Can Humans Get to Mars Without Going Insane?
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Space: The Longest Goodbye on Independent Lens: pbs.org/longes... | #LongestGoodbyePBS
Humanity's first Martian explorers will face extreme confinement, isolation and disruption of all bodily rhythms. The psychological stress from all of this could lead to a breakdown of social order among those on the mission - even mutiny. How can future astronauts best prepare themselves to face these challenges? And are there lessons that can be learned about this from terrestrial explorers of the past?
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Humans can’t even get to Earth without going insane.
I think it might literally be impossible for 6 people to travel in a confined space for 6 months
@@quistador7lol this is all hilarious! Go listen to the stories of Florida State Prison solitary confinement...people in there for years and years...
6 months on the way to Mars would be a cake walk
Tell me you've never been locked up without telling us. They have a regular problem with people coming out of solitary completely insane.
@@johnphantom I've actually done two months so sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Being able to find 2-3 cool people out of a cell block with 50-100 is easy bro. They have to match up 6 people that can mesh for 6 straight months, but they aren't just random ass criminals who all share low IQs and bad behavior. These will be the brightest and best astronauts we can possibly pull from humanity. It's going to be one of the toughest challenges mankind has EVER done.
That is what I came to comment, we are bat shit crazy literally already.
The obvious solution is to bring plenty of cats.
Meoooww😻😻😻
Yes!! That way when the crew does go insane and everyone dies, the cats can survive on the bodies, land on Mars, and create a planet of super-cats...it'd be like Planet Of The Apes, but more fluffy and adorable!!
Someone, PLEASE make this movie lol
Someone needs to create a cat shaped spacesuit.
Yes the humans will have to feed and pet the cats so that will keep the humans busy and from ending each other. Also if they run into Alien, the cats will help them like Sigorney Weaver. Just have to figure out how to build an antigravity litter box.
That sounds like hell 😳
The Hawaiian "Mars mission" should've continued after the loss of the two members. Two "deaths" on that kind of scenario is extremely likely. There could be more to learn, especially if only one member continued for the last year.
Yeah I'm not sure why they shut down the experiment. But they're probably not telling us everything. It was probably turning into the Stanford Prison Experiment 💀
Yeah and number 2 should never be asked back, ending the mission because someone got electrocuted wtf how would they manage going to mars 😂😂
@@xgtwb6473Exactly. On mars there is no back button or early leave due to stress. That mission was either unregulated legally or just unprofessional.
@@tsrmmercy836unfortunately it was a woman & what they don't say loudly is that women really aren't psychologically capable to handle such environments
Well said! I was extremely disappointed as well and was vibing with the dude in the video. You can clearly see he also understands the opportunity that was missed. They really could’ve pushed those remaining 2 and got some incredible insight. The only logical reason I can think of why they didn’t take advantage of this was because the experiment was probably contaminated. They would have had to interact with outsiders, and with the 2nd person throwing in the towel they would have had to again interact in a way that taints the results (even though it really shouldn’t have mattered in the long run)
I was reading about the Soviet/Russian missions to Antarctica and apparently at their most isolated “Vostok” base, two scientists had an argument over a game of chess which escalated to one assaulting the other with an ice-axe… and now chess is banned at Russian Antarctic bases.
So to everyone suggesting sending games on long missions, I imagine selecting which games might be important
Definitely not chess.
league and csgo, no doubt
Games like Pandemic that involve cooperation rather than competition sound like a good idea!
@@CritterKeeper01 Cooperation as in infecting each other, or cooperation as in fighting over whether they should vaccinate and wear masks? Just curious what type of "cooperation" you're referring to.
@@andywest5773 It's a game. It gets used a lot as an example of cooperative game play, as opposed to competitive, that is still a lot of fun to play!
“The good news is we landed on Mars; the bad news is the crew is holding the captain hostage & has a list of demands.” - NASA
“Can humans go to Mars without going insane-“
Hells no. We’re plenty insane as a species.
