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Comment by avar | Hacker News Reader

A much more cost-effective way of dealing with radiation on Mars is to construct shelters out of something that doesn't shield against radiation at all, then only pick astronauts who are smokers, and send them to Mars without cigarettes[1].

For the smokers sent to Mars living in flimsy shelters this'll decrease their lifetime odds of dying from cancer compared to smoking two packs a day and staying on Earth.

This article like so many others describes designs for Mars habitats that are optimized for being accepted under NASA's strict safety rules, and it's an organization run by safety-obsessed bureaucrats.

I predict that once the second space race kicks off in earnest these unpractical restrictions are going to be quickly dismissed, because NASA's going to have to compete with e.g. China which'll likely use much simpler designs because they're realistic about their risk assessments.

1. https://www.space.com/21813-mars-one-colony-space-radiation....

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much simpler designs

Simpler than a water reservoir and regolith sandbags? The former is required anyways, since people will need water, and the later is about as simple as it comes (we use sandbags here on earth all the time for impromptu buildings).

There's a world of difference between trying to build a house on Mars, and trying to build a house whose every external wall is a water tank, having that water tank also be an active water source (as opposed to a frozen block of ice) is going to be a construction and maintenance / cleaning nightmare.

Even just regolith sandbags are going to suck, instead of just having your roof be a simple pressure vessel it's now going to also have to withstand tons of sandbags and water tanks.

And that's before we get to the problem of trying to either ship all of this extra water mass over, or trying to mine it locally, or the construction logistics of piling up hundreds of tons of sand.

All of this will be needed eventually, but it's absurd that NASA is trying to get in the way of Mars colonization by setting these overly conservative safety requirements which'll significantly hinder initial colonization efforts.

Eh- the structure carrying problem- was kind of answered in your own post. We regularly build roads out of ice- and ice infused with carbon has the strength of steel. So frozen beams of water carrying the sandbags it is?

Also - the simple designs have a problem here- they are not easily repairable with local materials. And as you can see on any airplane- those simple soda can designs- wear out pretty fast, if pressure changes regularly. So, yeah- its a simpler design as in - simpler on earth to maintain, but on Mars its going to blow up like Mark Rodneys Potatoefarm from stress around the airlocks.

We regularly build lots of heavy and complicated things, building them on Mars is going to be a problem. The biggest thing we've shipped there so far is the size of a small car.

The process of colonizing Mars should be that we realistically look at how much payload we can send up there, how much it costs, and then we find some adventurers willing to take risks to go.

I don't think it's unrealistic to say as a first approximation that the first people to land on Mars can expect a 10% chance of dying by just trying to get there, and 30% of dying early due to some complications, e.g. radiation exposure.

Those would have been fantastic odds when the New World was first colonized, or when soldiers landed on Omaha beach. Colonizing Mars needs to be looked at like that, not in terms of sending some government employee into a dangerous situation, as if though they're going to repair some machinery here on Earth.

Instead, NASA views their rules on safety as immutable, and is coming up with designs for habitats and ships to satisfy those rules, without ever having the discussion that perhaps those rules are unreasonable given the endeavour.

Actually, the friendly article doesn't even mention radiation: their designs are built around internal pressure, thermal differences and micrometeorite protection.

Must be my vivid imagination:

    > Within the root network, residents will have
    > their private spaces protected from harsh
    > radiation, meteoroid impact, and thermal
    > environment.
    > [...]
    > The radiation protection will be enhanced by
    > the inclusion of a layer in the shield
    > consisting of a water reservoir.
    > [...]
    > This [regolith layer] layer can also serve
    > as shielding from solar and cosmic radiation
    > fields. The thickness of the layer would be
    > variable, with thicker construction in the
    > directions with greater sun exposure.
    > [...]
    > The weight of the regolith sandbags will
    > provide protection from radiation and
    > impact;

If they're not worried about radiation why would they construct walls that are thicker on the side that faces the sun?

Another option is to send astronauts who do not have a long life expectancy on earth. They'll be going on a one way trip, but their lives won't be shorter than if they stayed on earth.

I bet there'd be a lot of people with short life expectancies who'd want to spend what they have left embarking on the greatest adventure in history.

What kind of terminal disease would you want to die from on a planet with only basic health care?

You don't get to pick your terminal disease. But you do get to pick what you do with your limited time after diagnosis. And I would put the quality-adjusted life year measure of time as a Martian pioneer really high. I would also put the same measure really low if I was stuck in a terrestrial hospital bed.

If they are chain smoking alcoholics in addition you also won't have to worry about their mental state ')

So the first Mars colony is going to be like an early 20th century writers retreat?

More like 18th century America ...

(Not actually joking ... 18th century America consumed very large quantities of alcohol and tobacco).

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