Seven Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions

Send my friend, Mr Potatoface. 

By the time he returns to earth he'll be ready to eat. 

JerryKasporav wrote:

The biggest reason we aren't going to Mars or anywhere else anytime soon is that no one has figured out how to protect an astronaut from the radiation that they would be exposed to during the voyage.  Until this is solved we're going to be sticking to sending robots.

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Some people (even in NASA) use Radiation as a reason of delaying a Mars mission. However, radiation is not as big a threat. It's one that makes sense to the gullible public. The Human mission is still possible with a properly shielded spacecraft - and that's within our present technological ability (present money and will, of course).

No.

http://www.mars-one.com/

Time do some research guys

Mars One has never explained how they will deal with the radiation.  It's a scam.  If they ever leave the ground I will eat my hat.

https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3

I always believe in looking at the bright side. We need global warming to help us get through nuclear winter.

Global warming deniers will tell you nuclear winter isn't real.

Psshh! If they leave to Mars by 2024, I will eat my dog!

But the point is that people are investing in it, that is what matters.

replying to post 577

I tend to agree with those who say Mars One is a scam. Well, maybe the guy who kick-started the project is a scammer, maybe he isn't. I don't know for sure. I've heard him speak and he seems to believe in his ideas. If he can pull this off, it would be cool. However, from the purely technical standpoint, Mars One will not be able to accomplish their stated goal of sending Humans to Mars by 2025. That's why they keep pushing their deadline further and further back. And, contrary to what some people think, it has nothing to do with radiation. I will explain things in lengthy sentences and not "humorous" one-or-two-liners...

You see, radiation is only one problem in space travel. And it is a relatively minor one. Those astronauts on the International Space Station take a much higher dose of radiation than we do here on the surface of the Earth. Now, there are two types of radiation that get us: one is the solar radiation - one that comes from our Sun, and the other type is the radiation that comes to us from the interstellar space. Spacecraft is normally adequately shielded against solar radiation. What about the other one? Well, you're gonna have to take that dose. On the International Space Station, which is in the low Earth orbit, astronauts are also shielded by the Earth's magnetic field. That helps to reduce the radiation dosage by about a factor of 2 as compared to the radiation dose in deep space. Apollo astronauts were exposed to higher radiation levels when they went to the Moon - although for a much shorter timeframe. Still, astronauts on the space stations have endured very long stays in orbit, and accumulated a rather large dose of radiation over time. Nobody had any radiation sickness after returning to Earth. The record of one-time stay in orbit belongs to the Russian cosmonaut Dr. Valeri Polyakov who stayed in the Mir Space Station for 437 days. The record of most days in orbit (not continuous) belongs to the Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev who had a cumulative 800+ days in orbit. Remember, by our Earthly standards radiation in the low Earth orbit is still pretty high. Interestingly, you'll get about the same amount of radiation on the surface of Mars as you'll in the low Earth orbit(LEO).

Now, let's see what happens in the deep space. There, like I said, you'll get a higher dose of radiation. If I remember the numbers right off the top of my head, it's by a factor of 2 higher than in LEO. Still, that level of radiation is not a huge threat. According to estimates, there's a 3-5% increase in chance that this radiation will give you cancer at a later stage in your life. So, if you're a healthy, average American you still have a 20% chance of getting cancer in some stage of your life. If you embark on a lengthy journey to Mars, that chance will grow to 25% tops. Would you take that chance? I would! Now, compare that to smoking. If you are a smoker, smoking increases your chances of getting a cancer by another 20%. That makes it a total of 40%. And a lot of people take the chance - I know I did when I was younger (although, I had no idea about the stats, just knew it wasn't making me healthier). So, yes, while radiation is a hazard, it's not as big a deal and certainly is no show-stopper.

