# "Crew" the first voyage to Mars **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 8, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426 "2020-05-08T20:00:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/41 "2020-05-09T04:32:12Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Unless we can find some way to travel faster than we already do, it’s not going to happen. Even assuming that food, water, and air could be produced and recycled for the many months or years it would take to get there (and back), think about this: Being cooped up on a bus with X number of people, all that time, and there is NO escape. Period. > > Nope, not going to happen. With photon-reflective sail technology, [an astronaut-carrying craft could get to Mars in 1 month.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/02/26/nasa-scientist-can-get-humans-mars-month/80980218/) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/42 "2020-05-09T04:35:55Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Unless we can find some way to travel faster than we already do, it’s not going to happen. Even assuming that food, water, and air could be produced and recycled for the many months or years it would take to get there (and back), think about this: Being cooped up on a bus with X number of people, all that time, and there is NO escape. Period. People already spend upwards of a year at a time on the ISS, and they don’t seem to be leaping out the airlocks or turning it into an episode of Jersey Shore. SpaceX’s Starship will have around 1000 m^3 of internal volume, which is really quite a lot for under 10 people. Everyone can have plenty of personal space. When they arrive on Mars, inflatables can also provide plenty of space, and in the longer term tunnels will allow very large habitats. It won’t be like a bus ride at all. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/43 "2020-05-09T05:24:49Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > This reminds me of religious folk who say that “teens ought to be able to coexist and interact without having sex on the sly.” Sure, they ought to, but there is a huge gap between “ought” and “will.” > > And IIRC, there have been plenty of instances of naval sailors having sex on military ships. True enough. And here I keep saying “with or without.” You notice that? “With or without.” That means, as I have also already said, I’m not arguing for rules against sexual intimacy between crew members if that should come about (if), but I don’t think crew selection needs to be built around couples. We don’t need to limit crew to male- or female-only crews so that “the lady astronauts don’t distract the menfolk” (scare quotes), but neither do I think we should be so crass as to select crews like cattle, based on what would make good breeding stock. And is it really so shocking that astronauts might just be able to spend two or three years sealed up in a closet together without having sex? I get that “tee-hee, they’re gonna have sex cuz they can’t help it!” is a common plot device in sitcoms, but just maybe we can expect crews on interplanetary expeditions can manage a little better? And, again, even if they can’t, that we don’t need to limit selection to couples (talk about prudish, eh?) lest we just let “biology happen” as if it’d only be okay if they’re married? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/44 "2020-05-09T10:43:51Z")
> [@split\_p\_j](#): > > I sense tons of PC in here, but lets be real. If one your females gets pregnant, you have just lost a crew member. Can we agree that women are wired differently from men? I’ll second ‘or gained one’. It may be part of the plan if it’s a long term colony. But while it may not be possible to prevent sex, pregnancy is much more preventable, and if needed for the survival of the colony, be terminated. So yes there are some differences between men and women, but it doesn’t seem like a go/no go situation. Women also in general consume fewer resources than men per person. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/45 "2020-05-09T11:44:40Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Consider a basic geological tool: core sampling. Drill a hole as deep as you can go, removing cylinders of rock and analyzing them later. > > It’s not impossible to imagine a completely automated core sampling machine, but it’s hard. From the initial assembly to the core handling to dealing with failures, each aspect would need to be thought through completely. Humans are good at this kind of fiddly, irregular manipulation. Robotics are not, as of yet. They are good enough. Key point - for one human, you can send a hundred core-drilling robots (or more). Even if your failure rate for drilled cores is as absurdly high as, say, 75%, robots are \*still \*going to give you 25x the geological data of a human, for the same cost. And I must add, I’ve been a mine geologist and supervised core drilling teams. A monkey could do their job… > [@](#): > > A crew with access to some sort of rudimentary lathe can build replacement parts. They can design and build new systems that correct for deficiencies in the original design. They can perform assembly operations that weren’t anticipated originally. Robots can do all of this with off-site input from human designers. Just land a robot repair factory. Keep sending it needed raw materials. Your argument assumes MArs would be a closed system, for some reason. This would not be the case. