Mars one, planned permanent colony starting 2023. Look it up, they are asking for volunteers now for a one way ticket. 8 years to train them to go.

Long Live the Martian Resistance!

Actually Centrifugal force can create an artificial amount of gravity equal to earth as envisioned by Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Space Odyssey. The idea is viable and could be adapted to space stations. If we need to, we could start artificial gravity fitness centers on Mars that will help maintain muscle tone.

The thing we should be worried about is the Martian radiation belt. Unlike earth, Mars does not have a strong EM belt protecting it against cosmic rays, which means a disturbingly high chance of cancer.

It seems pretty clear to me that Mars is not a place we can ever inhabit.  There are a lot of reasons, but Zombie said the most important one.  We don't have the knowledge to make Mars like Earth.  By the time we might figure it out, Earth will have rid itself of us because of our abuse.

The only chance we have is to take care of the planet we were born on.  It's the one and only place that offers us the chance to survive.  I think it's very much worth the effort.  All the other ideas about terraforming another planet are little more than fantasies we aren't likely to come anywhere close to realizing if we don't keep Earth healthy for a long time to come.

Whereas I don't disagree we need to focus on earth, I believe it is very plausible to colonize mars. This does not mean terraforming. Venus is not hospitable, so even though it's gravity is closer....who cares? Mars gravity is sufficient, we just would have a very hard time coming back. Mars one isn't planning to come back tho. They are making a permanent colony. In part because its cheaper, easier, safer to not plan a return.

Radiation is a concern. This is because mars does not have the same em field like we have from our iron core. Suits and crafts provide some protection. At times of increased solar activity there are radiation shelters. Also apparently piling dirt on top of the living units can be equivalent to earths protection. Make no mistake, it would be a restricted life, but it's possible. 

When I said "Elon Musk's ridiculous announcements", his Mars mission "plan" is exactly what I had in mind. This is the guy, remember, who tried to pick a fight with Jeremy Clarkson Nope, like many before him, he seems to have fallen victim to his own ego. I'm happy to discuss his "plan" further if you want to go through the details

You're right, W_L, you can maintain around 1G on a large space wheel but you can't do that on a planet other than Earth or Venus. On Mars they could be working their tales off 8 hours a day and they would still be losing muscle and bone mass. You can do that for a few weeks, a few months even, but not years. Humans cannot live on Mars without becoming cripples, it's a romantic dream that denies all the physiological studies of the deleterious effect of reduced gravity on the human body. Star Trek type artificial gravity would be needed - and that doesn't exist outside sci-fi and websites about escaped Nazis building flying saucers inside the craters of extinct volcanoes in the jungles of Venezuela
 

When I said "Elon Musk's ridiculous announcements", his Mars mission "plan" is exactly what I had in mind. This is the guy, remember, who tried to pick a fight with Jeremy Clarkson Nope, like many before him, he seems to have fallen victim to his own ego. I'm happy to discuss his "plan" further if you want to go through the details

 

This wasnt directed at me, was it? Cause I'm not talking about him, don't even know him. I'd be happy to discuss it if you're keen on it tho....

also you can live in mars indefinitely with environmental support (suits and habitats). Your body adjusts to the gravity of mars. You would only be a "cripple" if you tried to return to a higher gravity world.

OK, thanks for the correction Musk says he wants to make a trip to the Red Planet affordable for an average American Family - like it'll be some space tourism kind of thing. Even if they get there this is not a plan for sustainable colonisation, it's sending people into space to die. But at least Musk understands rocketry. The man behind Mars One, Bas Lansdorp, has none of that experience or understanding and he wants to fund the whole thing from advertising and reality TV! Seriously, Pepsi are going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for their logo to be on a space coffin?

The Red Planet has a fantastic grip on our imaginations and we'd all like to go there - but there is no credible plan here, financially or technically. And yes, people could exist on Mars for a time with environmental support. But as their bones dissolve and their muscles waste in the one third gravity they will without question become seriously physically impaired, and with none of the modern medical support we take for granted. Sounds like a slow painful death to me
 

Well idk what bas's qualifications are, but their plan can work. They have set 6 billion as the required funds, relatively cheap by space standards and it's all based on technology available now, with plenty of margins. Their funding scheme is a bit risky, but in 2 days they had 33000 volunteers, all paying an application fee. Their intent to broadcast selection and what not could very well work. If they actually get the money, biggest if, it could easily work.

they aren't coming back...they don't need the muscle and bone density to survive 1g. Not sure what you're talking about.....

