Before reading this entry, check out Jeff Bell’s latest opinion piece at SpaceDaily.com. In a somewhat wide-ranging criticism of modern space activism, he singles out the Mars Society, and Robert Zubrin’s ideas, as the most obvious symptoms of a much deeper malaise affecting us Space Cadets. He thinks that we’re all dreamers, and that no one is doing the hard calculations like the L5 Society did along with Gerard O’Neil’s Space Studies Institute. Nor is anyone thinking about political, scientific, or engineering reality, according to Bell, we’re focusing instead on wild-eyed ideas of social change.
First off, let me state that I am no apologist for the Mars Society. I think that it is an organization with some good ideas and approaches, and some that are misguided. I am no cultist, nor do I worship any individual or single plan for getting to Mars.
In making his case, Bell refers to the “propaganda stunts like the Devon Island ‘Mars Base’”, to which I partially agree, but herein lies my point:
The L5 society, and Gerard O’Neil, were working in a time when space was so much closer than it is today. Detailed engineering studies of space colonies made sense because those were the steps that would soon be taken. Instead, Zubrin’s detailed planning in Case For Mars goes towards the cost of the mission, and demonstrating its feasablity using in-situ Methane production. Unlike in 1975, today we are a spacefaring nation without the ability to really go back to space, politically and infrastructurally.
Modern space advocacy groups must focus on the propaganda stunts that he so churlishly derides because, as L5ers ultimately found out, space will not happen without the will of the people. And as much as the space advocates of the 70s would wish it otherwise, their engineering studies (none of which would be worth the paper they were written on when the real thing came, by the way) did not get anyone to L5.
Next, Bell attacks some of the ideas of living on Mars, in particular he wonders how we can live on Mars because: 1) we’d have to insulate our bases, 2) there’s permafrost underneath, and 3) we’d need to provide heat for spacesuits, and most importantly, 4) Mars is not 1-G. I will briefly address each of these criticisms in turn:
1) We’d have to insulate our bases. This is a simple matter of generating more heat inside the base than leaks out (actually, you’d want this to balance, but you get the point). There is not problem here, none whatsoever, insulation can be made arbitrarily effective with no additional problems.
2) The permafrost underneath the Martian Habitats would present a technical consideration. But, we’re (speaking about humanity now, not the Mars Society) currently building bases on sheets of ice in Antarctica. Engineering has solved this problem already, and surely will only do so more creatively as more people live on such unstable ground. The solution to this, as he would have seen had he been on one of these “stunts” like the Devon Island FMARS, is that people who live in the Arctic build their homes on stilts. Problem solved.
3) Yes, we would have to heat spacesuits. There is a tremendous variety of ways this could be done, none of them involving Pu-238. People are not rovers, after all. The simplest means I can think of involve small methane-burning engines, or perhaps fuel-cells, in the backbacks of the Marsnauts. But, I’ve not done any detailed thinking here, those are just two ideas I had as I was writing this. My point is, just like #1, and #2, this is another not overwhelmingly difficult engineering problem.
4) Now to the real meat–can people live in Martian gravity? Bell treats the answer to this questions as something of a foregone conclusion. He states categorically that humans can not live in the 0.38g environment, and offers as evidence the opinion of a space medic at JSC. Well, the simple answer to this criticism is that we don’t know; no one does. NASA has not done a single study in a microgravity environment on this problem, nor has anyone else. The Mars Society actually started a project to build a small satellite to see if mice can reproduce and live successfully in simulated Martian-G. Bell assumes that humans can live in no less than 1-G, but his conclusions are mere speculation. The “technically illiterate cultists” at the Mars Society are actually trying to answer this question while Bell merely spits vitriol.
Bell’s piece makes a few excellent points about the technical illiteracy of the masses. However, in taking out his frustration on groups such as the Mars Society, his misses the mark entirely. The Mars Society is not a group of engineers, it is a group of people who may be engineers or scientists or even artists. In fact, the Mars Song contest he so bitterly ridicules could be an important step to actually succeeding in getting us to Mars. Engineering studies won’t get public opinion on our side, but art, song, and inspiration just may.
Good comments - I think you identified the key issues quite well here. It is unfortunate that Mr. Bell lumps together “technically illiterate” space advocates (although space needs all the advocates and voters it can get, regardless of technical knowledge) with those who are organized and both technically and politically serious (such as the Mars Society).
I don’t think Zubrin or anyone at the Mars Society underestimates the difficult engineering problems of Mars and the many unknowns associated with extended periods of 0.38 G. But some of Mr. Bell’s statements about Mars sound like the “man will never fly” category of technological pronouncements (e.g., it hasn’t been done, and I don’t know how to do it, so it can’t be done).
Engineering problems can’t be brushed under the rug, but they can be prioritized, and not all need to be solved in detail before deciding to go on the first exploration missions. Somewhere between SF and “mission accomplished” is a place where dreams, goals, and technical constraints can and should co-exist. You can move toward a goal by solving problems or by inspiring people or both — and both are needed in the case of space (along with money, which also requires inspiring people).
-Bruce