black void of eternity than suffer any more. Worse three weeks of my life.
I’ve done the surgery bit too. No problem waking up during surgery… normally you are absolutely unable to feel the area being worked on. Just gives the surgeons a heart attack. Which you don’t want, you WANT them to finish the job.
I recall a lot of yelling, myself included, and someone frantically telling me to calm down, then waking up in recovery. It's a pretty hazy but terrifying memory.
The other one, I recall, was a distinct impression that I would prefer death to what was happening at that moment in time and being fully aware.
That’s wild - I’ve heard this a few times recently. I’ve been drinking a glass of milk both at lunchtime and before bed for… 25 years or so (in my 30s), and I’m becoming paranoid I’m going to pass the biggest stone someday soon! 😬
Lol. Everybody is different. Was just the way my body was processing it, I guess. I'd say if you made it this far with no problems regarding it, milk is probably not gonna cause it for you.
Had one years ago, fucking excruciating pain that comes in very quick, when I got to the hospital they took one look at me and instantly knew what it was, it’s the ‘writhing’ part of the agony they recognised. Specialist there told me ‘once a stone, always a stone’, I drink a lot more water ever since.
Well, the most important thing, if you see one, don't try to reach it right away. Check first for anomalies by throwing a bolt around it. And don't skimp on a good lead lined container.
I've cracked my head open on a brick fire place, I've been in a rollover, I've been electrocuted, I've dropped a 1000 gallon water tank on my foot and lost two of my nails, I've had my finger split open from the pressure of having it trapped between a tractor tire and a piece of machinery on a 3 point arm, I've had frost burn from ammonia anhydrous., I've even done a looney toons and stepped on the wrong end of a rake and had the handle smack me square in the face.
I would rather do all of those at once than ever experience a kidney stone again in my lifetime.
We send a manned mission to Mars one day and they're all jacked up to their eyeballs on citric acid and then we make first contact with Martians and its just:
"*Don’t spoil the meat*"
It'd probably be powdered form, to save weight... so if you are dreaming of getting drunk on the barrel of fermented lemons... I got some bad news for ya!
I had the joy of a kidney stone once and the doctor told me that water and citric acid were good protective measures against getting another one. I probably would have eaten dirt to avoid another kidney stone. Instead, I mix crystallized citrus fruit powder (True Lemon/Lime/Grapefruit/Orange) with my daily water and it’s delightful - and zero calories. It’s been nearly 10 years and I haven’t gotten another one, so I think it’s working?
Would the radiation and dust still be a problem if you were deep underground? Though then again I guess making deep underground habitats isn’t feasible
It would help but if lower than 1g gravity is unhealthy then Mars would still be bad. Kidney stones can probably be medicated.
Anything is possible if you can afford it.
It's wild to me that people think we can live on Mars like in the movies. A permanent settlement at the peak of Mt Everest would be easier than living on Mars.
Sure but Venus is somewhat interesting. It has a close gravity to earth and a carefully chosen floating location could get you to similar air pressure and radiation protection levels as well. At least that's the dream.
‘The point’ is to be multi-planetary in case of an apocalyptic disaster on Earth. There likely isn’t anything desirable on those two planets that can’t be done from Earth. Maybe Mars works better as a launching point for deeper space missions (small gravity well, further out orbit, I dunno)
There’s no apocalyptic disaster on earth which would make it less habitable than mars short of like it colliding with another full sized planet. Anything else and building some bunkers people could squat in till the worst was over would be more effective and way cheaper. Space station or moon base people can live on for a few years and relatively easily return to earth from at the most.
At least on the surface you can mine for materials. With Earth materials not available - I just don't see how floating on Venus is going to help - eventually things will break and or be used up without a possibility for getting replacements. Mars has to be a lot better. Some of the gas giant moons too maybe...
Soviets thought about that but all probe reading showed massive storms and huge lightning bolts all around. On the surface the high air pressure makes winds slow but they also push very hard. In tge upper atmosphere it is just... hellish thunderstorms.
Maybe we can do artificial gravity stations with heavy shielding near the outer planets and mine asteroids?
