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NASA will pay $5000 for your best ideas on what you'd need to survive on Mars

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NASA will pay $US5000 for your best ideas on what you'd need to survive on Mars | Business Insider

NASA’s mission to put humans on Mars now includes crowdsourcing ideas about how they could survive the 500-day resupply schedule while living on the Red Planet. Today, the agency announced it would award three $US5000 prizes, asking members of the public to write down their ideas, in detail, for developing the elements of space pioneering necessary to establish a continuous human presence on the Red Planet." This could include shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interactions and medicine, but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative elements beyond these examples.

If you’re interested, your idea for a surface system should be “technically achievable, economically sustainable, and minimize reliance on support from Earth." NASA’s aiming for humans to step onto the surface of Mars some time in the 2030s. It officially launched its “Next Giant Leap” programme in December last year, taking the wraps off the next-generation Orion spacecraft and announcing that the Space Launch System (SLS) launching it will be the largest rocket ever built.

NASA is currently running its Evolvable Mars Campaign, which deals with how to break apart habitation challenges both in transit to Mars and on its surface. And astronauts aboard the ISS are currently researching the health impacts of extended space travel. The agency hopes to build reusable space capabilities and in maintaining a permanent human presence in deep space, it hopes humanity be able to “push out into the solar system to stay”.

You’ve got until June 7 to pitch your ideas.
 
I would hate to be the guy at NASA who has to read through the entries to figure out what the good ones are. There will be some really dumb stuff.

That said, that this is actually happening is super duper exciting. You can absolutely 100% count me out of wanting to actually go to Mars but it's unbelievable cool that we want to send people there and there is a timeline in place!
 
You can absolutely 100% count me out of wanting to actually go to Mars but it's unbelievable cool that we want to send people there and there is a timeline in place!

I don't believe that these trips have to be one way. They say it's one way because we won't have the infrastructure on Mars to blast a shuttle into space, but if we develop better Earth to orbit technology it would be possible to get back into space with just a runway.
 
Fantastic, NASA going to the general uneducated and uninformed public on what is needed to survive on Mars. What could possibly go wrong?

(More tax payer dollars wasted on epic stupidity. What is next? Asking the general public on the best Celestial Navigation methods to avoid ending up in the Sun?)
 
It's like they are just trying to come up with ideas to waste money at this point.
 
It's like they are just trying to come up with ideas to waste money at this point.

I say we put an over/under at 100,000 times the general public lists something having to do with porn.
 
NASA has no business spending one tax dollar to plan a 'humaned' trip to Mars.

THis has almost no practical use for humankind - it is just a waving the flag, ego boost.

If that is what Americans want - fine...then let them pay for it directly.

It is absolute nonsense that taxpayers who are having trouble making ends meet have to have their tax dollars going towards some Mars mission if they have zero interest in it.


Don't get me wrong, a mission to Mars would be extremely interesting and maybe I might fork over a dollar or two for it...but it needs to be funded 100% privately...not with taxpayer dollars.

It's unnecessary stuff like this that (in a small way) helps America go over $18 trillion into debt.
 
Fantastic, NASA going to the general uneducated and uninformed public on what is needed to survive on Mars. What could possibly go wrong?

(More tax payer dollars wasted on epic stupidity. What is next? Asking the general public on the best Celestial Navigation methods to avoid ending up in the Sun?)

Trying to get creative ideas from enormous groups of people is not a waste of time. Lots of people have lots of perspective and can very possibly add insight NASA had not considered.
 
Fantastic, NASA going to the general uneducated and uninformed public on what is needed to survive on Mars. What could possibly go wrong?

(More tax payer dollars wasted on epic stupidity. What is next? Asking the general public on the best Celestial Navigation methods to avoid ending up in the Sun?)
Not much different that getting the minimum bid vendor to build it.:mrgreen:
 
No brainer.

10-11-12-mars-bar.jpg
 
NASA has no business spending one tax dollar to plan a 'humaned' trip to Mars.

THis has almost no practical use for humankind - it is just a waving the flag, ego boost.

If that is what Americans want - fine...then let them pay for it directly.

It is absolute nonsense that taxpayers who are having trouble making ends meet have to have their tax dollars going towards some Mars mission if they have zero interest in it.


Don't get me wrong, a mission to Mars would be extremely interesting and maybe I might fork over a dollar or two for it...but it needs to be funded 100% privately...not with taxpayer dollars.

