The Mars One Mission

Embrace The Spirit, Alter The Plan

The Mars One Mission overall should be seen as a positive endeavour. In a world where human exploration of deeper space is not possible in the near future due to shear cost, any genuine and inspirational plan to do so should be welcomed no matter how unrealistic. While its Mars attempt in about a decade will fail probably sooner than later for one of multiple reasons, it will benefit Mars exploration in various ways.

1. It will inspire some people to focus more personal attention towards a future landing and to obtain the skills and training they will need to play a future role in progressing the endeavour. It may also inspire industry members with no aerospace connection to develop relevant sub-technologies and bid for aerospace sub-contracts thus gaining experience and a foothold in the aerospace door. The pool of aerospace resources available to develop a future Mars mission would thus be increased.
2. The crew training planned by the Mars One foundation will include comprehensive simulations related to an isolated crew travelling to Mars and setting up a base and the lessons and experience gained from this should benefit an actual future mission. Also if they go about it correctly they should develop some realistic and better thought out numbers relating to the sizing and logistics of the space craft and consumable resources needed to get the crew to Earth orbit, to Mars and then down to the surface. On a negative note obtaining the result of these calculations is one of the more likely stages that the Mars One mission will flop.
3. If the group maintains a highly publicised existence for a significant number of years then it can be expected to foster industry ties with a great many similarly interested organisations and aerospace members and to a certain extent form a connectivity hub that more strongly links those other organisations to each other. This networking will naturally benefit a future Mars endeavour. Many of these networked personnel including some from Mars One are likely to play actual roles in a future mission.
4. (Its high profile flop rationally ought to encourage future plans to be more realistic)

With qualified private aerospace companies scrambling in the coming years to push tourists up above 100 km altitude and collaborate with a national space agency to launch humans just into orbit, then the fact that Mars One a non-aerospace organisation propose to bypass the moon and land on Mars clearly shows that their communication lines with reality are currently down. Indeed they publicly proclaimed ten years to do so. While their relative small print acknowledged the possibility of delays, one year on they had already failed as per their publicity claims with the first of many predictable delays adding two years.

How far the attempted endeavour goes remains to be seen. In global economically difficult times who will actually finance the endeavour and with what rational expectation of results. The organisation indicates that the technology required to make it possible already exists. This is mostly true but is utterly misleading. Many discreet chunks of existing sub-technology do not make a Mars mission. They have to be further developed, integrated, tested, upgraded and retested repeatedly to meet rigorous human space flight standards. In practical terms they collectively would take a lot longer than a decade to reach technological maturity. In the particular case of the rover for example, the technology does not remotely exist in a flight worthy developed manner and the preparatory surface operation of everything else is utterly dependent on it.

Mars One talks about how eight landers will already have touched down by the time a crew attempt to do so and there is certainly a relevant argument here in terms of safety. What they grossly under emphasise is that seven of those landers are vital prerequisites to a human landing with five of their cargoes having to successfully carry out complex operations after landing in preparation. The latter six are to transit to Mars in chronological proximity meaning that they can benefit relatively little from previous experience. Sending six landing craft in unison is itself unprecedented and distinctly risky. There is a prominent statistical risk that at least some of these prerequisite cargoes will not launch on schedule or fail to land successfully or fail to function properly. That immediately leads to mission schedule delays occurring in approximately 26 month time segments. Most notably the second lander is to include a rover with final positioning of the next six cargo landers entirely dependent on its functionality. It is doubtful that any near-future rover will be physically capable of performing the tasks assigned to it. Yet it is supposedly going to be designed, built and then launched in 2020. Being optimistic, a schedule slip of several years can be added just for it alone although frankly two decades might be more realistic. Also what if some cargo landers successfully land and are properly placed but some do not, meaning that the latter have to be replaced 26 months later with the replacements possibly needing replacements and additional time slips. The ones that are successfully landed and placed will be sitting maintenance free for at least an additional two year plus interval leaving them additionally prone to failure. Mars One hardly mention the fact that launch delays and landing failures would cleanly knock the schedule backwards. Objectively looking at the seven prerequisite landings and the general lack of Mars landing experience among the likely aerospace contractors, then at least two such 26 month knock backs would seem likely due to post launch failings. That's just to get the landers sitting intact on the Martian surface but not trailered to the outpost location and started up.