I saw the title, and I thought, I'm already insane, when do I go?
I was born in 1965. I've been insane since at least 1970.
The van Allen belt is what they can't get through to much radiation
can't get down the shops without going mental at least once
There is nothing on Mars and yes we know that. Saying there "might" be something there just displays your ignorance.
Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle. The obvious choice is to look for the "most social" humans. And sure, they will sing and cook together for 2 weeks but then they are burned out. What if insted you pick the biggest introverts and make sure everyone has a personal space to retreat to. Fill it with a Playstation, an E-Reader or whatever the person is into and I'm sure there are plenty people who could be stuck like that for months.
Maybe. But the problem is they will have to actually talk to each other at some point
Introverts would hate this mission more than anyone locked in there tight quarters with other humans and there might be a terrifying horrifying incident where eye contact is accidentally made 😳
Yeah but a spaceship crew will have to interact with each other all the time, it's necessary to keep the spaceship running. Introverts would hate it.
@@tw8464most introverts will communicate if it's an absolute must. i know because i am one
@@tw8464 Introverts can communicate just fine, but they don’t like small talk.
For every tragic story of a "heroic" explorer killed in a mutiny by his mad crew is a story of a tyrannical narcissist who would sacrifice anyone for his own glory who needed to be put down to save the crew's lives
Yep neccessity
And all the examples are groups of men.
@lenabreijer1311 well yeah.. it was mainly men that did the exploring so what's your point?
@@teppens71 so it is mainly about men. It was basically "Lord of the flies" with adult men, who are socialised in a very different way from women. When you look at survival episodes that include a lot of women the dynamics are very different.
@@lenabreijer1311are you implying men are the problem? Send a group of women and they will all hold hands and get along? Your sexism is blatant
PBS just aired that episode _"Space: The Longest Goodbye"_ and it was really well done. Definitely a must watch if you're into this sort of thing.
PBS normally does quality programming, unlike a lot of the youtube trash out there.
every time i think of crazy things that could happen on a space trip, i think of of that time when NASA almost sent an astronaut 100 tampons for her week long trip 😂
At least we've gotten past wondering whether women can menstruate normally in microgravity 🙄😂
And no pads 😅🤣
Weren't those for everyone tho?
@@Ccyawn123 No, just for one woman, because the person responsible obviously knew nothing about women’s bodies and menstruation.
@@supersleepygrumpybear Would they work without gravity?
At 9:45. The perfect trigger for an entire breakdown of order. That's what happens when you have someone playing a ukulele in a closed system.
Agreed, The bagpipes and an accordion would be better choices.
I went through most of the video thinking "I'm a very patient, logical, and forgiving person. I wonder if I could do a mission like this." Then I saw the ukulele and immediately knew I'd have a problem 🤣
There’s really no room in space for bad music. Over and out.
That has "disaster" written all over it!
Maybe one day VR-like technology will help us with dealing with these kinds of issues. Imagine if it was super realistic, allowing each crew member to escape when they need time to themselves.
Good call.. they could visit their favorite place on Earth in VR for a while and mentally unwind
Didn't they have a space show called virtual reality?
I don't think it's that easy, for one they would know it's fake at the end of the day so it may even have the opposite effect and speedrun their insanity.
The real question should be can humans continue to co-exist on this planet without going insane....
Exactly
If we collectively go insane here, on this beautiful wet, oxygenated, planet we call Earth, that is virtually rippling with life, we are sure to go collectively insane on desolate, toxic, sub-freezing cold, deadly planet of Mars.
@@tw8464 'Exactly' what?
I think people have the capacity to coexist much easier than most realize. The powers-that-be have psyoped us into thinking humanity=bad.
@@fuzzedoutwjon8608It's easier than saying the system is bad. It's just human nature! Ignore the suffering!
Submariners: "hold my bug juice..."
For up to five years without surfacing?
