BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Packing for Mars - book review

If you think being an astronaut is a glamorous occupation, Mary Roach's book 'Packing for Mars" will bring you down to Earth. Playing in free-fall looks like fun, but without gravity, eating, hygiene and dealing with waste are not fun. Here's the lowdown. Still want to go to Mars?

Packing for Mars - book review

One of the things Mary Roach noted in her book was that space travel could be moving more into the realm of private enterprise. She commented that going to Mars could be the ultimate reality TV. I thought she was making a joke at the time she wrote it four years ago.

However it looks as though "Mars One" is serious. It's a Dutch company that's already recruiting . . . not astronauts exactly . . . but colonists for Mars. I'm afraid it's a one-way ticket. But you'll be on TV throughout the training as well as the trip. (They went public with this last year.)

But it won't be like Britain's Big Brother as the audience won't get to vote on the selection. Wikipedia says that "Dr. Norbert Kraft, a specialist in aerospace medicine and a former researcher at NASA, as well as the space agencies of Japan and Russia, leads a team of experts who will vet applicants for their basic suitability."

When I first read this, I read the word in purple as "stupidity" and I think my reading makes sense.

What do you think?

Here is the Mars One project's plan for sending colonists to Mars: Mars One infographic It's pretty ambitious to think they could send the first colonists to the red planet in ten years.

I can't say I'd rush to sign up for a one-way ticket to a place without a breathable atmosphere. I'm quite fond of breathing, and I like the way plants provide the necessary oxygen. But at least you'd want the colonists to arrive safely. Would Bas Landsdorp (founder of Mars One) inspire you with confidence? He said, "All the technology we need exists already — or nearly exists.”

This cartoon about selecting a Mars crew made me laugh. But it also makes a serious point, I think, about how important the psychological aspects of such a mission are. Think of how much the attitudes matter of participants in any activity - and then multiply it by a *lot* for people in a confined space for a long time.