There's also another, and a very real threat radiation-wise that needs to be addressed. That threat comes from our Sun in the form or solar particle events and coronal mass ejections - I hope I remember these terms right. In any case these are events when our Sun emits serious doses of radiation that can kill astronauts. However, these events can be shielded against. There are special "shelters" on spacecraft that can house astronauts when these events happen (and they do happen about  once or twice a year). I don't know if you ever seen areas on the International Space Station where they have their supples stored. These areas you can see are all looking like big, thick walls - and they are. That's where astronauts would go in case of a real massive solar storm (although Earth's magnetic shield still deflects most of it). Now, if you similarly create "shelters" out of consumables on a lengthy journey to Mars, you can create a shelter for the astronauts to weather the storm. And that's how you solve this problem. This is very well known - at least to those who read books. Interestingly, during the Apollo missions to the Moon, astronauts didn't have this shielding - NASA just took a chance that a solar storm would not happen during short visits to the Moon. And if that did happen, people could have died out there. If I remember this right, a solar storm did happen right after Apollo 16 mission, and they were pretty lucky to be back on Earth by then.

So, summing up, radiation is NOT the show-stopping threat on the journey to Mars. I don't present links here but you can do some serious research and come to the same conclusion. All of this is public knowledge. Read books or do your research online. Now, there are some other, and more serious challenges on a journey to Mars. I can write about them in a separate post.

A couple of points.

We don't know what the effects of galactic radiation on a human for long period of time will be, your numbers about cancer and estimations of the dangers are just that, estimations.  NASA believes it could increase cancer risk by as much as 19%.  There is also evidence that radiation might cause brain damage in just a few months.

Before going up into space astronauts go through serious medical testing to make sure they are in good health.  Weeks before launch they are put in a quarantine to insure they're not exposed to illness and take nothing up with them.  This is because being sick in space is a disaster.  Now consider sending a crew to mars on a years long mission.  Every member is vital to the mission and highly trained.  What happens when just one of them comes down with a serious illness caused by radiation?  With no proper medical treatment available a million miles from the nearest hospital this would jeopardize the entire mission wasting the billions of dollars and millions of man hours.

NASA training is also designed to weed out people who make poor decisions when it comes to risk management.  Mars One is effectively a suicide mission.  Anyone who would make that choice is exactly the kind of person you don't want on a space expedition.

You might want to consider that the scientists at NASA might actually know more about this than you.

Well, I'm glad that you're finally posting something that's more than one line long. We have a progress there. :) Now, we're talking.

On to the topic. I don't know where you got the number of 19% from. That is a rather high number. The estimated upper number is 5% and some people at NASA think that 5% is kinda high. Even those, still think that radiation is not the show-stopper. And it's not. By the way, when they launched the Curiosity rover to Mars, the mission also had RAD instrument that collected data on radiation. Guess what? The estimates made in the 70s and the actuall data from the RAD is not all that different. It's a manageable risk. This is why people stay in orbit so long. Human body is able to handle that level of radiation. If the radiation was the only risk, I'd happily take the chance. Also note that the risk estimates change based on age. So if you're sending somebody in their 40s, they have a lesser chance. No wonder that most astronauts are usually in that age group.

Now, let's see what other and more pressing dangers there are: the first, and the very real, is the microgravity. That's what the astronauts experience when they go up there. Long distance space travel in that environment is extremely taxing on the human body. Legs atrophe, immune system weakens, pressure within human body changes, all kinds of stuff like that. That weakening, actually, may somewhat increase the damage from radiation too - depending on how people are coping with the effects of microgravity. This is why astronauts exercise intensively up there. Despite that, they return to Earth nearly crippled. It takes them a long time to adjust to the Earth's gravity. And, of course, on Mars there's nobody that will help you get back on your feet. You're gonna have to do things on your own and rely on yourself and your teammates only. Yet, that, too, is a manageable risk. The optimal Mars travel rout and time is only 6 months' long, and people will be landing on a planet with a much smaller gravity, so they should be OK. Of course, we're talking about a spacecraft that has no artificial gravity. However, there are designs out there (and they have been there since the 70s) that enable creation of artificial gravity. It's a bit complicated by it could be done. I think it was either NASA or Russians who conducted just one robotic test and layed it to rest. The problem, as far as technology development is concerned, is that nobody wants to take risks. Even if its robotics. They do something, see things don't work out very well, and they let it be. They don't really try hard to improve stuff. Why is that? Well, as insiders in the engineering community will tell you, those who have money want to see results. They prefer to go with something that works rather than try stuff that may not; they're afraid of having their funding pulled. And this is true for America, Russia, and China. Most of the spaceflight is tangled in Government bureaucracy and hence the stagnation environment (as somebody who worked for the Government I can tell you everything about stagnative ways of thinking). The scientists and engineers want to have a continuous stream of funding. That's why everybody prefers to pretend that they're doing something, while doing very little real stuff, and get the money. I could talk about this problem in a greater detail too. I believe somebody even wrote a whole book about it - it's something like "NASA: the Expose" or "NASA Exposed" or whatever. It's the same problem permeating all Government sector (in all countries, by the way): keep the money flowing.