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/46 "2020-05-09T12:30:43Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > …And, again, even if they can’t, that we don’t need to limit selection to couples (talk about prudish, eh?) lest we just let “biology happen” as if it’d only be okay if they’re married? I’m not sure married couples should go, as circumstances of travel has been known to break down marriages and people find other mates for the journey. We don’t want to handle a divorce like situation there, catfighting alone would be very disruptive. I feel if the crew is m/f mix it might need to be the type where there is a natural alpha male or female who would control the access to sex through social pressures and a social hierarchy. For some crew members it would suck (at the bottom of that, excluded from sex) but it would maintain order while including and somewhat controlling sexuality. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/47 "2020-05-09T14:46:06Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Short people. > > Short people take up less space, weigh less, eat less, drink less, and breathe less. Plus, it’s a sneaky way to get rid of the shorties. #RandyNewman ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/48 "2020-05-09T15:30:11Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I’m not sure married couples should go, as circumstances of travel has been known to break down marriages and people find other mates for the journey. We don’t want to handle a divorce like situation there, catfighting alone would be very disruptive. > > I feel if the crew is m/f mix it might need to be the type where there is a natural alpha male or female who would control the access to sex through social pressures and a social hierarchy. For some crew members it would suck (at the bottom of that, excluded from sex) but it would maintain order while including and somewhat controlling sexuality. What is a “natural alpha male”? And your plan for the romantic/sexual wellbeing of the crew (which I continue to maintain can be left to mature, grown adults to figure out for themselves and deal with even if it involves several years without a close/intimate partner), is that we should plan on having literal incels (“at the bottom” and “excluded from sex” by this “alpha” of yours) to “maintain order”? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/49 "2020-05-09T17:02:02Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Am I a “stranger in a strange land” for not caring what a science fiction writer from the last century thinks? Much less a science fiction writer who envisioned a crypto-fascist state in which citizenship is contingent on federal service and yet the world is presented as if everyone would/should be fine with that and then wrote it into a story meant for kids to sell them on the idea too? STRANGER is not STARSHIP TROOPERS\* which is not the many Heinlein books that don’t present crypto-fascist societies. I mentioned STRANGER as a cautionary tale because, if you haven’t read it, the story starts with a first-to-Mars trip (privately financed IIRC) with a crew of mixed couples who end up killing each other because… read it and see why. Robert and Virginia (she was the brains of the outfit) had studied a bit of psychology and so the sketched interpersonal conflicts ring with authenticity IMHO. Some searching will likely return many studies of isolation and small-group dynamics with hypothetical crew options. Do they not support the Heinleins’ droll tragedy? Anyway, multiple robo-missions must precede any human presence on Mars. Earth-orbital and Lunar-surface bases are necessary first steps. Crew selection should be simpler and safer for a voyage of several weeks rather than many months. Maybe we’ll have hypno-sleep technology by then. Dream our way to Mars, right? \_\_ - TROOPERS is fascist? Where is the scapegoated suppressed populace? Fascists need human targets to blame and dominate. And if you had read TROOPERS you’d know WHY public service was the key to citizenship, But that’s irrelevant to a Mars voyage. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/50 "2020-05-09T18:21:06Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > STRANGER is not STARSHIP TROOPERS\* which is not the many Heinlein books that don’t present crypto-fascist societies. I mentioned STRANGER as a cautionary tale because, if you haven’t read it, the story starts with a first-to-Mars trip (privately financed IIRC) with a crew of mixed couples who end up killing each other because… read it and see why. Robert and Virginia (she was the brains of the outfit) had studied a bit of psychology and so the sketched interpersonal conflicts ring with authenticity IMHO. > > Some searching will likely return many studies of isolation and small-group dynamics with hypothetical crew options. Do they not support the Heinleins’ droll tragedy? > > Anyway, multiple robo-missions must precede any human presence on Mars. Earth-orbital and Lunar-surface bases are necessary first steps. Crew selection should be simpler and safer for a voyage of several weeks rather than many months. Maybe we’ll have hypno-sleep technology by then. Dream our way to Mars, right? > \_\_ > > - TROOPERS is fascist? Where is the scapegoated suppressed populace? Fascists need human targets to blame and dominate. And if you had read TROOPERS you’d know WHY public service was the key to citizenship, But that’s irrelevant to a Mars voyage. Never read STRANGER, don’t intend to. I have read SST, and I realize it’s not necessarily representative of the full range of Heinlein’s views, and I am satisfied that Heinlein himself was not likely a fascist. But SST absolutely does contain fascist elements. And he chose to tell a story in which people behave in such a way as if those elements come together to form a better/more positive society, as if we could