Mars Society Debate: ARM

If you were planning to attend the 2016 Mars Society Convention (or have yet to decide) you can watch a debate on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) with some notable speakers. You can decide if ARM is an essential part of a Martian mission or an unnecessary diversion.

The Mars Society announcement notes:

ARM is intended to send a robotic spacecraft to a Near Earth Asteroid to collect a small boulder from the object and move it to cislunar space. Astronauts will then visit the captured boulder during a planned Orion mission in 2026 in order to test deep space operations in advance of a trip to the Red Planet.

Speakers for ARM will be (1) Dr. Louis Friedman, Co-Founder & Executive Director Emeritus, The Planetary Society; (2) Dr. Thomas Jones, Former NASA Astronaut, Author and Former Member, NASA Advisory Council.

Speakers against the mission will be (1) Dr. Robert Zubrin, President & Founder, The Mars Society, and President, Pioneer Astronautics; and (2) Art Harman, Director, Coalition to Save Manned Space Exploration, and Former Legislative Director, Office of Congressman Steve Stockman.

The debate takes place on Thursday, September 22nd, at 7:30pm at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

It should be an informative debate on a key piece of the puzzle as we wind our way to Mars.

Brain Damaged Astronauts?

Are astronauts at risk of brain damage on the long trip to Mars?  Media reports about a recent study with mice and radiation indicates this may be the case.  As a result, astronauts may arrive in Mars with impaired brain functions due to cosmic rays, which is not the way to start scientific research on the Martian surface.  This is not a new finding as much as more studies on a well studied issue.  

But Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the The Mars Society, was not concerned.  In a recent bulletin, he stated the new study has no relationship to a real world Mars trip, noting:

The principle difference is that the rate that the dose was administered to the mice under study was 4 million times faster than that which would be dealt to travelers in interplanetary space. In addition, the total cumulative dose delivered to the mice inside of 30 seconds was about 50% greater than the GCR dose that astronauts would receive over the course of a 2.5 year Mars mission.

Dr. Zubrin basically called the study misinformation that should not block continued efforts to travel to Mars.  Of course, these cosmic rays present a challenge associated with any space travel, but this may simply be an engineering issue that can be overcome in time. Knowing the risks helps in planning any interplanetary ventures.

Convention News: 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention

If you are looking for a place to learn more about past, present, and planned Mars missions, you could attend the Mars Society's 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention in Washington DC this coming August. Here are some details: 

The Mars Society will convene the 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention at the Catholic University of America (CUA) in the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center (better known as "The Pryz") from August 13 - 16, 2015.

The four-day conference will bring together key experts, scientists, policymakers, government officials and journalists to discuss the latest news on Mars exploration and efforts to promote a human mission to the Red Planet in the coming years.

You can learn more about the upcoming conference here, though the speakers and agenda are not available at this time.

Preparing to Live on Mars

With all the talk about rocketing to Mars, we need to ensure we conduct studies as well regarding how we will live on Mars.  And this is where the Mars Society's MarsDesert Research Station comes into the picture.  The stations are "laboratories for learning how to live and work on another planet."  Various prototypes house four to six crew members and give scientists a chance to see how humans will fare in an harsh, isolated environment.  Crew members include geologists, astrobiologists, engineers, mechanics, physicians and others, who may live in the habitat for weeks or even months. 

Here is how Crew 140, which served a mission from April to August this year, wrote about some of the lessons learned in the final missionreport: 

The greenhouse on Mars will be the main power source of life of the first inhabitants on the Martian surface. Due to the strong ultra violet rays on the Red Planet, Luciana Tenorio (Crew Journalist & EVA Engineer), considered a fabric/filter 100% UV, besides the material of the fabric is a nonwoven polyester which covers the aluminum frames (icosahedrons). This small shelter from the harmful UV rays was born from the need for shade during the days of solar intensity on Mars, in the Utah desert, where the greenhouse plants die burned by the strong intensity through the skin of polycarbonate (actual covering of the greenhouse). The project of Luciana was testing this second skin over the fourth rib of the greenhouse structure to see how the plant growing developments takes place during our two weeks of the research. During the first week the temperature inside the greenhouse lowered a little bit, but in the second week the temperature grew much more outside. As the project spanned only a very small portion of the greenhouse, we feel that it would have been very successful in achieving its goals if it had been placed over the entire surface of the Greenhab.

I am glad eager volunteers are adding to our knowledge about how to live on Mars.  You can volunteer to join a mission or simply donate to these missions. 

17th International Mars Society Convention

If you are looking for more information on Mars, from past rover programs to ideas for future settlements, you may want to attend the 17th International Mars Society Convention at the South Shore Harbour Resort in League City, Texas from August 7-10, 2014.  

Last year's conference covered a number of interesting topics, including:

-- Latest Findings from the Mars Probes
-- Plans for Human Mars Missions
-- Martian agriculture/aquaculture and greenhouse/greenhab technology
-- Terraforming - Creating an Ecology for Mars
-- The One Way Mission to Mars
-- Asteroid Missions: A Bridge to Mars?

For example, Bas Lansdorp, the co-founder and CEO of Mars One, discussed his idea of organizing a mission to Mars.  If you want to view this presentation and others, you can view them at the Mars Society's page on YouTube.  And if you want to learn more about the projects of the Mars Society, I recommend you visit their website as well as view their past quarterly reports.