I’m a semifinalist for the MA365 mission (a one year simulation of Mars exploration). We now need to do a video to answer some questions such as “Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?” (see my answer below). The Mars Society will chose 18 finalists that will be split in 3 teams. In august 2014, they (we?) will go to Devon Island during two weeks and they will pick the best team. This team of 6 will then do a simulation of Mars exploration during 365 days starting in July 2015. You can contribute to the project by giving money (in exchange for gifts) in the indiegogo campaign: this will help us to buy better equipment.
my answer to “Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?” or as asked in the post “Why this project and not others?” (note: I would like to hear your answers too)
I think space exploration in general has a lot of benefits: it improves our understanding of the history of our solar system and it pushes us to develop new technologies that often become useful on Earth. I think the next step in space exploration is to send humans to Mars because it’s probably the easiest and most interesting planet to explore in our solar system because it has some similarity with the Earth. I also think that sending humans to Mars will inspire more people to go study in science and technology, which will in turn improve humans’ well being and life expectancy. Finally, I think that if we succeed to colonize Mars, it will be a good fallback position in case of an existential catastrophe happening on Earth.
I think the first manned mission to Mars will probably be in the next decade, so we need to prepare ourselves. For example, Inspiration Mars (www.inspirationmars.org) wants to send a couple to fly within 100 miles of Mars in 2018; Mars One (www.mars-one.com) wants to start sending humans to Mars in 2024 and let them there indefinitely. The USA, the Russian and the European space agencies are also planning manned missions to Mars relatively soon. So the research done by The Mars Society, such as this mission, will be really useful to all of these organisations.
I’m a semifinalist for the MA365 mission (a one year simulation of Mars exploration). We now need to do a video to answer some questions such as “Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?” (see my answer below). The Mars Society will chose 18 finalists that will be split in 3 teams. In august 2014, they (we?) will go to Devon Island during two weeks and they will pick the best team. This team of 6 will then do a simulation of Mars exploration during 365 days starting in July 2015. You can contribute to the project by giving money (in exchange for gifts) in the indiegogo campaign: this will help us to buy better equipment.
my answer to “Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?” or as asked in the post “Why this project and not others?” (note: I would like to hear your answers too)
I think space exploration in general has a lot of benefits: it improves our understanding of the history of our solar system and it pushes us to develop new technologies that often become useful on Earth. I think the next step in space exploration is to send humans to Mars because it’s probably the easiest and most interesting planet to explore in our solar system because it has some similarity with the Earth. I also think that sending humans to Mars will inspire more people to go study in science and technology, which will in turn improve humans’ well being and life expectancy. Finally, I think that if we succeed to colonize Mars, it will be a good fallback position in case of an existential catastrophe happening on Earth.
I think the first manned mission to Mars will probably be in the next decade, so we need to prepare ourselves. For example, Inspiration Mars (www.inspirationmars.org) wants to send a couple to fly within 100 miles of Mars in 2018; Mars One (www.mars-one.com) wants to start sending humans to Mars in 2024 and let them there indefinitely. The USA, the Russian and the European space agencies are also planning manned missions to Mars relatively soon. So the research done by The Mars Society, such as this mission, will be really useful to all of these organisations.