@@davidhoward4715 yeah, some subs are designed for that kind of extended mission. They don't usually stay out THAT long, but it is possible.
@@victoriaeads6126 They NEVER stay out that long. The world record is the HMS Vengeance at 201 days at sea, less than 7 months.
@@williamwolf2844 The record that we know about. I would not be surprised if there's some top secret cruise that went on longer, I'd just wonder about the logistics of keeping it a secret.
Submariners..."Oh yeah. Let's just surface and pop the hatch...on our home planet."
Try again, swabbie...
The parallels of wintering in Antarctica seem to get overlooked by these stories.
Yeah the cold can make you mad
@@Destiny-ig2fsthat's not the worst of it. Let's just say it's best not to head out alone especially if you're a woman.
And at least Antarctica has air, normal atmospheric pressure, normal gravity, a thick atmosphere including an ozone layer above it to protect against harmful radiation from our Sun, in addition to a magnetosphere above to protect against galactic cosmic rays, and of course, plenty of water in the form of (relatively) clean water ice. Mars has none of the above. Yet, no one wants to live permanently in Antarctica. Even though it's a wet, balmy paradise compared to Mars.
@@shibomi1I don't understand this part. What do you mean "especially if you're a woman"? Amundsen Soctt Station is remarkablly desolate due to the cold and absolute zero food sources. Other than the cold and a potential crack to fall into, I don't see any hazards in particular that a woman with a flashlight and sufficient clothing could not deal with.
@@usamong1129- Some women have recently filed lawsuits claiming sexual harassment in a research station at three Arctic. Not sure this is representative of women’s experience up there or how severe the behavior was
Because our current society is so competetive and individualistic. We have the technology, but not the philosophy.
Actually, all the philosphy exists, but our "lizard leaders" are not working to elevate the population.
To be fair we don't even have the technology for this task.
One of the first things that would have to be fine for the screening process of people going on this mission would be to find those that are ambivert in personality social skills. An ambivert is just as fine being alone as a introvert but has the want to be around others. This tendency will allow for the extreme isolation that the crew members will have to deal with but the fact that there is a crew will keep them socially active. If you were to send a pure introvert they wouldn't want to work in a team if you sent an extrovert they'd be so lonely they die. This is why you need to find the best of both worlds someone who can deal with isolation and be perfectly fine but wants to work in a team and is capable of doing so.
That sounds like me weirdly enough. I thought I was just a crazy introvert, but I guess I am a crazy Ambivert.
I thought the ways that celebrating holidays, inventing traditions, and playing games helped keep crews healthy and cohesive is really interesting. As you said: people can’t just “tough it out”, they have to have their needs met to continue functioning well. So we need a good understanding of what those needs are, and openness to the idea that just because not everyone enjoys these things doesn’t mean we don’t need them.
NASA needs to start screening entire teams, not just individuals. Theres no point in sending the 5 best people if they cant get along.
NASA = Never A Straight Answer. Ask Buzz Aldrin what he saw up there on the moon. (Hint, they were enormous, and they _weren't_ ours.)
The crew is the least important (and easiest) part of any future Mars mission.
@@Chris.Davies they are when they are confined together for months on end. even pilots are chosen based on if they are friendly with eachother, and they usually just fly for a few hours
@Chris.Davies No actually just the opposite. This video demonstrates very well that the crew is the most important part of the mission.
Going to Mars is like the rest of your life in a supermax, but without the yard hour🤗
exactly. thats who they should be studying to see how the 'professional' do it. 🙂
Throw in the inescapable smelly celly.....ugh
The talk of generational ships to the stars is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Hm, interesting take. I hope they find a way to combat this. I think Supermax should be not just illegal, it shouldn’t even cross our minds to do that to someone, no matter what. It would be really sad to see us master the technological needs to go out to the stars, but be held back by our biology.