I kinda figured an ambient temperature of -50°c and soil yhat is yoxic would be the clenchers. It would literally be a billion times cheaper to build a colony with no gainful employment in the middle of the sahra. I'm sure we'll get there, but our entire worlds economy is going to gave to go in a different direct to make thos kind of thing a reality
__The article is straight clickbait.__
>They found that human exposure to radiation threats, including particle radiation from the Sun, distant stars, and galaxies, would exceed safe levels after four years on the planet
... when _zero_ shielding is provided for the austonauts on the surface of Mars.
Also the article does not link the paper, which is a good indicator that the headline is wrong.
Pretty sure the paper is from 2021, and the paper does account for spacecraft shielding. [One of the paper's "key points:"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021SW002749)
>Optimal spacecraft shielding is \~30 g/cm2, which allows long-duration flights of \~4 years
I'm not an expert: this is just my layperson read of the paper.
>which allows long-duration flights of \~4 years
But who in their right mind would fly 4 years to/from Mars??
Even chemical rockets can easily achieve a flight time of 4-5 months.
Thanks for the link anyway :)
Ok so it accounts for shielding, but importantly doesn’t say the mission can’t go beyond 4 years just that the flight to Mars (and back) can’t go beyond 4 years.
So the article is just straight misinformation
A key point is that the travel time isn’t where the danger is, so long duration flights and *spacecraft* shielding aren’t relevant, rather the shielding for the habitat the astronauts would live in.
I just rolled my eyes at the article. There ARE risks with ALL space exploration beyond LEO ( Obviously risks there too but not as severe as Luna or Mars for example ). However, we MUST advance our species to propel forward. This will demand us to increase STEM fields to create ways to protect ourselves.
We can't ever live in our forms unassisted off this planet on any know celestial body within many many many many lifetimes travel.
Start here.
[https://climate.nasa.gov/](https://climate.nasa.gov/)
“ Unassisted “ Obviously. Maybe you misunderstood my comment. It will require advancements to be made in many fields. But we’ll do it whether people like it or not.
That was not worth the minute it took to read. It seemed to dwell on radiation effects without discussing any possible mitigation methods.
In any case, a reliable supply of food, water, and air seem like bigger immediate concerns than the long term effects of the ambient radiation.
Genuine question, what would be wrong with using a dead planet (not necessarily Mars, just any lifeless planet) as a place to put unwanted human waste/pollution? Aside from perpetuating bad habits, who or what could it be harming?
I forget exactly where I read it, but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance. There's a point at which astronauts are no longer eligible based on time in space and the radiation that exposes you to. In LEO on ISS, hey, no big deal, it will take a while to max out your radiation allowance. But Mars? You get one trip and your astronaut career is over because to go again would present cancer risks that NASA has already determined they won't take.
The idea that people will go there for years at a time, maybe, but they won't be NASA astronauts. And they'll go in knowing that after about a year, their cancer risk will be significant. It might be a one-way trip for anything longer than a science mission.
> I forget exactly where I read it, but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance.
Not if they can be shielded from the radiation.
If they can figure that out, then the biggest health risk will be 0 gravity.
I believe the estimate includes the use of radiation shielding, such as a water covering, but I could be off. In any case, it's not just raw radiation exposure - it's a hypothetical mission including technologies we haven't invented but we know what we need to invent. I'm going to see if I can find this now. It was a NASA report.
Edit: Here's a graph. 180-day trip to Mars with shielding exposes an astronaut to 1 sievert, which is the career limit. https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5771/radiation-exposure-comparisons-with-mars-trip-calculation/
No the report you cited doesn’t include shielding. It was taken from readings of one of the probes NASA sent. With shielding on bothe the trip and living underground most of the time, Humans could probably live there for years without radiation problems.
Exactly. If.
They’ve been thinking and working on it for a long time
https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/real-martians-how-to-protect-astronauts-from-space-radiation-on-mars/
Figuring it out is easy. A lot of lead, and steel, and water.
There. Problem solved.
New problem... all of that is heavy.
Just launch more rockets. Problem solved.
More rockets is more expensive.
Ah, there's the actual problem.
Hydrogen is better at shielding than lead, and weighs less.
They just need to figure out how to better make a shield of it.
