Mission To Mars - It's a Dirty Job But Someone's Gotta Do It.

[mongers]

It's a first step, I hope this goes ahead and no matter what the outcome it'll be an attempt or achievement that can be built upon, be it by governments or another private venue.

'We' just have to do these things, if we're ever to expand 'our' horizons:

US private sector hopes to send older couple to Mars
By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News

A team led by millionaire and former space tourist Dennis Tito plans to send a "tested couple" to Mars and back in a privately funded mission.

The Inspiration Mars Foundation plans to start its one-and-a-half-year mission in January 2018.

The foundation has carried out a study which it says shows that it is feasible to achieve such a mission using existing technology.

The group still has to raise funding for their mission.

Among those involved in the project is Jane Poynter, who spent two years locked away in a sealed ecosystem with seven other people in 1991 which she described as a "New Age Garden of Eden".

She told BBC News that the mission planners wanted the crew to consist of an older couple whose relationship would be able to withstand the stress of living in a confined environment for two years.
.....

Rest of item here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21603490

[mongers]

Not even a timmayesque from anyone, even Timmay.   

[jimmy olsen]

If you land people on Mars there's a lot of interesting science that can be done. But a flyby is pointless. This isn't even on the level of Apollo 8 where they rounded the moon in order to test the vehicle and equipment they were going to use to land on it later.

Also, I find the timeline very doubtful. Just about everything would have to go perfect to pull this off in 5 years.

[Malthus]

Divorce in the middle of the mission would be a bitch. 

[mongers]

Divorce in the middle of the mission would be a bitch. 

I think they should send Trump and whoever is his latest wife, should be an interesting reality show if nothing else. 

[Malthus]

Divorce in the middle of the mission would be a bitch. 

I think they should send Trump and whoever is his latest wife, should be an interesting reality show if nothing else. 

Even if it isn't ... sending them on a dangerous and lengthy mars mission is a benefit unto itself. 

[MadImmortalMan]

I'd do it.

[merithyn]

I'd do it.

Would your wife? 

And while I have no doubt whatsoever that Max would be up for it, there is no way in hell I'd go up. I'm not happy stepping onto an airplane, much less a spaceship.

[MadImmortalMan]

Would your wife? 

That's the real question, isn't it. 

I'd say there's a 50/50 chance she would. I'll find out.

[jimmy olsen]

Talk about a dirty job! 

That's just gross!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/02/mars_mission_feces_shield/

Tito's Mars mission to use HUMAN WASTE as radiation shield

Bags full of urine and feces lining spacecraft walls

By Neil McAllister in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Science, 2nd March 2013 00:47 GMT

Free whitepaper – Cern and FuseSource Case Study

The team behind a planned private manned mission to Mars say they've come up with a way to protect voyagers from radiation exposure during the long trip: pack the walls of the spacecraft with a layer of the astronauts' own waste.

"It's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding," Taber MacCallum, chief technology officer for multimillionaire Dennis Tito's Inspiration Mars Foundation, told New Scientist.

Tito first announced his plans to send humans to the Red Planet in February, claiming that he will launch a spacecraft in 2018 that will travel to within 100 miles of the surface of Mars before using a fortuitous confluence of gravitational forces to slingshot itself back to Earth.

Even such a brief fly-by of Mars would take at least 17 months, however, which is a long time for humans to be away from the protective covering of Earth's atmosphere.

According to the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, astronauts exposed to heightened radiation levels in outer space risk a variety of health problems, including nausea, fatigue, skin injury, changes in white blood cell counts and the immune system, and – over the longer term – damage to the eyes, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and central nervous system.

In other words, a 17-month-long dose of space radiation would be seriously bad news.

The good news, though, is that water and organic materials can both be effective shields against radiation exposure, and any manned space voyage will necessarily involve plenty of both.

MacCallum said the Inspiration Mars spacecraft could leave Earth with its walls lined with bags of drinking water and food. Then, as the astronauts consume these provisions over time, the empty bags could be replaced with others that the craft's occupants had filled with solid and liquid human waste.

NASA is already working on a system that uses osmosis to separate clean, drinkable water from urine. MacCallum proposes that a similar system could be used to extract moisture from feces, as well.

"Dehydrate them as much as possible, because we need to get the water back," MacCallum said. "Those solid waste products get put into a bag, put right back against the wall."

Based on the current Inspiration Mars designs, those bags of water and waste will give the astronauts a 40cm-thick shield surrounding the craft, which should be enough to cut down the background radiation of space to tolerable levels.

It won't be enough to block the kind of severe radiation spike the Mars voyagers would face in the event of a solar flare, however. MacCallum says the Inspiration Mars spacecraft should be able to keep the upper rocket stage of its launch vehicle pointed toward the Sun to provide some protection, should a flare occur – but there are no guarantees.

Radiation isn't the only risk the potential Mars astronauts will have to contend with, either. There are other health issues to consider, such as bone loss and muscle atrophy, and there are psychological concerns, too.

In February, Tito said that he would like his astronauts to be a couple, preferably married, to help offset some of the psychological difficulties. But it's unclear whether there will be any way to shake off the dread that comes when you realize you're hurtling through outer space in the world's largest – and, eventually, fullest – portable toilet.

[fhdz]

But it's unclear whether there will be any way to shake off the dread that comes when you realize you're hurtling through outer space in the world's largest – and, eventually, fullest – portable toilet.

Dread?

No.

Every time Mission Control calls you, you can tell them "not now, I'm in the shitter".

[mongers]

Talk about a dirty job! 

That's just gross!

Why, it's what we're supposed to do, come up with ingenious solutions to complex challenges. 

How much of the Apollo mission histories are devoted to their toilet arrangements ?

[The Brain]

Talk about a dirty job! 

That's just gross!

Why, it's what we're supposed to do, come up with ingenious solutions to complex challenges. 

How much of the Apollo mission histories are devoted to their toilet arrangements ?

I'm sure they had a porta-potty on set.