Mars One place clear emphasis on how they will not launch the crew until green light status is received for all systems on Mars. They place little emphasis on the risks thereafter. Coming from nowhere, even putting humans into orbit inside a decade is a challenge. They may be contracting out to established aerospace companies but any human spaceflight involvement those companies have or will have with say NASA is overseen by that experienced administration. They are without experience to set off on a committed several month journey with limited redundancy. There is no prior human precedence for this when considering the hazardous environment, system dependency and non-availability of close support or any external resources besides solar power. If there is a problem with a primary system or resource early in flight, then redundancy will come into play. For a safety margin in this unprecedented isolated duration, the redundancy itself would need redundancy or else advanced and complex in-flight repair skills that are unlikely to exist. During this several month transit there is also a conceivable risk that one or more systems at the unsupported Mars outpost suffer a serious failure. Worse still, what if the outposts generated water or oxygen supplies leak? That would be catastrophic. Assume the outpost systems remain operational. On arrival at Mars the crew lander must undergo a hazardous direct entry. Although to have been verified by eight previous unmanned landings, the risk is what it is. Direct entry is arguably best left to unmanned landers or crewed vehicles returning from the moon and targeting a general region of the Earth surface with full recovery services at the ready and also a breathable atmosphere. The Mars crew vehicle from solar orbit approach speed, must accurately enter and soft-impact land within survivable range of the outpost and rover and with its environmental control continuing to function. It is noted that a more realistic mission concept includes some of the same risk elements but that does not negate them.

They basically intend to finance this permanent endeavour through public interest of one form or another. They do not account for the fickle factor of the human attention span. Even if they somehow succeeded in financing and landing four persons at a functioning outpost, they then assume the responsibility and cost of keeping them alive. They indicate that as more and more crew members arrive every two years they will eventually be able to self produce complex components but this leaves a gap of at least a couple of decades at the optimistic end of the scale. During this significant number of years and for the increasing crew complement, they must for example provide replacement technology either as foreseen or for components that in practical terms were not as maintainable and repairable as inferred. This is in addition to the the cost of supplying additional life support, living and supply units for additional crew. The supply missions as always will face the risk of a post launch pad failure. Mars One like to compare the business plan to the sponsorship and broadcasting rights arising from the public interest in the Olympics. A monolithically more obvious comparison that they curiously missed for analysing long term viability is the Apollo program. In contrast to the eyes of the world being transfixed by the Apollo 11 endeavour, the later Apollo landings were cancelled primarily because dwindling public interest meant that the tax dollars could not be justified. People had even tuned out to a significant extent by the time of the Apollo 13 problem such that some early 13 broadcasts were not aired live. Mars One who of course reference only the first moon landing, have basically indicated that public interest in the ongoing pioneering adventures of the Mars settlers will keep the projects finances rolling. Apollo proclaims otherwise. It would soon become the day to day tedium of survival and repetitive panoramas with limited adventures further afield being of more interest to trained geologists. Of course a psychological crisis might perk viewer numbers. Also with national or regional superpowers needing to show off their prowess, it is inevitable that one or other of them would high tail it to Mars within an additional decade or two and they will broadcast their accomplishment for free. With such superpower plans afoot anyway then the more years of many predictable delays before Mars One could first make footprints, the less years they could monopolise broadcasting rights. Indeed if they somehow did finally succeed in landing persons on Mars, they might have the additional risk of squishing an earthling.

Mars One are acting like the endeavour is child's play, as if the worlds reputable space organisations already have people on Mars and the aim is just to be the first private organisation to send private citizens. The worlds experienced space faring nations by a massive margin, currently do not have the development and experience to safely put people on Mars in a decade even if they were given a magical money tree. It would be amazing if they could even do a Mars flyby in that time frame. Nobody has that prerequisite experience level in practical terms although a great many people imagine it to exist. Mars One are completely out of sync with this reality and pay it scant regard. Above some small unpainted reality signposts they flash a large neon illuminated air of “can do”. A “can do” attitude sounds great in principle but requires a baseline level of realism. On less complex successful endeavours, that baseline realism may tend to go unnoticed and therefore not be identified as a prerequisite. It is however always there quietly playing its role.

They make a point of quoting a USA Mars landing mission success rate of 87.5% with an implication of it being a relevant comparison for their project. Mars One are not NASA. Ignoring failure to leave Earth orbit, the lander international success to failure ratio is actually 7 to 8 or 46.7% success. (Successes: Viking 1, Viking 2, [ 1990 ], Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, Phoenix Mars Lander, Curiosity. Failures: Mars 3, Mars 6, Mars 7, Phobos 1, Phobos 2, [ 1990 ], Mars Polar Lander, Beagle 2, Phobos/Grunt.) ESA and Russia/Soviet Union have vastly more aerospace experience at their disposal than Mars One and their Mars lander success rate is 0%. Note the post-1990 lander success rate increases to 62.5% internationally. Particularly note how unreliable it is just to get an unmanned lander safely on the ground although attempts have clearly improved. Even their misleading 87.5% figure infers an unacceptable 12.5% chance of fatality and they state it as if it's a confidence building fact.