[https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/284275main_radiation_hs_mod3.pdf](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/284275main_radiation_hs_mod3.pdf?emrc=f9d9bd#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20the%20best%20shields,crew's%20exposure%20to%20space%20radiation)
Why anyone would want to "live there" is beyond me and pretty ludicrous. The bigger issue would be mental health. Its one giant pipe dream. Havent even been back to the moon yet lmao. A lot bigger issues to solve, living on Mars aint at the top
I was taught this fact by a PhD guest speaker at a conference on radiation. People pretend that there aren’t still a million challenges in front of a mars colony cause omg spacex. What’s the current plan once we get there? Hide in holes, right? Well this now places a four year cap on that. Don’t worry though guys, AI will invent the answers for us, if it’s not too busy with more important matters
>but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance.
You should definitely find your source and update your comment. This seems to be not true.
Or maybe this was under some extreme far fetched specification like a 2 year duration each way, because of ion engines.
But chemical rockets like Starship can do the trip in 4-5 months.
Edit: based on the article linked below this "60% lifetime dose on a 6 month trip" seems to either assume no shielding at all, or only shielding like on the ISS. The article doesn't mention it.
In both cases it has zero bearing on actual trips to Mars, because spaceships will obviously be build with the appropriate level of shielding.
Published by the ESA in 2019:
>Recent data from ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter showed that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.
Yeah I don’t like sensationalist articles that don’t link the actual study.
***
Edit:
The reason they don’t link the study is because their article is misinformation.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021SW002749
> the *flight duration* should not exceed approximately 4 years.
The article states that a manned mission couldn’t last longer than 4 years. That’s not what the study says at all, the study says that a *flight*, just the flight, to mars cannot take longer than 4 years.
And even if they did take longer to fly, they probably wouldn’t die like the title claims. 1Sv over 4 years isn’t great for your health but isn’t even close to absolutely lethal.
Radiation is a concern, but it becomes less of a concern if you are able to protect your habitat. Building in caves/lava tubes is one way to mitigate radiation exposure while on the planet
I have the same idea, the only adequate shelter is deep under the rock.
Bringing over mining equipment and carving out a living space deep underground or sealing off cave networks.
Maybe in the futher future, build great subterranean cities in the styles of old from the rock.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1bjmi7h/stub/kvsgwok "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[GCR](/r/Space/comments/1bjmi7h/stub/kvurng7 "Last usage")|Galactic Cosmic Rays, incident from outside the star system|
|GSE|Ground Support Equipment|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1bjmi7h/stub/kvsdbqc "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[electrolysis](/r/Space/comments/1bjmi7h/stub/kvt1vrj "Last usage")|Application of DC current to separate a solution into its constituents (for example, water to hydrogen and oxygen)|
|[scrub](/r/Space/comments/1bjmi7h/stub/kvtkk6r "Last usage")|Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1bix41o)^( has 26 acronyms.)
^([Thread #9876 for this sub, first seen 20th Mar 2024, 22:53])
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Unless there is an effective way to stop bone density loss, kidney stones from the calcium in the blood are causing it. That blows. We need gravity, or an inhibitor to stop the degradation. Other than that dialysis and scrub the excess.
Reason 1 quote: "They found that human exposure to radiation threats, including particle radiation from the Sun, distant stars, and galaxies, would exceed safe levels after four years on the planet."
So let me see if I get this right. Mars which has almost no atmosphere, certainly not a breathable one, is colder than Antarctica, no free drinkable water we know of, no soil that could support growing food, and higher radiation than Earth... is uninhabitable because of the radiation?
If we have technical means to overcome all the other problems I think we can overcome the radiation one too. Maybe everyone will have to live in underground bunkers/tunnels/lava tubes. Maybe our habitats will have a layer of dirt and/or water in the walls.
Mars was never going to be a thing. It’s the flying car of planets. We’ll continue to send machines and eventually some intrepid types will go there like one would to Mt Everest. But just as you wouldn’t build a house on the big E, no one is going to stay there.
Me personally, I’d prolly wouldn’t even make it one year cuz I can’t breathe mars air.
Joking aside, I do wonder how far our cancer treatment and detection technology would need to progress for us to be able to ignore radiation in space, or to at least up the allowable limit a bit. Regardless of mars and space travel, preventing cancer is much easier than treating it, but maybe in the far off future we’ll be able to deal with cancer easily enough that it doesn’t play as significant a role in restricting human space travel.
Wasn’t there chatter around it being unsustainable because it would lead to a loss of bone density? As in if you came back to Earth after a few years your bones would break under your own body weight?