strip voting rights and the right to hold office from the bulk of the population and yet still see their other rights (like speech) protected just as well as in our own society, with its near-universal suffrage and birth right citizenship. He has people behave in certain ways not, IMHO, because that’s how people actually behave, but because that’s the way he needed them to behave to make the story happen and explore the themes he wanted to explore. And that’s the crux of the issue: regardless of how STRANGER played out on paper, it was a story with characters that were written to make the story happen while emphasizing certain themes and so does not necessarily give us insight into how a crew of properly trained and selected astronauts would behave, particularly given what we know of long duration missions in space (people have spent up to a year in space before—so does that mean the sex crazies some people seem to think we need to worry about kick in at closer to the two year mark?) and how similarly trained/educated professionals have managed in historical expeditions involving, say wartime deployments, expeditions to Antartica, or in search of the Northwest Passage that may have involved wintering over and having even less communication with “people back on Earth” (metaphorically speaking). I say again, mature, grown adults can be reasonably expected to function with or without intimate contact for years on end if need be. If romantic or intimate relationships arise between crew members in a long duration mission arise, then so be it. Biology does happen, after all, though I would hope and expect that such crew members would get that pregnancy in space, at the very least, could pose an insurmountable problem that may result in loss of life and so, like the mature, grown adult professionals they are, act accordingly (whatever that means). If you think this is impossible or unreasonable, that we can’t or shouldn’t expect a bunch of carefully trained and selected astronauts who are probably in their mid/late thirties or beyond to behave better than farm animals stuck together in a pin, then I think that says more about you than them. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/51 "2020-05-09T18:44:44Z")
[Starting on page 88, there is a very pertinent article on planning for a Mars mission.](https://books.google.com/books?id=9KLYLI3Gu7IC&printsec=frontcover&rview=1&lr=#v=onepage&q&f=false) Obviously a 22-year old article on a never-carried-out mission has its flaws, but –NASA was planning user older astronauts. Not only are older people more likely to avoid conflict and find solutions, but they are also likely to suffer less from the physical degradation of long terms of weightlessness. –As one person put it “The people going to Mars are not having children”. Not only does space radiation severely damage reproductive organs, the sperm and ovum they would produce would likely be cancerous. (By the way, NASA really didn’t want to discuss the issue of sex in space.) –The astronauts selected would be a lot different than the old school “Right Stuff” crowd. Instead of macho, I fear nothing heroes they’d much more be likely nerdy scientists who could endure long periods of little stimulation. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/52 "2020-05-09T19:12:45Z")
If we were going to send single-sex crews, it would make a whole lot more sense to send only women than to send only men, because women in general are smaller and will therefore require less in the way of supplies and of space. And even if we did send single-sex crews, that wouldn’t remove issues of sexual desire. In addition to the fact that many people have at least some potential attraction to members of the same sex in normal circumstances, additional people will engage in same-sex sexual behavior if that’s all that’s available to them. And I don’t understand why everyone is concentrating only on sex as a possible cause of interpersonal relationship difficulties. People who have no interest whatsoever in having sex with each other can nevertheless take violent (sometimes literally violent) dislikes to each other, gang up on each other, play favorites. This happens all the time. A crew chosen in part for being likely to have the ability to get their jobs done and remain minimally civil to each other even when cooped up in close quarters for an extended period of time ought to be able to keep that ability even presuming that some or all of them are horny. People likely to start murdering crewmembers, or hiding in their rooms sobbing under the bed instead of getting their work done, because of sexual jealousy may well do the same thing because they think somebody’s continuously snarking at their work, or at their religion or lack of it, or won’t eat lunch with them, or so on. And, as ASL keeps pointing out, it’s not as if we don’t have lots of real-life experience; including, at this point, with mixed-gender crews in space for months on end. – installLSC, choosing older crews seems to me to make a great deal of sense. In addition to the reasons you give, there’d be more of their history available from which to judge whether they’d be likely to keep a mostly even temper in difficult situations. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/53 "2020-05-09T19:13:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > With photon-reflective sail technology, [an astronaut-carrying craft could get to Mars in 1 month.