So, microgravity is one area that I can tell you that presents serious, albeit manageable risks. There are other problems too. Those, I'll address later.

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P.S. On radiation. I don't know if you ever seen films about the Chernobyil, but it's interesting to see that life in that area didn't go extinct. An area devoid of Human touch in the last 30 years, still badly exposed to radiation, is now teeming with animal life. Interestingly, animals adjusted to that high level of radiation that's still present there today, and are having healthy offspring for the most part. The research is still ongoing.

So are u saying that ironically, Chernobyle will be the last place on Earth untouched by humans because of humans?

Ah, those greedy rocket scientists!

Once you think about.  The new facts just leap out at you ??

That sounds almost religious, like something leaping out from the Head of Zeus.

As a wise man said (not exact quote) "I'll take alarmist's seriously when they start acting like they believe in what they say."

Washington Examiner, by Susan Crabtree

President Obama is expected to spend the weekend golfing in the lush environs of Southern California's verdant desert resorts near Palm Springs — resorts that are among the state's top guzzlers of water.

If he does indeed hit the links, the outing would take place during California's record drought, on the heels of a Democratic fundraiser at the home of billionaire climate change activist Tom Steyer, and just days after Obama welcomed Pope Francis' encyclical warning about the dangers of human-caused climate change.

White House officials are neither confirming nor denying the golf outing, even though the Palm Springs airport is readying itself for Air Force One's arrival Saturday. But when pressed on the weekend itinerary, White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz hinted that golf was in the works, although he only referred to golf courses the president "may visit" over the next few days.

There's good reason for the caginess, as Obama's likely golf destination seems to fly in the face of the environmental causes Obama supports.

Amid California's epic drought, Palm Springs residents and the area's vast expanse of golf resorts are among the state's heaviest water users, sucking up more than 200 gallons per person each day. That number doubles during the summer months, according to the California Water Resources Control Board.

Teeing off environmentalists even more, golf resorts and their surrounding retail shops are the prime water-consuming culprits, draining a huge percent of the area's total water usage but providing 40 percent of the jobs in the valley, according to a report last December in the Los Angeles Times.

Those defending the local golf resorts — which make up 14 percent of state's total — say the area's water usage helped make it a tourist destination and argue that the region mainly relies on a massive underground aquifer.

But the nearly 37 billion gallons of water the area's golf courses use annually is a hot topic in the parched state's north-south water wars. That fight could weigh on Obama during his visit to this area of the state, when he is expected to face 115-degree temperatures.

Schultz defended Obama's visit by noting that many golf courses have taken "water-mitigation steps."

"In terms of courses that the president may visit over the next few days, I know that many courses have taken water-mitigation steps aimed at water conservation so I'd refer you to them for those details," he said. He also added that the Obama administration is doing what it can to help farmers, ranchers, small businesses and communities facing the severe impacts of the historic drought.

"Just last week, the administration announced new actions and investments of more than $110 million to support these communities suffering from drought and combat wildfires," he said. "This new funding announced last week builds on the more than $190 million that federal agencies across the government have invested to support drought-stricken communities so far this year."

Schultz, however, did not elaborate on the water conservation differences between public and private golf courses.

Public courses use recycled water, which is not subject to Gov. Jerry Brown's executive order requiring a 25 percent cutback in potable urban water usage. But the private courses tap into underground aquifers.