@@ComputerGarageLLCI was thinking the same thing 😂
Just give each astronaut an SD Card with plenty of Games, Anime, Movies, etc. and a Steam Deck. I could be set for YEARS lol
yeah introverts and autists, these people keep talking about the most extroverted, most social people, maybe the wrong direction
@@deathsinger1192No, no matter how introverted you are, without occasional contact with other human beings you WILL go insane.
If you begin to hate 1 of the 4 people you are stuck with for months, it would be disastrous. That is why they look at extroverts and neurotypicals.
@@Adriaticus if everyone goes insane without others, then what about hermits or what about whalers back in the day that didn't set foot on land for years stuck on one ship? Also I wouldn't be stuck with 4 people, I'd simply go alone.
Reminds me of Robert A. Heinlein’s book “Stranger in a Strange Land”. The crew is 4 married couples. The captain gets another wife pregnant. The wife dies giving birth, her husband is the surgeon. The surgeon immediately kills the captain with the bloody scalpel. We don’t find out what happens to the rest of the crew. The baby is raised by native Martians.
Great book.
@@tw8464yeap, great book, fascinating look into psychology and reality.
Were the native Martians humans who were born and raised on Mars, or, um, 'Martians' in the indigenous sense of the term?
There were martians?
@@samr.england613 Completely non-human natives. Written back in the 1960s before we learned how barren Mars was.
Why not load up a future Mars mission with video games so that they can break up the monotony in and mentally disappear for hours every day. Video games have been shown to help with mental acuity. Games also make gamers forget they've been confined to their rooms all day and to eat out drink.
Video games would probably help a lot honestly
Most people need a break from other people occasionally. They don’t want to have to interact constantly.
yeah just give everyone a pc with Minecraft lol
"Electrocution" means when someone dies from an electric shock. If it is not immediately fatal, then the correct term is that they received an electric shock.
But electrocution sounds cooler...
If it stops your heart, but the paramedics revive you, do you get half credit?
Way to dwell on a single world instead of the point in what was said.
@@jd9119they just pointed out an error. It's not dwelling, it's correcting.
@@codymoe4986 technically if it stopped your heart and you had to be revived, it would be electrocution yes.
@@mikacakesNo - ‘electrocuted’ specifically means you died. If you can be recovered by treatment, you weren’t electrocuted, even if the intervention was the deciding factor in survival.
You wouldn’t say someone was ‘executed’ if you meant a non-fatal injury was dealt to them - it’s the same as that.
"Since they're going to go crazy anyway why not just send insane people in the first place and save them the trouble"-Red Mars
I love that series!
If only there were some organisations that already existed where crews were routinely sent on months long deployments with no real time comms...
Seriously, just select submariners and up the crew size a little to improve the fifa competition
there are plenty of people who enjoy solitude but also delight in overcoming challenging collaborations and appreciate the mantle of being an extragalactic paragon for eons to come
there are dozens of us!🎉😊
On my third run with the Blue Crew of an SSBN in 1974 in the North Atlantic, we had a psychiatrist on board. Around the halfway mark of that 78-day run, he had begun to eat with the Enlisted. A fellow Machinist Mate and I were having dinner with him, and he launched into a tirade about how we were all insane. When he paused for breath my friend said, "You are just as crazy as we are." I will never forget the look of shock on his face. He quit eating with us. The next patrol cycle was 100 days: 30 days of refit, and a run of 70 continuous underwater extending submerged time by 10 days.
he was right tho
History is an important guide. Those that dismiss history as irrelevant are ignorant of its importance.
Humans will adapt just fine to long journey's. The explorers who set off in sailing ships for years into the unknown managed to cope with the circumstances. They lived in conditions that modern people would find appalling and still managed to complete their journeys without going insane. They had no idea what they would find and were completely cut off from the rest of humanity for months or even years sometimes.
Mars explorers will be much better equipped and have much better knowledge of where they are going and the hazards. As well as the ability to communicate with delays of only minutes at most.
