An eye-opening exposé on Mars One, the private company that wants to send you to Mars. Journalist Elmo Keep spent one year on this story, and it shows in the breezy prose, slick artwork and cast of contributing voices. While Mars One may stop short of phoning it in, its clear that its three-employee contingent is grossly underqualified and underprepared for the most harrowing off-world mission in human history. The oft-reported 200,000 applicants is likely exaggerated, as is their preparedness, both technologically and financially. Theoretical futures are fine, but a line is crossed when utter fantasies are repackaged as something more. Among the many challenges faced by a manned mission to Mars includes a reliable way of regulating the atmosphere in the life support habitat. Colonizers would depend on plants for food by growing them in a pressurized, nitrogen-rich environment. Plants release oxygen, and eventually the O2 levels would build up and need to be filtered out. But no existing technology can selectively vent molecular nitrogen and oxygen. Too little nitrogen, and the pressurized environment is lost; the crew will asphyxiate. Too much of both poses serious fire hazards and risk of hyperoxia. There are ways around this, but mainly at the expense of significant mission creep.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:58:47 +0000
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