Why Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets are likely to beat NASA to Mars

The big thinkers behind National Geographic Channel’s 'MARS' series convinced Sue de Groot that humans will live on the Red Planet in the not-too-distant future

In 2033, when Donald Trump is no longer president of the United States, the first group of humans will establish a settlement on Mars. That's according to National Geographic Channel's six-part docu-series MARS, which starts broadcasting this week in 171 countries.

In New York two weeks ago, some of the "big thinkers" behind both the TV series and the real Mars project gathered in white domes, simulating those that will be erected on Mars, to exchange views. They may share the same objective, but they have different ideas about when we will get there, why we're going and what it means for humanity.

THE MONEY MAN

Chief optimist and bankroller of the Mars mission is South Africa-born Elon Musk, whose presence looms large in How We'll Live on Mars, the book by science writer and unofficial Mars-mission spokesman Stephen Petranek.

Petranek's book opens with the imagined scenario in which a commercial rocket ship has beaten Nasa to Mars. In a chapter headed "The Great Private Space Race" he reveals how individuals have accelerated the space race and created a competitive environment.

He mentions the Dutch organisation Mars One, which has picked people (including South African physicist Adriana Marais) for a one-way trip to Mars in 2025, to be funded by selling broadcast rights. As Petranek points out, however, the group does not yet have a spacecraft on which to send its potential astronauts.

story_article_left1

Then there is wealthy American engineer Dennis Tito, who plans to send a married couple to orbit Mars in about 2020, but "No usable rocket yet exists that could perform the feat," says Petranek.

Others in the picture are British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and internet gorillionaires Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen and Larry Page.

Petranek says: "Although there is no shortage of private projects intending to send people to Mars, only one company can currently make a realistic promise to deliver human bodies to the Red Planet before Nasa finally gets around to it."

That company is SpaceX, founded by Musk with profits from his PayPal and Zip2 successes. On Earth, Musk's Tesla car is revolutionising sustainable automotive transport. On Mars, he plans to do the same for humans. His way of reducing the costs involved sounds deceptively simple: reusable rockets.

In an address to the Royal Aeronautical Society in London in 2012, Musk compared the "activation costs" of a Mars settlement to the British Empire's colonisation of places such as Saint Helena. "It took quite a bit of effort to get the basics established before the subsequent economics made sense," he said.

He is bullish about the scope and time frame of this vision. "We're not designing a system to send a handful of people," he told Petranek. "We're designing a Mars colonial transport system ... establishing a self-sustaining colony on Mars ... In the course of 20 or 30 years there would be 40,000 or 50,000 people there."

Musk did not attend the press conference in New York. Petranek was there, however, brimming with boyish enthusiasm. He predicts that the Mars landing date will be as early as 2027. Others disagree.

WATCH a preview of the first five minutes of National Geographic Channel’s series MARS

THE ELDER STATESMAN

John Logsdon, professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, director of the university's Space Policy Institute for two decades and former member of Nasa's advisory council, exudes the thoughtful gravitas of Hollywood greats Jason Robards and Paul Scofield. In a voice like slow-poured molasses, he praised the involvement of private enterprise in space exploration but was gently dubious about projected dates.

"You have the real enthusiasts like Mr Musk, who says the mid-2020s. I don't find that plausible," said Logsdon. "Nasa is targeting the end of the 2030s, start of 2040s, for the first landing.

Lockheed Martin has proposed an orbital mission, not landing, in 2028 ... the reality is that these things always take longer than we hoped they would. We don't - as we did in the 1960s - have a presidential mandate that says 'Get there before the end of the decade', so we'll go when we're ready, and I think it'll take a long time to get ready."

Logsdon was involved in the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon in 1969. That project was fired by a different kind of competition - the determination of the US to get there before the Soviet Union did.

"In 1968 the decision to send a mission around the moon was made in a day," said Logsdon. "We couldn't do that any more. We have more bureaucracy now." That and better international relations have seen a drop-off in government funding for space exploration.

"Apollo got 4% of the government's budget," said Logsdon. "Nasa now gets 0.5%. It's still a lot of money, but it's far less of a national commitment, and that's one of the reasons the demand for co-operation from other countries is so important. I do hope that's an early-agenda item for the next president." (Note: this was two weeks ago; Logsdon also referred to the "next president" as "she".)

full_story_image_hleft1

WHY?