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/02/26/nasa-scientist-can-get-humans-mars-month/80980218/) I can’t seem to find an accurate summary of this work - the article you link to is non-technical and quite sketchy - but it seems to call for space-based, extremely high-powered lasers driving an unspecified-size (probably kilometers square) light sail. So I guess you launch a nuclear reactor of some sort into space that drives a powerful laser. Do that several dozen (hundred?) times for the number of lasers needed. Park them all at L5 or some stable place other than Earth orbit. Get a vehicle with a gargantuan sail out beyond that and unfurl it. Light up the lasers and push the sail toward Mars. So far so good. In a couple of weeks the craft would build incredible speed (I tried to do the math for the Gs involved, but all I remember a=1/2dt^2 and my copy of _Have Spacesuit - Will Travel_ is in the garage somewhere). So: how do you slow down? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/54 "2020-05-10T22:24:57Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Never read STRANGER, don’t intend to. I have read SST, and I realize it’s not necessarily representative of the full range of Heinlein’s views, and I am satisfied that Heinlein himself was not likely a fascist. TROOPERS isn’t relevant to the topic while STRANGER is. STRANGER shows a deep distrust of governments and builds a couple wild religions. Heinlein also invented the waterbed there. Look for the restored edition, the “Director’s Cut”. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/55 "2020-05-10T23:31:07Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And I don’t understand why everyone is concentrating only on sex as a possible cause of interpersonal relationship difficulties. People who have no interest whatsoever in having sex with each other can nevertheless take violent (sometimes literally violent) dislikes to each other, gang up on each other, play favorites. This happens all the time. A crew chosen in part for being likely to have the ability to get their jobs done and remain minimally civil to each other even when cooped up in close quarters for an extended period of time ought to be able to keep that ability even presuming that some or all of them are horny. People likely to start murdering crewmembers, or hiding in their rooms sobbing under the bed instead of getting their work done, because of sexual jealousy may well do the same thing because they think somebody’s continuously snarking at their work, or at their religion or lack of it, or won’t eat lunch with them, or so on. Of course, I have no way of knowing what all-male workplaces are like, but based on my own personal experience, I would rather be the only woman in an otherwise all-male workplace than be in an all-female workplace. I realize that we only worked together and didn’t live together for months or years on end with no means of escape. Yep, that paragraph sounds like what could potentially happen with an all-female crew. MHO, of course. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/56 "2020-05-11T13:42:25Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Of course, I have no way of knowing what all-male workplaces are like, but based on my own personal experience, I would rather be the only woman in an otherwise all-male workplace than be in an all-female workplace. I realize that we only worked together and didn’t live together for months or years on end with no means of escape. > > Yep, that paragraph sounds like what could potentially happen with an all-female crew. MHO, of course. Which part of that paragraph? The part about “A crew chosen in part for being likely to have the ability to get their jobs done and remain minimally civil to each other even when cooped up in close quarters for an extended period of time ought to be able to keep that ability even presuming that some or all of them are horny.”? I’ve worked with a number of different small groups of people living together; some groups all female, some mixed. In my experience, it depends on the individuals involved, not on their gender. The most drastic cases of things going wrong involved males. ---
**Author:** ![split\_p\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@split\_p\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/split_p_j)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/57 "2020-05-11T15:11:56Z")
Women in general are not suited for this first voyage, and no human society would allow them to be part of the first crew on a suicide mission, for obvious reasons. It really has not nothing to do with what sex is stronger, both sexes strong and weak in their own ways. ---
**Author:** ![split\_p\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@split\_p\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/split_p_j)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/58 "2020-05-11T15:21:50Z")
It has to do with how human society, in general, views women. They are the vessels of life right now and are certainly different because of that. There are very few humans born outside of a women’s womb, so it’d be like blowing up your ship to get to Mars first. Humans don’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/59 "2020-05-11T16:45:40Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Of course, there is little need to actually send a crew to do this; for the cost of a conjunction-class mission (which starts at ~US$500T and goes up from there) $500 trillion is more money than there is in the world. Did you mean billion? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426/60 "2020-05-11T19:30:52Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > $500 trillion is more money than there is in the world. Did you mean billion? See [POST=22293396]post #22[/POST] Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crew-the-first-voyage-to-mars/853426.md?page=4)