There's a good chance Obama, along with a few golfing buddies, are headed to the ultra-exclusive and private Sunnylands resort on the Annenberg estate.

It would be the president's fifth trip to the sprawling estate and former home of billionaire Walter Annenberg. It's known as the "Camp David of the West" for its popularity among U.S. presidents, as well as the British royal family, and previously such legendary celebrity icons as Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra.

At the White House's suggestion, the Washington Examiner asked the Sunnylands estate, funded by the deep-pocketed Annenberg Foundation, about its water-mitigation efforts. A foundation employee provided a link to a frequently asked questions page on their website titled "Saving Water at Sunnylands."

The Sunnylands website has another full page dedicated to its water-conservation efforts, including a "first-time decision not to over-seed fairways and to maintain a wall-to-wall carpet of green grass on the golf course."

The changes, the website states, have brought "an array of new colors to Sunnylands' grounds."

"The sweeping fairways, normally seeded with ryegrass to replace the Bermuda grass that goes dormant in winter, have sported tones of pale green, gold and yellow, contrasting sharply with the deep green of the ryegrass in the rough," the website states.

Additionally, in the patchwork of 60 acres where the estate removed turf in previous years, tan wood chips and stands of tall grass reside with trees "to add a new, earthy color palette to the landscape."

Sunnylands Director of Operations Pat Truchan said he and others are still calculating the amount of water savings but noted that the estate and golf course used roughly 28 percent less water last year that what had been historically consumed each year.

Still, Obama's retreat may be particularly jarring for environmentalists who have targeted wealthy areas, golf resorts and celebrities for their water-rationing wrath. It may also be seen as ironic.

On Friday, Obama is scheduled to headline a fundraiser at the San Francisco area manse of billionaire former hedge-fund manager and climate-change activist Steyer. Earlier this week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he believes Steyer sought to host Obama because of their common interests in environmental issues.

"Mr. Steyer is a well-known advocate for policies that are good for the environment, particularly policies that will limit carbon pollution and other contributors to climate change, and obviously the president has an exceedingly strong record, maybe even a historically strong record in confronting those issues," Earnest said.

Thursday afternoon, the president also issued a statement heaping praise on Pope Francis' dire warnings about climate change and his open embrace of the view that humans are largely to blame. Obama said he welcomed the pontiff's decision to make the case "clearly, powerfully, and with the full moral authority of his position."

Everybody's greedy to some extent. And yes, scientists want to have their funds secured. This is why, after Bush Senior anounced the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989 with a goal of sending people to Mars, NASA came up with the most complex mission plan possible. That plan was called "the 90 day report" and enviosoned orbital fuel depos, lunar bases, and a Battlestar Galactica type of ship to take Humans to Mars. The expected timeframe for doing this: 30 years; estimated (conservative) cost: $ 500 billion. Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the plan is insane. You don't have to say, o, these scientists know how to do this stuff, so let's just give them the money and watch it happen. And, sure enough, the plan got cancelled. Interestingly, some engineers outside of NASA came up with a better plan that didn't require all that crazy stuff and the estimates were: 10 years to make it happen with a sticker price of around $50 billion. Unfortunately, this plan did not envision construction of Space Station or other stuff like that to go to Mars. That's why, despite the initial enthusiasm at NASA, the plan was never adapted. NASA was already planning for the International Space Station - there were lots of interests involved and that's how that last plan got botched too. Of course, building the Space Station was a lot easier than planning and executing a mission to Mars. NASA had experience building an orbital station and they were getting the Russians on board too. There's more certainty and less risk there - and that's what NASA chose to do. Also, building and operating the Station would take a lot of time so they figured that hey, the money will keep flowing for a long time - and they were right. They signed the agreement with Russia in 1994, started the construction of the modules for the ISS in mid-90s, launched the first modules in 1998, established the Human presnece in orbit since 2000, completed the construction of the ISS in 2011, and plan to keep operating it at least until 2024. While the ISS is an awesome machine, both U.S. and Russia have built stations before. There's very little practical research going on there that was not done on the previous stations like Skylab and Mir. Space Stations were mainly designed to figure out whether Humans can survive in the tough conditions of space for extended periods of time. That question was positively answered before. And why did they wanted to know the answer to this question? To send Humans to Mars. But now, they just keep repeating similar experiments in orbit... Essentially, the astronauts are guinea pigs! In the early days of the space program, astronauts and cosmonatus were the true explorers. They had been trained to reach new destinations... Astronauts were supposed to be explorers, not guinea pigs!