The first question almost anyone asks is: "Why spend all these billions on Mars when there is so much to be fixed on Earth?" Those backing colonisation efforts have been asked this so often, their answers are well-rehearsed.

There is much talk of how investment in technology to make Mars habitable will have positive spin-offs for survival in harsh places on Earth. Musk's aim is to bring the cost of moving to Mars down to "the half-a-million dollar range"; Nasa's programme has diversity as one of its watchwords.

Petranek calls it "nothing less than an insurance policy for humanity", saying: "When the first humans set foot on Mars, the moment will be more significant in terms of technology, philosophy, history and exploration than any that have come before it, all because we will no longer be a one-planet species."

block_quotes_start Why should we do it? Because we're humans. Because we need frontiers to challenge us block_quotes_end

Musk says in an episode of the series: "The future of humanity is fundamentally going to bifurcate along one of two directions: either we're going to become a multiplanet species and a space-faring civilisation, or we're going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event. In order for me to be excited and inspired about the future, it's got to be the first option."

Logsdon puts it more bluntly. "Why should we do it? Because we're humans. Because we need frontiers to challenge us. If you spend a lot of money in a technological sector, you're going to make progress, and some of that progress will have earthbound benefits, but that's not why we do it. We do it because it's there, and because we are a species that thrives on challenges."

full_story_image_hleft2

WHO?

Whether it is good for the world, who will fund it and how long it will be before humans live on Mars are all secondary questions when it comes to the mechanics involved and the vulnerabilities that Mars settlers will face.

There are countless obstacles to be overcome before the first astronauts set off on an eight-month journey in a confined, shared space. Once there they will have to find water, make oxygen, grow food, not get sick and live in close, co-dependent proximity without killing each other.

If the physical challenges are massive, so are the psychological factors. Dr David Dinges, a professor in the psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania who works with Nasa in studying human behaviour on space missions, says it is very difficult to develop a test for the right personality type.

story_article_right2

"They don't use the phrase 'the right stuff' any more," he says, "but they're still looking for who's the best to go, not just from the standpoint of the skills set of the person. When we put outstanding people through very difficult challenges like that, some cope incredibly well - they maintain their cognitive functioning, their psychological state, sleep, everything - and others have increasing difficulty. Repeat tests show that these individual differences in how we operate under prolonged stressors are phenotypic, they are stable traits that look genetic.

"We know there are biological differences in resilience - psychological, emotional, behavioural resilience, it's all the brain - and we have to identify people who have that naturally." Dinges says some will be automatically unsuited to a mission where the participants will spend 240 days packed together in a space of about 25m³.

"Uncontrolled anger, a lot of anxiety, a tendency towards getting depressed or withdrawing, an inability to get along with people, narcissistic personalities ... those are the easy, low-hanging-fruits you can immediately say no to."

There is also a question of physical functioning. "You could be really optimal psychologically for a long-duration mission," says Dinges. "You could have all the characteristics in terms of coping with your own reactions and with other crew members and ground control, but be highly vulnerable to space radiation, or to muscle-wasting, or inter-cranial pressure.

"We're not just selecting for psychological health, we're selecting for all these other things. We want to pick the most resilient people, and we're not there yet. We don't yet have a check list."

SPACE VOYEURS

"I think most people would agree, even if they don't intend to go themselves, that if we're spending something between a quarter to a half a percent of GDP on establishing a self-sustaining civilisation on another planet, it is probably worth doing ... plus it would be a fun adventure to watch even if you don't participate," Musk said in his 2012 speech.

MARS is the opposite of Survivor because its protagonists have to co-operate, collaborate and get along if they are to stay alive. There are some big names behind the series - the executive producers are Brian Grazer and Ron Howard of Imagine Entertainment - but it stars a diverse group of multicultural and largely unknown actors as the astronauts and the narrative is intercut by documentary footage and interviews with the big thinkers behind the real-life initiatives.

MARS aims to give a realistic representation of how things will play out, but there are rich pickings for fantasists in terms of what might go wrong, and some of this is mined to add drama to the series.

As the red stain of Trump's victory crept over the US election map, some might have pledged large donations to projects offering a way to get off Earth. Others might be hesitant about moving to a place known as the Red Planet. But this is probably still preferable to Mars's alternative nickname: the Planet of War.

'MARS' premieres on National Geographic Channel (DStv channel 181) on November 13 2016 at 8:05pm