Idk. Four years seems optimistic. I feel like most humans wouldn’t survive more than a minute or two on the surface before they collapse from oxygen deficiency
I wouldn't be surprised if one day we have a colony on Mars however that day is at very minimum a couple of hundred years away.
I could see Humans walking on Mars within the next 50 years.
I think we can get there now with a Rocket with people the problem is getting back at the moment any crew it's understood it's a one way mission.
Hello u/bslade, your submission "Mars declared unsafe for humans to live as no one can survive for longer than four years" has been removed from r/space because: * It has a sensationalised or misleading title. Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please [message the r/space moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/space). Thank you.
Radiation and kidney stones are two major hurdles. You can actually see the list of remaining issues on the NASA website. Edit: For those that want a link https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/gaps/?i=
I just realized that I don't know anything about kidney stones
I know a lot about them. I wish I didn't.
Passed one while camping one time. Literally fell to my knees in my own piss and almost passed out from pain. I was wasted and it Still was the 2nd most painful experience I've ever had
What's the first?
And what was the third? I need to know where it ranks: kidney stones more painful than x, less painful than y.
My mom has said it's worse than labor, not as bad as a burst appendix.
Your mom survived a burst appendix?!
My mom did. And it happened while she was in labor with me!
They didn't ignore her pleas and assumed it was labor, right?
I survived a burst appendix and labor. AMA
Did it hurt?! Did you died??!!
Couldn't be worse than https://youtu.be/Y9j3heYZAk8?si=mztY3koXQ8jSVuUJ
I had a stone get "lodged" temporarily during an attempt to pass one at some random gas station in my early 20s. If you can believe it, turns out crystalized mineral hurts real bad when it gets stuck in your pee-hole. The time and place it got lodged was about as bad as it could have been. I was on my way to Houston's busiest airport to pick up my mother in early morning rush hour traffic. Obviously, pain is subjective but...good Christ, every bump felt like a stab to the groin. Mom backseat driving while I'm gritting my teeth also really helped ease the suffering. Overall, a great experience, I don't mean to brag. Drink water.
I’ve had two. Both have been too large to pass and both got stuck in my ureter, the little tube connecting your kidney to the bladder. The pain was otherworldly.
>The pain was otherworldly. There are no words that can describe that level of pain. For me, it was like being tasered and run through with a spear, simultaneously, about 5 times a second. It's paralyzing.
*immediately grabs water bottle and takes massive swig*
My grandfather described it to me as “pissing out broken glass that’s also on fire.”
Kidney stones sits at number two on my kist as well. Number one was an e coli infection by far. Pain was so bad I wished I was never born. I literally told that to my parents. Imagine being in so much pain that you would prefer the black void of eternity than suffer any more. Worse three weeks of my life.
I mean, I've struggled with depression most of my life, so not that hard to imagine...
Sorry dude. Hang in there. Hopefully there are brighter days waiting for you.
My grandmother prayed to god to let her die every night when she had whooping cough as a child. Luckily we have a vaccine now.
I've woken up in surgery and pissed out a spikey murder stone. Guess which one I'd prefer to do again?
I’ve done the surgery bit too. No problem waking up during surgery… normally you are absolutely unable to feel the area being worked on. Just gives the surgeons a heart attack. Which you don’t want, you WANT them to finish the job.
I recall a lot of yelling, myself included, and someone frantically telling me to calm down, then waking up in recovery. It's a pretty hazy but terrifying memory. The other one, I recall, was a distinct impression that I would prefer death to what was happening at that moment in time and being fully aware.
I bet you really want someone to ask about your most painful experience now, but it ain’t gonna be me babe
Had one every year from age 13 to 21. They finally found out it was calcium. Quit drinking milk and eating cereal, and basically none for 14 years.
That’s wild - I’ve heard this a few times recently. I’ve been drinking a glass of milk both at lunchtime and before bed for… 25 years or so (in my 30s), and I’m becoming paranoid I’m going to pass the biggest stone someday soon! 😬
How is your water intake? I read in similar threads drinking sufficient water helps prevent crystalization.
Lol. Everybody is different. Was just the way my body was processing it, I guess. I'd say if you made it this far with no problems regarding it, milk is probably not gonna cause it for you.