As for the crew candidates themselves the intention is apparently to filter the many entrants down to about 24 (to 40) people comprising 6 (to 10) teams of four. It is to be expected that these people are all individually intelligent, apt and psychologically healthy. Therein lays the potential dilemma. If they are sufficiently intelligent and apt then they have to realise the Mars landing is not possible without vast resources of expert knowledge and skills and is certainly not possible in about a decade. If they don't realise this then unfortunately they really do not have the intelligence and aptitude to be a competent crew member on such a demanding permanent mission. It is in a sense something of a catch twenty two.

It may come about that many of those with higher technical and survival aptitudes assuming they even applied and stuck around, do demonstrate a lack of belief in mission success due to their better understanding of the challenges. This might occur through clever psychological interviewing rather than them stating it directly. Since it is natural to not invest time, money and effort in someone with a likelihood of opting out of the mission close to launch day, then it may come about that the final selected candidates do not have a particularly high average aptitude. Even having higher aptitude persons in a position where they might spread doubt over time would be problematic. They themselves are likely to bow out of the selection process anyway after having concertedly given Mars Ones due opportunity to produce a developed and responsible mission plan backed up by intermediate progress. Such a suboptimal aptitude level in the candidate pool would tend to raise an additional red flag over the project. Given the higher self sufficiency demanded of them compared with a typical space mission, then aptitude is absolutely vital. Absurdly in this case a belief in the viability of the proposed mission design ought to be a disqualifier. A comparison could be made with say NASA astronaut selection where in addition to good personality and mentality, the selected crew will have suitably high intelligence and aptitude for their specific roles but also a rational belief in the ability of that experienced administration.

The rational assumption is that the mission crew would die prematurely even if they made it as far as the Martian surface but if the individual members were shown to be sane and rational then why should they not be allowed to set off on a probable suicide mission. They exist, therefore they are dying anyway and it can readily be said that exploring part of the greater universe is an ideal that surpasses any judged value of their personal existence here on Earth. Simply make sure that they sincerely acknowledge the risk of their near future death.

In all likelihood it will come to pass that the final selected crew members while entirely willing and able to go to Mars will not truly expect it to happen. Don't expect to hear them say so. Probably their motivation will instead be to spend a part of their life actively living out the spirit of exploration beyond Earth, be it without ever leaving. That spirit of exploration is one thing about the Mars One plan that is entirely true and realistic. They will relish the prospect of moving in the same circles as like minded people and spending a number of years at a headquarters and training locations while additionally having responsibilities to help promote and develop the missions they are intended to be a crew member on. If the endeavour continues for enough years, some members will naturally step aside. They may encounter age or health barriers. They may become disillusioned with the potential of the organisation to advance space exploration. They may simply choose an Earth bound commitment that will forfeit their crew status. Some, previously steadfast about their willingness to forego earthly freedoms will come to the true realisation about what it would mean to hypothetically never again enter an ocean under a blue sky even after the subsided trill of stretching their legs for a Martian year in highly limited living conditions.

The availability of potential launch capability is not in doubt. A different question is whether the relevant reputable aerospace companies would without reservation actually involve themselves with providing the capability given the likelihood of crew fatality prior to Mars footprints if they actually set off. What country would enthusiastically allow them to launch from within their international boundary or otherwise aid them in their endeavour. Just because the crew are judged rational does not automatically mean that they should be helped. The potential suppliers might discreetly bow out when Mars One starts looking for signed launch contracts. However given the significance of the endeavour it seems likely that they would indeed receive the logistics but under stipulated conditions that would effectively force many years of delays to attempt to meet developmental and safety standards. This could extend to the point where the whole plan becomes redundant because existing capable space organisations are initiating Mars mission countdowns. Additional delays might even be added along the way by some well spoken opposition groups kicking up a controversy about deluded crew members being taken advantage of and being sent to their deaths.

But scrutinising that far ahead is jumping orbit without a spacecraft. Realistically the project will probably flop long before. Donations generated by publicity will not successfully summit the Mount Olympus of escalating costs and potential serious backers are liable to be invaded by sense. Realistic design calculations are likely to mathematically prove that those involved are dreamers who dream a few too many hours each day.