"The explorers who set off in sailing ships for years into the unknown managed to cope with the circumstances. " - you are ignoring the examples provided in this video. You are also ignoring the obvious - a sailing ship still allows one to go outdoors, bask in the sun or moonlight, breath fresh air, etc.
@@TheDanEdwards Whalers stayed on a ship for 3-5 years without ever going on land.
@@TheDanEdwards
No not ignoring anything.
Sailors went off into the complete unknown. They had no contact with anyone but themselves for months at a time. They didn't know exactly where they were going or what they would find there. They were ignorant of science and still had deep superstitions and deep fears of the unknown. When they put "here be dragons" on a map they weren't being facetious. And no they couldn't get off the boat in the middle of the ocean. Most could not even swim. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. No way to survive off their ships. And yet they coped.
Mars explorers will have it much easier psychologically in comparison to ancient explorers. Human beings, except those pampered from birth as many are these days, are tough, adaptable creatures. Those who have a hard time imagining space explorers coping with space travel are more likely projecting their own fears onto others.
@@TheDanEdwards ok so jist bring gamers with xbox and playstation all the game collections so they can play for 1000 years and theyw ill be fine
Exactly, what I as thinking. This completely ignored all the situations in which men have survived long isolating trips - all types of early explorers. AND we do evolve with the vast expanse of the first people out of Africa. Small groups of hunter-gatherers off to who knows where and no help was coming because they were the first. They did have fresh air though LOL
Never mind getting to Mars, staying there, isolated from humanity, will undoubtedly lead to insanity and social breakdown.
You won’t be saying that when the month of June comes along. Mars ain’t sounding bad.
Mars is *TOO RADIOACTIVE* to be inhabited for any serious length of time or by any large number of people. Crushed a lot of personal dreams when I learned that.
It's not untenable. But the proverbial early days would be rough no doubt. Humanity really needs to get onboard with the simple cold fact that early off world pioneering is going to necessitate eating rads. It'll get better with time but the early the early pioneers are going to suffer more than those that come later.
Even the ISS scientists get to go home, and that still messes with their psychology and physiology. Colonizing Mars is a fool's errand, as our focus should be within, before it starts looking without.
Wherever WE go, there WE are.
just send musk alone
@@travishylton6976 or Trump. Or both.
I hope that the findings from these experiments will compell us to end solitary confinement in our prisons. The U.S. still routinely practices this inhuman treatment of prisoners (a population of which is the largest per capita in the world). Funny how we so easily separate these kinds of challenges in our minds. One is a heroic challenge, full of talk of bravery and promise; the other shameful, full of excuses and denial.
Great point
Uhm, there is one fundamental difference between prisoners and astronauts. Prisoners committed a crime and are being punished for it, astronauts did not commit a crime and do not deserve to be punished. Also, astronauts are at very high risk and performing complex tasks on which their survival depends.
@Leyrann punishment doesn't work. How reformed do you think prisoners currently are upon release?
Is there a standard we should have for treatment of others? Would you put a gorilla in solitary confinement for months with nothing but concrete walls for mental stimulus to punish it? How do you think it would behave after? Do you really think that it would improve the undesirable behavior or would it just make the person that behavior annoyed feel better?
@@Leyrann that doesn't justify inhumane treatment. Detention is one thing - inhumane treatment is another. I know some people are evil for lack of a better word but most are not, and you can't fix evil imo you can just keep them in a facility where they can't do any more harm.
I understand the desire for revenge for truly evil acts, but they are already paying for their choices by losing their future. We don't need to subject them to further harm intentionally. In the worst cases I'm sure they would deserve it, but I'd prefer to let other inmates make that decision. Official prison policies should remain civilized, bec otherwise abusive treatment becomes normalized in general and can be applied to the average inmate.
I believe there are many abusive and unjust standards and policies that are par for the course in most US prisons today. This isn't right.