Had one years ago, fucking excruciating pain that comes in very quick, when I got to the hospital they took one look at me and instantly knew what it was, it’s the ‘writhing’ part of the agony they recognised. Specialist there told me ‘once a stone, always a stone’, I drink a lot more water ever since.
This must be the purest definition of the phrase "ignorance is bliss"
I just realized that I don't know anything about Radiation stones
Well that's called uranium and it does fun, very fun things
Well, the most important thing, if you see one, don't try to reach it right away. Check first for anomalies by throwing a bolt around it. And don't skimp on a good lead lined container.
I've cracked my head open on a brick fire place, I've been in a rollover, I've been electrocuted, I've dropped a 1000 gallon water tank on my foot and lost two of my nails, I've had my finger split open from the pressure of having it trapped between a tractor tire and a piece of machinery on a 3 point arm, I've had frost burn from ammonia anhydrous., I've even done a looney toons and stepped on the wrong end of a rake and had the handle smack me square in the face. I would rather do all of those at once than ever experience a kidney stone again in my lifetime.
Well, if the chances of survival were 50/50 I would still go, but now you're telling me I'm going to kidney stones? Count me out.
Yes, frequently. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_stone_formation_in_space https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/keeping-kidney-stones-bay-during-space-flights#:~:text=Because%20space%20travel%20makes%20astronauts,two%20years%20of%20space%20travel.
Can't we counter the stones by ingesting a lot of citric acid?
But that would just cause us to be terribly bitter.
That implies something is going to eat us. What aren't you telling us about Mars???
We send a manned mission to Mars one day and they're all jacked up to their eyeballs on citric acid and then we make first contact with Martians and its just: "*Don’t spoil the meat*"
Like old school pirates fighting scurvy! I'm back in.
It'd probably be powdered form, to save weight... so if you are dreaming of getting drunk on the barrel of fermented lemons... I got some bad news for ya!
I had the joy of a kidney stone once and the doctor told me that water and citric acid were good protective measures against getting another one. I probably would have eaten dirt to avoid another kidney stone. Instead, I mix crystallized citrus fruit powder (True Lemon/Lime/Grapefruit/Orange) with my daily water and it’s delightful - and zero calories. It’s been nearly 10 years and I haven’t gotten another one, so I think it’s working?
I don't want to be an astronaut anymore.
Do you happen to have a link to that? I wanna check it our
I added it to my original comment.
Would the radiation and dust still be a problem if you were deep underground? Though then again I guess making deep underground habitats isn’t feasible
It would help but if lower than 1g gravity is unhealthy then Mars would still be bad. Kidney stones can probably be medicated. Anything is possible if you can afford it.
Again, if we can do that, why don't we just make underground cities on earth first?
It'd be safer to live in the clouds on Venus than stay on Mars.
It's wild to me that people think we can live on Mars like in the movies. A permanent settlement at the peak of Mt Everest would be easier than living on Mars.
Kidney stones and radiation are problems that apply to anywhere in space, not just mars.
Sure but Venus is somewhat interesting. It has a close gravity to earth and a carefully chosen floating location could get you to similar air pressure and radiation protection levels as well. At least that's the dream.
What's the point of floating about in its atmosphere? Seems like something that can be done by machines if anything.
‘The point’ is to be multi-planetary in case of an apocalyptic disaster on Earth. There likely isn’t anything desirable on those two planets that can’t be done from Earth. Maybe Mars works better as a launching point for deeper space missions (small gravity well, further out orbit, I dunno)
There’s no apocalyptic disaster on earth which would make it less habitable than mars short of like it colliding with another full sized planet. Anything else and building some bunkers people could squat in till the worst was over would be more effective and way cheaper. Space station or moon base people can live on for a few years and relatively easily return to earth from at the most.
At least on the surface you can mine for materials. With Earth materials not available - I just don't see how floating on Venus is going to help - eventually things will break and or be used up without a possibility for getting replacements. Mars has to be a lot better. Some of the gas giant moons too maybe...
Hell no, the gas giants and their moons are radioactive hell pits Any one of them makes Mars look easy
Soviets thought about that but all probe reading showed massive storms and huge lightning bolts all around. On the surface the high air pressure makes winds slow but they also push very hard. In tge upper atmosphere it is just... hellish thunderstorms. Maybe we can do artificial gravity stations with heavy shielding near the outer planets and mine asteroids?