At that point the Mars One foundation might disband completely. Alternatively if it has made a proper impact on future exploration to the extent it is capable of, then it might reduce in size to back-burner status with core advocates promoting future endeavours and maintaining industry connections. It would be doing good and worthwhile things if it continues to inspire. Then at some bright point in two or three decades it might re-spawn its Mars intentions and play a part in a proper international Mars project spearheaded by the worlds existing and experienced space faring agencies.

Then again right now why not an entirely different initial goal embracing the spirit and a new name. “Moon Base One”, a permanent and expanding base on the moon with full time highly trained residents. It is an entirely worthy objective in the outward exploration of space and a realistic one. No one resides there now. No one has been there in more than forty years. The moon has not been conquered. Beyond the talk, actually going there is a challenge. Residing there permanently is a far greater one. No one else can actually do it right now which in itself definitively proves how unrealistic Mars One is. Humans must competently reside for long term periods on the moon as a responsible training step for outward exploration to Mars and beyond. (See main article: Between The Moon And Mars)

One of the reasons why many people generally are not excited about establishing a permanent presence on the moon is that certain Mars advocates as per their own agenda proactively downplay the usefulness of returning there. People need to be enlightened about the relevance of a moon base not just as a training and exploration ground but as an amazing feat in its own right. It is literally out of this world with no other current comparison. Anyone born after 1972 does not know what it means to stand on Earth with the knowledge that there are humans simultaneously standing on another celestial body. Mars One would need with humility to close down their Mars plan as an active project. To switch to Moon Base One they would need to explain clearly to Mars supporters all the reality conforming reasons. Current Mars One followers ought to listen and support not criticise. Negativity will not conquer realism. More than this they ought in advance to encourage Mars One to become Moon One or Moon Base One. Any Mars One training infrastructure already in place could be restructured for moon simulation. The settlers must include the right balance of aptitude and qualifications especially early on. With earth return available then personality type will not be as important.

If the public are properly informed of its significance then the mission could be funded in a partially similar manner to Mars One. Serious backers need not mistrust the far fetched. Reputable aerospace companies need not fear potential embarrassment. Let there still be a downgraded reality TV element to it that is mindful of the human attention span and respectful to the potential risks but concentrate on serious backers. In additional to Moon Base One settlers, think ahead to outsourcing peripheral lunar facilities to aerospace companies. Think further ahead to collaboration with international hotel chains to provide guest facilities. Clearly they would be guests with deep deep pockets. To begin with there might be a maximum of ten of them at any given time for stays of at least a month. For them riskier elements like EVA's could be excluded with day trips requiring small advanced lunar vehicles.

In keeping with the Mars One mind set, a starting challenge of an extended duration simple habitation module located in an equatorial region and visited within a decade could be set. Contrary to common perception this would not be easy to achieve for a private jump start organisation. In practical reality even NASA would find it tricky although they could absolutely do it if they had the funding. It's a big big challenge but unlike Mars it's a potentially realistic one if full scale resources and a “can do” attitude are thrown at it in a strictly safety conscious manner. Realistic financing is vital. Also there must be a specified aerospace company responsible for managing any and all technical matters. A more grounded time frame would extend the challenge to 15 years.

Analysis of the Mars One “Intelligent Rover”

Mars One claim the rover will be able to

• Autonomous travel to locate the most suitable location for settlement.
• Measure the amount of water in the soil.
• Prepares the surface for arrival of the Cargo missions
• Clear large areas where solar panels will lie.
• Move the 6 cargo landers to the chosen location on a trailer from up to 10 km away from the outpost.
• Unroll and lay down the thin film solar panels.
• Rely on own solar panels to recharge batteries up to and including first lander, a Life Support unit positioned in place with its solar panels deployed.
• Remove protective panels from the landers.
• Extract from a lander and assist with inflation of the Inflatable sections of the Living Units.
• Connect a hose that can transport water, air and electricity between the Life Support Unit and the Living Unit.
• Deposit soil in the Life Support System for water extraction and remove the dry soil.
• Deposits Martian soil on top of the inflatable sections of the habitat for Radiation Shielding.
• Transport the crew from their lander to the settlement.