Most inmates aren't evil per se but disturbed or simply made a wrong choice. Detention may be called for, but intentional abuse is not. Traumatizing someone on purpose is also a crime - and it's no way to attempt to fix someone who may well be fixable. Only actual rehabilitation and getting them to face the consequences of their choices does.
Also, most people are locked up for pretty petty reasons. Not all- but most in my opinion. Once you start learning the facts of the mass industrial incarceration system you'll see this very quickly.
In short - if a person is capable of improving only humane treatment will help them reach that point. Opportunities, recreation, work training, basic life skills training, education, counseling, constructive therapy programs, and healthcare. If we want people to make different choices in life we have to give them the tools, it's that simple. It's the difference between constructive detention and just warehousing people and treating them like animals without rights. One is right and actually helps to fix a problem, and the other doesn't and just keeps the cycle going.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999- Ya, except solitary confinement is often used for insanely violent offenders who pose a risk to everyone in the prison, and there is literally no way to ensure safety without it in some cases. Sure, it shouldn’t be used with abandon, but this idea we can reform everyone is simply a myth. It reminds me of people who think drug decriminalization is some amazing solution to drug abuse. People would not shut up about Portugal until parts of Canada and Oregon tried the same thing. It was so bad that Oregon decriminalized drugs and Canada is seeing horrendous problems because of its policies. Many people can’t be reformed. Short prison sentences are often disparaged by Europeans because they make committing crime extremely lucrative as there is no real deterrent. People want easy, simple answers to problems which are enormously complex. Second order and third order effects are rarely considered because people want to think they have out smarted the system and could easily fix large societal problems. Also, very few people are in prison for “petty” reasons. Hardly any people in prison (not jail) for simple drug possession. It is a majority of violent and serious crimes. Progressive policies in general like bail reform have proven to be disastrous in almost all cases. There is a fundamental disconnect from reality with progressives and a hopelessly naive view that the vast majority of humans are good and just need some guidance. Many, many people are not empathetic to others and they will not be reformed. Look at Sweden now that immigrants have flooded the country from a different people/culture. They suddenly changed from being the “moral superpower” of the world to tightening immigration and changing their attitudes towards crime and punishment. Many people see soft approaches as an exploit to be used whenever possible, while progressives just cannot accept these facts of reality.
Where are you going to find sane humans?
They’ve invaded my dreams to stimulate the experience. It’s exactly why I know I won’t qualify at least not yet .
Nowhere
The easiest solution is to send the most insane people you can find, because if they start off maximally crazy, then they can only get more sane as time goes on.
Florida
@@Archo01 LOL Florida? Soon to be an undersea adventure
As an experiment, I propose we send Musk, Gates, Thiel, Bezos, and Trump into space.
Please,please,please take Justin Trudeau🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Dream blunt rotation
Definitely
Just brilliant! Of course!
Can we have Russel Brand on stand by in case Trump's incarcerated?
I get wildly concerned about sanity especially when thinking about the ray bradberry martian chronicles
Love that book.
Have you read Something Wicket This Way Comes, and if you have, is it any good? I was thinking of adding it to my pile of books that I haven’t come round to read yet.
I worked on fishing boats in Alaska and it was a good display of how these breakdowns began to happen.
Being isolated and watching anime 24/7 with doing the odd chore here and there? That's literally what I already do, and I'm not insane.
That’s actually insane
It's weird to me how they entirely forget about leisure and the endless amounts of potential leisurely activities a crew could have access to if they tried.
I also do the same thing as you but I am already crazy.
@@stax6092 FR, sailors back then had like 2 books, and that's if they could even read. Today we've got VR and Skyrim (as an example).
Hey, licensed electrician here. When you use the word electrocuted here that means that the person died from the electric shock. From what I can tell Givin the context the person who didn't got shocked didn't didn't die, so the proper wording should have been, the person recieved an electric shock.
Sigh
Thank you! I second this need for the correct use of words.
🤓
Exe...cuted.
Electro...cuted.
Perse...cuted..
@@RSAgility So, basically, death is cute.