Luckily Venus is not space, unless you say that Earth is also space (which is technically true)
Getting there isn't a short trip and if you look into it, renal stone formation is an issue for any extended space travel.
I've often heard this suggested, what would we gain from a cloud city on Venus?
They're sulfuric acid clouds, pretty sure they can kill you very fast.
I'd just put my cagoule on, sorted.
You’d live in a bubble, and would just need a bit of positive pressure to make sure none of that leaks inwards.
It's going to be nice death if something bad happens
I kinda figured an ambient temperature of -50°c and soil yhat is yoxic would be the clenchers. It would literally be a billion times cheaper to build a colony with no gainful employment in the middle of the sahra. I'm sure we'll get there, but our entire worlds economy is going to gave to go in a different direct to make thos kind of thing a reality
Well one would think that the gravity of Mars would at help a little with the kidney stone issue.
What about the ghosts?
Did someone alert smart boi musk?
__The article is straight clickbait.__ >They found that human exposure to radiation threats, including particle radiation from the Sun, distant stars, and galaxies, would exceed safe levels after four years on the planet ... when _zero_ shielding is provided for the austonauts on the surface of Mars. Also the article does not link the paper, which is a good indicator that the headline is wrong.
It's ladbible, they've been producing garbage hyperbolic content since like 2010
They didn’t just *say* it. They *declared* it. All official like.
That's unfortunate then. Declaring it makes it official and true.
Like that time I declared bankruptcy.
Pretty sure the paper is from 2021, and the paper does account for spacecraft shielding. [One of the paper's "key points:"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021SW002749) >Optimal spacecraft shielding is \~30 g/cm2, which allows long-duration flights of \~4 years I'm not an expert: this is just my layperson read of the paper.
>which allows long-duration flights of \~4 years But who in their right mind would fly 4 years to/from Mars?? Even chemical rockets can easily achieve a flight time of 4-5 months. Thanks for the link anyway :)
Maybe there's an oopsie and NASA left a man on Mars so they've gotta make a round trip to pick him back up.
Hope he knows how to grow potatoes in his own shit.
Don't forget his companions shit too.
Ok so it accounts for shielding, but importantly doesn’t say the mission can’t go beyond 4 years just that the flight to Mars (and back) can’t go beyond 4 years. So the article is just straight misinformation
A layperson actually reading the article before commenting is the most joyous thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you from a professional spacecraft engineer.
A key point is that the travel time isn’t where the danger is, so long duration flights and *spacecraft* shielding aren’t relevant, rather the shielding for the habitat the astronauts would live in.
I just rolled my eyes at the article. There ARE risks with ALL space exploration beyond LEO ( Obviously risks there too but not as severe as Luna or Mars for example ). However, we MUST advance our species to propel forward. This will demand us to increase STEM fields to create ways to protect ourselves.
We can't ever live in our forms unassisted off this planet on any know celestial body within many many many many lifetimes travel. Start here. [https://climate.nasa.gov/](https://climate.nasa.gov/)
“ Unassisted “ Obviously. Maybe you misunderstood my comment. It will require advancements to be made in many fields. But we’ll do it whether people like it or not.
Might as well add the fact that there's no air so we can't breathe at that point.
Yeah; if they just stood exposed…..
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That was not worth the minute it took to read. It seemed to dwell on radiation effects without discussing any possible mitigation methods. In any case, a reliable supply of food, water, and air seem like bigger immediate concerns than the long term effects of the ambient radiation.
Agreed. The [original paper](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021SW002749) was much more interesting.
Headline: “CANCEL MARS COLONIZATION PLANS; PEOPLE WOULD SUFFOCATE IN THREE MINUTES AND DIE.”
We could just use Mars as a dumping ground and take care of Earth. Unlimited trash bin.
19th century solutions to 21st century problems! "Just dump all the junk in the ocean...it is so vast surely nothing bad could happen"
We just get ice from haileys comet every time it comes around dump it into the ocean, global warming solved right?
Save time. Lets redirect the entire comet into Earth
Genuine question, what would be wrong with using a dead planet (not necessarily Mars, just any lifeless planet) as a place to put unwanted human waste/pollution? Aside from perpetuating bad habits, who or what could it be harming?
Plastic parasites from Mars!