Why am I taking this much time to write this? While I have some engineering background, I am sure that people don't have to have that background to be able to understand all of this. This is all common sense. The problem, as I see it, is complacency and laziness. Most people are like "well, I'm sure they know better - we'll just give them the opportunity to do the stuff the way they see it fit..." They don't question authority. Moreover, they blindly follow it. People tend to follow, like sheep, ideas they find attractive for themselves. Critical thinking is almost non-existent! And this is true regardless of political affiliation, nationality, or any other criterion of interest. Most people are easily brainwashed and blindly trustful of authority instead of doing the research for themselves. Doesn't matter what the topic is either: global warming, NASA, aliens, whatever...

And this is why the worthless politicians and worthless media who figured this out manage to manipulate public opinion as they see it fit. If you really look at them, see past their stupid rhetoric, you'll see how truly worthless the vast majority of them really is. And you'll develop critical thinking skills that will help you keep an open, flexible, and enlightened mind. You'll be able, through research on your own, question not only the worthless people and their ideas, but also the ones that are worthy and have interesting ideas. When you go to the doctor and he/she tells you to take a certain pill twice a week, you'll not going to say "Yes, Master." Instead, you'll ask them a ton of questions, do the research, and only then decide wheter to agree with that doctor or maybe you need to go to a different one.

Now, I have to admit that I had been a victim of that sheep-like way of thinking when I was younger. But as I grew older and became more of an individual, my perception also changed. I've read lots of books, traveled accross the world, seen lots of places and people and gain different perspectives. People, on the fundamental level, are basically the same. I do hope that you (the reader - whoever reads this), will not simply believe me. My only hope is that you'll start thinking on your own and not say "Yes, Master."

A few years ago I had a few questions about Apollo missions myself. However, upon doing some research, I'm 99.99% confident that the landings, indeed took place.

Regarding your point: the Van Allen Radiation belts are not a big deal to go thorough. If you're in the spacecraft, you're going through those zones relatively fast. Moreover, there's a lot of radiation in the Earth-Moon system. So the astronauts were, indeed, exposed to plenty of radiation. However, the whole missions were no more than 2 weeks long. That's not enough time for radiation to induce serious problems on Human health. Notice, that people stay in orbital stations for a long periods of time. They still get plenty of radiation up there - more than Apollo astronauts did.

Now, solar flares and cornal mass ejections could have indeed killed Apollo astronauts. NASA took a statistical chance that these events are unlikely to happen during the short timeframe of the guys being up there. They had been pretty lucky.

There are other questions about moon landings that are interesting to answer. I suggest studying some physics and learning this for yourself. Nobody can convince you better than yourself. Upon readying books of physics you'll be able to perform some simple experiments that will give you a firmer grasp of the subject. Then, you'll be able to see the records, compare them with your own understanding and be able to come to a logical conclusion. It can be interesting and fun. And, who knows, maybe you're not too old to become an engineer yourself?

There's one question about the Apollo space program that I'm still a little puzzled about... they were planning to have a few more missions to the Moon - Apollo 18, 19, and 20. Most of hardware was already built but they canclled the final three landings anyway and used some of the hardware for Skylab space station and the Apollo-Soyuz test project. Some people say, NASA saw aliens on the moon, or similar stuff. I'm not sure what there was, but something doesn't really add up there. Official explanations also make little sense to me. However, I'm comfortable with the notion of not knowing for sure. So, regarding those last three missions, I say, I don't know...

P.S. By the way, Russia is NOT questioning the lunar landings. They had a secret lunar effort themselves which failed. And they had extensively followed Apollo missions and they would have debunked them had they been a fake.