Married Mission To Mars

[Deepwater6]

http://www.space.com/19981-private-mars-mission-married-2018.html

 

I always had a sense that it would be the space miners who would leave near Earth orbit first. This may still be the case as this project has a lot of issues to overcome, 2018 would be a good opportunity.

 

I'm not in agreement with the married couple idea. I think it would take a special kind of relationship. This couple would have to be choosen very carefully. I can't speak for all married couples, but from my own experience it wouldn't work out too well.

 

My reasoning for this is, while my spouse and I enjoy a very congenial relationship things tend to change when we work on a project together. Evidence for this is the annual argument about what's wrong with the Chritmas lights, the shouting match when we are tasked with assembling a new piece of furniture, or the war over driving directions. The latter may be important when heading to Mars.

 

Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?

[Eclogite]

God bless capitalism. I am a left wing, tree hugging, animal rights, died in the wool socialist, who feels Lenin was dangerously right wing. However, all praise to Mr Tito for having the vision and the balls and at least some of the money to give the human race a boot up the backside by having us reinvest in our spirit of adventure and exploration. This could be the transforming moment for space exploration and thus for the future of the human race.

 

I even have a way of cutting down on the necessary supplies that would be taken. If my wife and I are selected I can pretty well assure you that supplies for two will not be needed after about 100 days.

[moonguy]

Couples would not necessarily be chosen to 'work on the same project'.  They would have different jobs within the context of a colonization effort.  One being an IT manager while the other is a hydroponicist is an example.  

[james1st]

Hmmm, I see some interesting comments here, many of which I totally agree with. I wonder if anyone has given thought to sending two women with a vial of frozen male sperm.

[Cyberia]

Any relationship would have to survive 5-10 months cooped up in a tiny room with each other, getting to Mars.

[CraigD]

Any relationship would have to survive 5-10 months cooped up in a tiny room with each other, getting to Mars.

Though its longest, 520-day simulated mission was crewed only by men, so doesn’t much resemble Tito’s idea of including married mixed-sex couples, the Mars-500 experiment showed pretty conclusively, I think, that humans are able to survive being cooped up with one another for long spaceflights.

[Deepwater6]

http://www.space.com/16735-gay-astronauts-sally-ride.html

 

Other than Sally Ride, I don't know of any other known homosexuals that have gone into space. With all the trips and all the people that have gone up in recent years I'm sure there have been others. As the article states NASA is not keen on the subject and the agency doesn't need anymore problems than it already has.

 

Although homosexuals have made great strides in recent years, Such as employee benefits, and marriage I don't think the public could handle a mission to Mars with a gay couple. I'm not arguing for or against it, I just feel the public would not be in a place where they would appreciate it. To give the mission the best chance for success I would think it prudent to explore this in something similar to the experiment Craig referenced above.

 

I think it must come down to the mindset of the travelers. They must understand that after launch their life, their entire world is now in a spaceship, and it very well could be a one way trip. There are plenty of candidates willing to do that. If you have people who want to come back, who need to come back, who can't wait to get back it will just add to the stress. Be it a married couple of any kind.

 

One highlight though, making love in space,  both parties can claim to be on top.

 

For me I would need someone who can appreciate solitude if I was going to make it. :blahblahblah:  :blahblahblah:  :blahblahblah:

[CraigD]

Other than Sally Ride, I don't know of any other known homosexuals that have gone into space. With all the trips and all the people that have gone up in recent years I'm sure there have been others. As the article states NASA is not keen on the subject and the agency doesn't need anymore problems than it already has.

I don’t think the Why Aren't There Any Openly Gay Astronauts?” Space.com article suggests that the NASA agency would have problems with an openly gay astronaut, but that astronauts themselves are very careful to avoid giving any appearance of impropriety. Though the article doesn’t broach the subject, based on what I’ve read about how competitive the astronaut program is, I think this carefulness is as much or more about astronaut candidates wanting to stay in the program and get flights than about besmirching NASA’s image.

 

NASA’s image seems pretty resilient to me, as it survived with little lasting effect the bizarre (I found the reference to it by searching for “diaper astronaut crime”), heavily reported scandal around astronaut Lisa Nowak attempting to kidnap and torture space engineer Colleen Shipman over a soured love triangle with involving astronaut William Oefelein.

 

Although homosexuals have made great strides in recent years, Such as employee benefits, and marriage I don't think the public could handle a mission to Mars with a gay couple.

I disagree. Acceptance of homosexuals in all areas is, I think, on the rise, perhaps even approaching the apex of a public opinion pendulum swing where many people claims greater acceptance than they actually feel. An astronaut candidate coming out as gay now might result in them being more, not less, likely to get flights, and publicizing their sexual orientation garner more positive publicity for NASA than negative.

 

There’s also a demographic component to acceptance of homosexuality, younger people being more accepting than older, and strong disapproval being most prevalent in the oldest, fastest disappearing (as they die) part of the population. As manned Mars missions are likely 10+ years in the future, I expect acceptance of homosexuality will be even higher when crews selection for those missions occur than now.

 

To give the mission the best chance for success I would think it prudent to explore this in something similar to the experiment Craig referenced above.

Though I’m all for experiments like Mars-500, I can think of some reasons it’s unlikely to be repeated with openly gay participants.

 

First, the Mars-500 experiment was conducted in Moscow, Russia, where official and public acceptance of homosexuality is much lower than in the US and Europe.

 

Most telling, Mars-500 planners chose not to have a mixed male/female crew for the longest, 500 day mission, stating unofficialy that this was to “prevent sexual tension”. (see the 2009 UK Daily Mail article "Women excluded from 'Mars mission' crew to prevent sexual tension ruining 105-day voyage") Presumably, this tension would be as great among a same-gender crew including homosexuals, as among a mixed-gender crew of heterosexuals.

 

The Mars-500 project appears to have taken an approach to anticipated “sexual tension” problems fairly opposite the one Dennis Tito expressed in “Wanted: Married Couple for Private Mars Voyage in 2018”, the Mars-500 planners concluding that the best solution was to avoid the possibility of sex, Tito that it is to keep it within the framework of marriage.

 

Given that the Mars-500 project was successful, I accept their conclusion over Tito’s. Mars-500 showed that a human crew was able to endure 500 days of spaceship-like confinement without the need for sex, or much ill effect from its absence.

 

I think it must come down to the mindset of the travelers. They must understand that after launch their life, their entire world is now in a spaceship, and it very well could be a one way trip.

“One way trip” brings to mind the Bas Lansdorp’s 2012 Mars One project, which proposes just that – to expedite manned missions to Mars by not including a return phase. It’s proposed colonists are expected to spend the rest of their lives on Mars.

 

Lansdorp has a good point about one-way missions being technically easier than two-way ones, but his faith in the ability of a small number of colonists to survive indefinitely on Mars is IMHO dangerously unproven, and harder to prove than that people can remain psychologically sound for many hundreds-of-days spaceflight. Still, he has a lot of volunteer colonist candidates, and an interesting approach to funding the project – colonists no only give their lives to the program, but all of their money. If the program can attract enough rich people, it should succeed, at least financially.

 

The Mars One colonists are planned to be mixed-gender, and to conceive and have children on Mars.

[Pyrotex]

My personal belief is that long duration space missions should include at least two trained psychologists who are also "comfort buddies".  That is to say, they would be available to the crew for the relief of said "sexual tensions".  Ideally, they would be one male and one female, attractive, and both bisexual.