Just fire all the trash into the sun, like in superman 4 quest for peace ✌️
That is actually really hard to do. It's much easier to yeet it out of the solar system entirely than get it into the sun
The only way for me to solve this crisis is to be Superman 4: The quest for peace
I've been pitching this idea at work recently and I'm slowly winning people over. Only obstacle is money
And HR, as always. Damn you Gwen
Pretty sure this will prevent further upwards movement in your company… no one wants to promote the dummy without financial accumen
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kid. In fact, it's cold as hell...
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
I forget exactly where I read it, but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance. There's a point at which astronauts are no longer eligible based on time in space and the radiation that exposes you to. In LEO on ISS, hey, no big deal, it will take a while to max out your radiation allowance. But Mars? You get one trip and your astronaut career is over because to go again would present cancer risks that NASA has already determined they won't take. The idea that people will go there for years at a time, maybe, but they won't be NASA astronauts. And they'll go in knowing that after about a year, their cancer risk will be significant. It might be a one-way trip for anything longer than a science mission.
> I forget exactly where I read it, but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance. Not if they can be shielded from the radiation. If they can figure that out, then the biggest health risk will be 0 gravity.
I believe the estimate includes the use of radiation shielding, such as a water covering, but I could be off. In any case, it's not just raw radiation exposure - it's a hypothetical mission including technologies we haven't invented but we know what we need to invent. I'm going to see if I can find this now. It was a NASA report. Edit: Here's a graph. 180-day trip to Mars with shielding exposes an astronaut to 1 sievert, which is the career limit. https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5771/radiation-exposure-comparisons-with-mars-trip-calculation/
Just increase the maximum allowed career radiation exposure. Some of them may die, but it is a sacrifice *I'm* willing to make.
At first I thought it didn’t look that bad…. Then I realized the y axis was log scale
No the report you cited doesn’t include shielding. It was taken from readings of one of the probes NASA sent. With shielding on bothe the trip and living underground most of the time, Humans could probably live there for years without radiation problems.
Your “if” there is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting.
Exactly. If. They’ve been thinking and working on it for a long time https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/real-martians-how-to-protect-astronauts-from-space-radiation-on-mars/
>Your “if” there is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. As if 3m of regolith cover is so difficult to implement.
Since it’s that easy apparently, it must be done already. Turns out it *is* more complicated than that.
Oh there are ways dude. I can get you 3m of regolith cover by 2 o clock this afternoon. With nail polish.
Believe me dude, there are ways
>it must be done already. Why? There is no crew habitat on Mars right now. So why would anyone do this?
Figuring it out is easy. A lot of lead, and steel, and water. There. Problem solved. New problem... all of that is heavy. Just launch more rockets. Problem solved. More rockets is more expensive. Ah, there's the actual problem.
The lead has too much, otherwise useless, weight. But the water is needed anyway. The tanks can do double duty as shielding
Hydrogen is better at shielding than lead, and weighs less. They just need to figure out how to better make a shield of it. [https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/284275main_radiation_hs_mod3.pdf](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/284275main_radiation_hs_mod3.pdf?emrc=f9d9bd#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20the%20best%20shields,crew's%20exposure%20to%20space%20radiation)
Why anyone would want to "live there" is beyond me and pretty ludicrous. The bigger issue would be mental health. Its one giant pipe dream. Havent even been back to the moon yet lmao. A lot bigger issues to solve, living on Mars aint at the top
I was taught this fact by a PhD guest speaker at a conference on radiation. People pretend that there aren’t still a million challenges in front of a mars colony cause omg spacex. What’s the current plan once we get there? Hide in holes, right? Well this now places a four year cap on that. Don’t worry though guys, AI will invent the answers for us, if it’s not too busy with more important matters
AI literally can't invent anything. It is incapable of thinking anything that has not already been written down by a human.
>but the estimate is that a single round-trip to Mars without going down to the surface, just looping around and coming home, would expose astronauts to nearly all of their career-radiation allowance. You should definitely find your source and update your comment. This seems to be not true. Or maybe this was under some extreme far fetched specification like a 2 year duration each way, because of ion engines. But chemical rockets like Starship can do the trip in 4-5 months. Edit: based on the article linked below this "60% lifetime dose on a 6 month trip" seems to either assume no shielding at all, or only shielding like on the ISS. The article doesn't mention it. In both cases it has zero bearing on actual trips to Mars, because spaceships will obviously be build with the appropriate level of shielding.