It's unnecessary stuff like this that (in a small way) helps America go over $18 trillion into debt.

Relying on the private sector does not work when there is no clear way to make money. It is exploration for the sake of exploration, and profit driven corporations are not interested in that. Just because there is no money to make (yet) does not mean it's not a worthwhile venture. The benefits of scientific endeavors are usually a generation or more away. If you're worried about our multi-trillion dollar debt you should be looking at the military-industrial complex, not NASA.
 
Relying on the private sector does not work when there is no clear way to make money. It is exploration for the sake of exploration, and profit driven corporations are not interested in that. Just because there is no money to make (yet) does not mean it's not a worthwhile venture. The benefits of scientific endeavors are usually a generation or more away. If you're worried about our multi-trillion dollar debt you should be looking at the military-industrial complex, not NASA.

If you want to explore space then get out your pocketbook and spend however much you want on it. I don't care about space exploration and I don't want to spend anything on it.
 
If you want to explore space then get out your pocketbook and spend however much you want on it. I don't care about space exploration and I don't want to spend anything on it.

Unfortunately for you you live and pay taxes in a country filled with people that do care about space exploration. Sorry about your luck. The future of humanity lies in space; people like you are holding our entire species back.
 
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Unfortunately for you you live and pay taxes in a country filled with people that do care about space exploration. Sorry about your luck.

Sounds like you have a lot of potentional partners in your efforts to explore space. Why do you need me again? Oh right, you're too lazy to do it without government.
 
Sounds like you have a lot of potentional partners in your efforts to explore space. Why do you need me again? Oh right, you're too lazy to do it without government.

It's kind of sad that you don't understand how important space exploration is to our future.
 
It's kind of sad that you don't understand how important space exploration is to our future.

It's kind of sad that you think I should care about something that won't affect me. :shrug:
 
It's kind of sad that you think I should care about something that won't affect me. :shrug:

Your inability to think beyond yourself is the difference between you and me.
 
NASA will pay $5000 for your best ideas on what you'd need to survive on Mars

nah. the ISP would suck even more than Hughesnet, and they'd probably make us all be teetotalers because of trivial **** like "vehicle weight" and "essentials." plus, from what i've read, this is a one way ticket.

nope.
 
Fantastic, NASA going to the general uneducated and uninformed public on what is needed to survive on Mars. What could possibly go wrong?

(More tax payer dollars wasted on epic stupidity. What is next? Asking the general public on the best Celestial Navigation methods to avoid ending up in the Sun?)

Agreed.

Imo, NASA does not give a rats buttock what the public thinks...I think this is just their way of trying to keep the public interested so that NASA can continue to get funding.

I would not be shocked if they put all the public's ideas in a box, take out 10 at random (so they can appear like they actually care) and throw the rest away.
 
Your inability to think beyond yourself is the difference between you and me.

NASA seems to have always been supported by people that are scared of some horrible future where the human race is going to die in some sort of disaster or die from starvation in the far distant future. Somehow people think that these fears justify spending ungodly amounts of money on stupid crap like sending people to the moon or going to mars that have nothing what so ever to do with anything that could help the human race or offer any sort of returns for the money spent at all. I honestly don't care about what will happen in some far distant future that I won't be part of and I honestly don't care to limit my happiness to work towards solving some fear someone has towards it.
 
The first space shuttle was named by the public. That this stuff is PR-related does not mean that it cannot also be interesting or fun to be involved in.
 
NASA seems to have always been supported by people that are scared of some horrible future where the human race is going to die in some sort of disaster or die from starvation in the far distant future. Somehow people think that these fears justify spending ungodly amounts of money on stupid crap like going on sending people to the moon or going to mars that have nothing what so ever to do with anything that could help the human race or offer any sort of returns for the money spent at all. I honestly don't care about what will happen in some far distant future that I won't be part of and I honestly don't care to limit my happiness to work towards some solving some fear someone has towards it.

Ungodly amounts of money? We give NASA well below 1% of our national budget. You need to look towards the military if you want to stop ridiculous and unnecessary spending. Also, it's more than just being afraid of something happening to Earth. We will someday be getting our resources from space. We will colonize other planets and achieve things beyond what any of us today could imagine. Your selfishness is hindering the progress of humanity.
 
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plus, from what i've read, this is a one way ticket.

For now, but all we'd need to do is figure out a way to get a shuttle into space from a runway instead of having to blast it up. That's the only reason we wouldn't be able to send people back.
 
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