I'll have another look at the plan. As for the muscle and bones, put it like this - human bodies have evolved under 1G so all our physiology - our shape, size, structure and so on - is "designed" [urgh, hate that word with the God connotation which I reject] for 1G. What you seem to be saying is their muscles will waste and their bones will get weaker but that'll be OK because their bodies won't need to be so strong. Things like cardiac function may be able to be maintained by regular strenuous physical activity on exercise machines and so on to maintain healthy hearts and cardiovascular systems, but we don't know - there may be adverse long term side effects. And things like joints need the continual stresses of 1G to remain healthy - continually moving around and daily living in 1G ensures that but one third G won't. And the long term effects on internal organs which function and are positioned largely due to 1G is not known. Problem is the whole thing is a giant experiment with the participants as guinea pigs because no-one knows exactly how this will impact on their body systems and with no medical support life could soon become painful and grim.

OK, here are some criticisms of the way the Mars One project has been cobbled together referenced in Wiki:

"The entire Mars One initiative appears to have been lifted from chapters which were published in the 2010 book, "The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet", edited by Dr. Joel Levine, NASA Senior Scientist Science Directorate, and whose authors included over 40 NASA scientists and engineers including men who walked on the moon. This book was basically a blue-print, a step-by step plan for establishing a colony of Mars; and in the chapter titled "Marketing Mars" included a marketing plan for raising over $100 billion dollars by selling naming rights and television rights including reality TV competition for would-be astronauts. The "Marketing Mars" financing plan received significant media attention and efforts were made to bring a bill before Congress to establish an official funding organization. The Mars One group basically lifted the "Marketing Mars" marketing plan and put their name on it and began charging applicants when they have absolutely no capability of placing anyone on Mars or even in space. The author of the "Marketing Mars" plan, Dr. R. Joseph, has accused the Mars One group of fraud. The Mars One group have also begun making claims and announcing plans which can be found in the chapter written by Dr. Paul Davies and Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, "A One Way Mission to Mars". This plan was widely reported in the media, including the fact that over 10,000 people world-wide volunteered. ^[57] It is noteworthy that the Mars One group makes no mention of the Human Mission to Mars book, or the chapters by Drs. Davies, Schulze-Makuch, and Joseph even though they clearly have borrowed heavily from research, work, and marketing plans that others originated.

Chris Welch, director of Masters Programs at the International Space University has said "Even ignoring the potential mismatch between the project income and its costs and questions about its longer-term viability, the Mars One proposal does not demonstrate a sufficiently deep understanding of the problems to give real confidence that the project would be able to meet its very ambitious schedule."^[58]

Space tourist Richard Garriott stated in response to Mars One, "Many have interesting viable starting plans. Few raise the money to be able to pull it off."^[59]

Robert Zubrin, advocate for manned Martian exploration, said "I don't think the business plan closes it. We're going to go to Mars, we need a billion dollars, and we're going to make up the revenue with advertising and media rights and so on. You might be able to make up some of the money that way, but I don't think that anyone who is interested in making money is going to invest on that basis — invest in this really risky proposition, and if you're lucky you'll break even? That doesn't fly."^[60]

Wired magazine gave it a plausibility score of 2 out of 10 as part of their 2012 Most Audacious Private Space Exploration Plans.^[61]"

The project seems like a triumph of marketing and unfounded optimism. I'd urge you not to sign up

The only part of your argument I will accept is the unknowns. The rest has no foundation.

as for the criticisms you found, I'm not even gonna bother reading them because all you have done is collect up criticisms from people that may or may not know anything. If you want to launch a plausibility discussion with your own thoughts, or scientific references, I'll be happy to take a quick look.

plenty of huge things in history seemed unlikely....until we did them.

Ps I, totally not saying it's a good idea to go now, but I think it's an eventuality. I also think it's very doable now if you can accept the limitations.

again, Venus is a crap option.....

I only mentioned Venus because it's the only planet with similar gravity to Earth not because I think it is a viable option. I think my original post made this very clear - that nowhere in our solar system is a viable option for colonisation. As for saying it could happen at some point in the future, well Ghostboy made this very point - anything is possible given time. But his point was we may not have the time needed to do these things if we continue as we are, damaging our environment, with the result that we unable to sustain ourselves as a species ...

All things are possible, but to achieve those things you have to be able to show you have a credible plan. So I've had a look at the Mars One website. And there is no credible plan on the website - it's just puffery. So the ball's really in your court to show where that plan is, with technical details that can be assessed. Because I could also plagiarise someone else's book, set up a website selling merchandising and suckering in punters to give me money like Mars One has done. But there's a word for that - scam - and until you can direct me to where I can read and anlayse a technical plan I'm afraid that's what this thing looks like.

Carl Sagan put it very well "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" so the onus is on you to show the existence of a credible plan for Mars One that everyone can have a look at

lol space, what about our ocean? we've only discovered 5% of it.

whats the rest like? 95%

It's not just the radiation people on Mars might face when they try to settle it.  The solar radiation would still need to be dealt with one whatever ship takes them beyond Earth's magnetic field.  In a generational sense I don't see the colonist surviving past the first generation.   If the radiation does not leave them sterile then whatever children they have would never develop a proper immune system in their otherwise stable environment.  All it would take is for a new colonist to arrive carrying some sort of pathogen and we'll have small pox in the New World like event. 