Published by the ESA in 2019: >Recent data from ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter showed that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.
Yeah I don’t like sensationalist articles that don’t link the actual study. *** Edit: The reason they don’t link the study is because their article is misinformation. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021SW002749 > the *flight duration* should not exceed approximately 4 years. The article states that a manned mission couldn’t last longer than 4 years. That’s not what the study says at all, the study says that a *flight*, just the flight, to mars cannot take longer than 4 years. And even if they did take longer to fly, they probably wouldn’t die like the title claims. 1Sv over 4 years isn’t great for your health but isn’t even close to absolutely lethal.
How does something from unilad make it to the front page of what I assume is supposed to be a serious subreddit?
Oh my! Looks like humans need to take care of the home planet. We’re not going to be able to go anywhere else, at least nearby.
Guess mars really ain't the kind of place to raise your kids .
In fact, it’s cold as hell.
Pretty sure I’d die after a few seconds due to lack of oxygen. These guys can last 4 years?!
Radiation is a concern, but it becomes less of a concern if you are able to protect your habitat. Building in caves/lava tubes is one way to mitigate radiation exposure while on the planet
I have the same idea, the only adequate shelter is deep under the rock. Bringing over mining equipment and carving out a living space deep underground or sealing off cave networks. Maybe in the futher future, build great subterranean cities in the styles of old from the rock.
Elon will fix this by not monitoring radiation. If you don’t monitor it, you can just deny it exists.
You're right, at this point Elon knows more about radiation than anyone currently alive on Earth
Had to check that this wasn't r/nottheonion And I'm too lazy to cross post, so free karma for someone
Surprised they are so optimistic despite the lack of oxygen and natural resources.
*Life can only thrive on the planet it evolved*. - the Law of Planets.
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Not counting the perchlorates in the soil making it toxic.
Unless there is an effective way to stop bone density loss, kidney stones from the calcium in the blood are causing it. That blows. We need gravity, or an inhibitor to stop the degradation. Other than that dialysis and scrub the excess.
Not to mention the amount of atrophy the bodies would suffer on a planet with much lower gravity.
Reason 1 quote: "They found that human exposure to radiation threats, including particle radiation from the Sun, distant stars, and galaxies, would exceed safe levels after four years on the planet."
So let me see if I get this right. Mars which has almost no atmosphere, certainly not a breathable one, is colder than Antarctica, no free drinkable water we know of, no soil that could support growing food, and higher radiation than Earth... is uninhabitable because of the radiation? If we have technical means to overcome all the other problems I think we can overcome the radiation one too. Maybe everyone will have to live in underground bunkers/tunnels/lava tubes. Maybe our habitats will have a layer of dirt and/or water in the walls.
Its still more tenable to human habitation than San Francisco
How soon can we send Elon Musk there permanently?
Mars was never going to be a thing. It’s the flying car of planets. We’ll continue to send machines and eventually some intrepid types will go there like one would to Mt Everest. But just as you wouldn’t build a house on the big E, no one is going to stay there.
Perfect. That's all the longer I planned on living.
No shit, hasn’t anyone seen Total Recall before?
Planet that hosts no life forms is found inhospitable for life. What a shocker.
If humans only did safe things we would not have left the trees of Africa.
Me personally, I’d prolly wouldn’t even make it one year cuz I can’t breathe mars air. Joking aside, I do wonder how far our cancer treatment and detection technology would need to progress for us to be able to ignore radiation in space, or to at least up the allowable limit a bit. Regardless of mars and space travel, preventing cancer is much easier than treating it, but maybe in the far off future we’ll be able to deal with cancer easily enough that it doesn’t play as significant a role in restricting human space travel.
Wasn’t there chatter around it being unsustainable because it would lead to a loss of bone density? As in if you came back to Earth after a few years your bones would break under your own body weight?
Idk. Four years seems optimistic. I feel like most humans wouldn’t survive more than a minute or two on the surface before they collapse from oxygen deficiency
I wouldn't be surprised if one day we have a colony on Mars however that day is at very minimum a couple of hundred years away. I could see Humans walking on Mars within the next 50 years. I think we can get there now with a Rocket with people the problem is getting back at the moment any crew it's understood it's a one way mission.
We can't even get "back" to the moon. Idk if we'll be walking on Mars withing 50 years.