The proposed ability to physically perform these tasks is disconnected from fact. In reality the integrated technology is not sufficiently developed to create a rover that by Martian one third gravity standards (38%) is robust, powerful but lightweight enough to be sent there and pull heavy landers over realistic terrain and with dexterity carry out its other assigned roles. Although it would certainly be better than the recent Curiosity and tailored for utility, its required technological state is simply too far beyond for a mass constrained deep space rover. Such a design could potentially end up taking a couple of decades of background development and be the Mars rover equivalent of a expensive weighty tractor. They plan to launch it in 2020. In short the rover concept is a bust and by knock-on effect the entire near future mission design concept is a complete bust. It would make no difference for example if the technology is sufficiently mature to allow the Life Support Units to slowly cook enough soil to stockpile enough water and oxygen if the rover is incapable of gathering and delivering all that soil to begin with. It would not be a bulldozer on a sandy beach. Collecting the soil would likely be a heavy duty and mechanical wearing task relative to its capability and the distance to available deposits would only increase.

The Mars Exploration Rovers used Solar photovoltaic panels. Curiosity, 5 times as heavy as them with about a 0.9 tonne mass needed a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The Mars One rover towing cargo landers with loaded masses of easily several tonnes over terrain is proposing to use batteries recharged by solar power. For bad measure the light intensity reaching Mars is about a quarter of that reaching Earth. Based on illustrations it is expected to be not much bigger than Curiosity.

At best it could only be intentionally targeted to get the cargo landers within 100m of each other at the chosen site assuming they have the capability proposed by Space X Dragon V2 and aided by a Rover beacon signal as specified. They may be mere meters from each other but this does not mean a thing if they cannot be brought close enough for umbilical connections. The strength and dexterity the rover would need for this is a far cry from current technology even assuming the site is as clean and level as could be hoped. Further away and the rover starts running into terrain navigation difficulties.

Curiosity for comparison has a specified top speed on flat hard ground of about 4 centimeters per second. Moving autonomously (no back/forth telemetry delay) with hazard avoidance, it has an average speed of less than 2cm/sec (NASA). Call it 2cm/sec which equates to 0.072 km/h. To move 1 km would therefore take it around 13.9 hours. If the six cargo landers averaged 1 km distances from the chosen site, that's 12 km of travel. Likewise if one lander was 6 km away and the others were bang on target. Curiosity moving autonomously say 16 hours a day would need about 10.4 days on flat hard ground to cover that distance. In reality Curiosity has been engineered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to travel up to about 200 meters per day on Martian terrain (NASA) so the 12 km trip would take at least 60 days.

Assume a faster rover with better autonomous capability than Curiosity but at the same time take into account intermittent solar power supply and recharging, towing an awkward trailer (possibly self powered) and a return journey laden with a several tonne mass landing capsule and the same uneven terrain and perhaps soft terrain. Just because a chosen path is not bolder strewn or over hills does not make it simplified for a heavily laden vehicle of limited capability. It would reasonably be expected to take at least the time that Curiosity would need to autonomously cover the distance. That is ample opportunity for a mechanically loaded rover and awkward heavy trailer to get seriously stuck or bogged down or develop a mechanical breakdown under stress. The low gravity will partially help by reducing rolling resistance although it will equally reduce traction force. The inertia acceleration forces are exactly the same for what would probably be a very start-stop journey.

Mars One actually state a landing accuracy of up to 10km. Averaging that at 5 km with 6 return journeys gives 60km which Curiosity would autonomously need more than 300 days to cover on good ground. It might arguably be better to replace any significantly off target landers 26 months later rather than put the vital rover at risk during expeditions to collect them. Although they are proposing to use a next generation spacecraft like Dragon V2 that Space X claims will have helicopter landing accuracy, that accuracy is really about re-entry into the denser Earth atmosphere and not the approximate 1% density of the Mars atmosphere. The entry would probably have to be augmented by aerodynamic retardation devices which would be consistent with the stated 10km accuracy.

The rover is supposed to transport the crew from their lander to the settlement. If they landed 5km away, the unloaded rover by Curiosity standards might still take 2 or 3 weeks to autonomously reach them followed by a slow return journey. Obviously they would need to walk if possible.

Another role of the rover that can be readily poked at is that of depositing Martian soil on top of the inflatable sections of the habitat for radiation shielding in preparation to crew arrival. This would presumably mean a relatively small scoop at the end of the rover arm to reach on top of the inflatables. It amounts to a notably large volume of soil built up around them to start with. This requires a countless amount of scooping that would have to be predominantly autonomous. Besides from an excessive long term time requirement, it is also liable to mechanically wear out the rover before the job is done.

(September 2014)