As for Mars One... I see it as being nothing but a publicity scam... sort of like Lance Bass going into space.

Uh, the onus is on them. It's very obvious to see how this is possible. Their partner companies are very capable of putting people there. How long they live is something to see if they do go.

i think you all underestimate the amount of radiation you're exposed to every day.

long story short its a funding thing if they go at all....

Erm, no, "they" aren't going to respond to this blog. So, as you've enthusiastically backed their claims, asserting "their plan can work" and is "very doable", it falls to you to show where we can see the evidence for this.

And just to be clear, I am not referring to the funding challenges [which are huge to put it mildly - but the money will either be raised or it won't be raised] but I am referring to the formidable technical challenges of this proposal which you've been avoiding - specifically how they are going to meet those challenges.

Guys, I have a better plan, let's implode Jupiter and colonize Titan and Europa 

The other problem with a trip to Mars is the radiation getting there. At the best possible speed of our space craft, it would take at least 9 months to get to Mars. That is assuming they are launching during the closest orbit and utilize the gravity slingshot correctly. Even in earth orbit, astronauts have a very big issue with dangerous radiation and cosmic rays coursing thru their bodies and breaking down DNA, causing the higher frequency of Cancer and other illnesses.

In addition, what type of food can you eat during the long trip? Force = Mass x acceleration, if you don't have enough lifting fuel, you can't escape earth's gravity and food would be a big problem to keep for 9 months even the freeze dried kind.

Here's another one that Zombie did not mention that is logical and simple issue, How do you carry enough Oxygen to sustain human life? Where do you get enough fresh water for human consumption on the flight to Mars? How do you avoid asteroids the size of pebbles traveling at 10,000 miles/hour from taking out your entire ship?

Oxygen production, water reclamation, and shielding have come far, but currently we cannot feasibly send large groups of people to be colonist for Mars. We might be able to do small groups of four or five with a massive craft and high costs, but that is not a wagon train to the stars.

Hey, I simply left some meat on the bone for you

Lol! They aren't gonna respond here, correct! I brought it up to make you guys aware of a plan in progress, and that I think it can work. By that get people to mars alive. If you're interested, the onus is on you to look into it. They haven't revealed their entire plan since they literally just started recently.

the basics? They will launch 4 people every 2 years. First landing 2023. Main lander based around a customized dragon capsule. They will have a radiation shield in the capsule. Our body also has dna fixing enzymes. Travel time 7-8 months for optimal launches every 2 years. Water can be claimed from the soil above a certain latitude. That and recycling. Oxygen can be produced from the water. Food will be likely crappy freeze dried till they can plant hydroponics there. It does last a long time.

etc....like I said, if it interests you, Internet is waiting

No problem with you bringing up Mars One. It's directly on topic
However, you're saying you "think it can work". But based on what evidence?
Like a detailed technical plan?
Comprising as a minimum:
- all of the mission challenges that have been identified;
- the proposed solutions to overcome each of those challenges; and
- a collective team of credible engineers with a proven successful track record relevant to every one of the solutions proposed.
That's what we're challenging - your enthusiastic support for a scheme which demonstrates none of the above, merely comprising a slick looking website with a FAQ page and some hypertext links to bland statements of intent
 

Forgive my "enthusiastic" as you say opinion. I shall refrain in the future.

I'm not an aerospace engineer and definitely don't work for mars one. Any good scientist can go look at their info, see their conferences on youtube and check out their suppliers. Try can then form their own opinion.

what you want I could probably do, but I'm not here to write a thesis. 

Hey, nothing wrong in being enthusiastic. It's just that some things deserve enthusiastic support ... and others don't  
Believe me I've looked at the Mars One stuff but there's nothing there that shows this is a credible project.
And I have to ask myself "why?". If they had a credible mission plan do you seriously think they wouldn't have published it?
I'm not an aerospace engineer either, but I can read and understand things. So until Mars One publishes a plan detailing the mission challenges with credible engineering solutions, support can only be based on faith. And for me faith belongs to religion and cults not business and science.
 

Don't get me wrong, I am a sci-fi enthusiast and unknown writer of it

However, the problem is getting there. Water, food, and radiation protection for 9 months is not so simple. Also, the big thing that modern space enthusiast forget is that radiation shielding cannot stop all high energy cosmic rays. You need magnetic shielding, which is currently in its infancy. We can in theory block some cosmic rays, but there are just too many beaming out from every star in the cosmos from the beginning of time at such high velocities and energy levels. Also, the power requirement is going to require a lot of problems. Remember fuel is limited and solar power conversion is still weak.

When you can solve the magnetic shielding question for cosmic rays get back to me

Yeah, going to the Moon was the proverbial walk in the park ~240 thousand miles and 4 days compared with ~36 million miles and over half a year to Mars. It's fantasy to think this is achievable by private enterprise any time soon. Of course it will happen, maybe in our lifetimes, but not with Nazi technology