@@scottfw7169 ok thanos, let's get you back to bed
1 - mars is almost pure hype
It is pure hype. Average temperature on Mars from NASA According to NASA, the median surface temperature on Mars is -85°F (-65°C). However, temperatures on Mars can range from the 70s°F (20s°C) to -225°F (-153°C). The average temperature is around -81 F (-63 C).
Nailed it
Gotta have this "mars" hype grift to distract us from the fact we've set our planet on fire
You don't have to be crazy to go to Mars. We will train you.--NASA
Yeah, we conquered the Northwest Passage by warming the planet until it existed lol.
Exactly!
Sarcasm right? The ice melted and opened the path before humans were producing large amounts of CO2.
Holodeck. You'll need a holodeck.
The problem with this subject is that it makes so many unchallenged assumptions, beginning with whether or not it is even worthwhile to conduct manned exploration of space, given the laws of Physics. Sadly, a lot of people without a solid foundational education in Physics assume that technology will simply continue to get "better", because our past experiences of technology have created a steady progression. But, we are approaching the point with our understanding of the universe that we know to a very fine degree how little there is left to know about the universe that we can meaningfully affect, due to the simply nature of the amount of energy it requires to do anything at an interplanetary scale. There is no "magic" energy source and there isn't ever going to be a "hyperdrive" or "warp drive" that enables travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light, let alone faster than light travel. And even if it were possible to create distortions in spacetime, we already understand that the energy levels which would be required for that to happen are not attainable by human tools, probably not even if you have deluded yourself into thinking humans will ever be able to build a sustainable fusion reactor, let alone one small enough to outfit a spacecraft.
Many of the psychological problems that this type of research is attempting to solve arise out of the simple fact that the only people who are ever going to be considered for manned space missions are themselves elites with huge egos and towering senses of entitlement engendered by their supposed merit. Such people are inevitably going to create conflict between each other. These are people who are inherently competitive and combative, and putting them into a pressure cooker is guaranteed to cause an explosion, at some point. Yes, literally a pressure cooker, because that's really what a spacecraft is, in the first place-a pressurized, heated containment vessel.
There are millions, billions of people here on Earth who every single day are facing the very same psychological, technical, and resources challenges that manned exploration of space entails; however, we as a society are spending billions of dollars on novel technologies in an attempt to alleviate these challenges for a minuscule, elite cohort, instead of investing in the proven, non-technological solutions we know would alleviate these conditions for billions of people on Earth. Comparing 17th Century exploration to 21st Century exploration is comparing apples to oranges. For one thing, we have radios, now, which would make communications possible even between Mars and Earth in less than 1 hour, something Henry Hudson couldn't have enjoyed beyond a few miles' radius, at best, in his time. And yet, even though we figured out how to communicate with a spacecraft outside the Solar System some 45 years ago, we still struggle to provide reliable communications to the people of Earth, still today-not because we don't know how, but because we don't believe everyone deserves it. It's not a technological problem, it's a political problem, caused by psychological problems in the hearts and minds of those who wield social, cultural, political, and economic power right here on Earth.
@gcvrsa Thank you for taking the time to so eloquently state my strongest convictions regarding colonization of Mars versus saving the planet we're currently trashing, and doing something to improve the lives of millions of miserable people. It's heartening to know I'm not the only person rejecting the space travel bandwagon.
So real
you say this but, much like human-shaped robots there isn't a desire for practicality there is instead a desire for novelty and a desire for "experiences". you just are not going to be able to sell most people on dialling it back without a high risk of the same people losing interest fully
There is huge difference between having the physics to explain something and developing a technology. While physics theory can explain much of the universe between very small and very large scales, it's not useful for predicting all the possible phenomena that can happen, eg, biology and chemistry are still scientific pursuits, even though the fundamental physics of both is known. Developing technologies is of course applying these phenomena for some purpose, and just because the energies required for "warp drive" or conventional interstellar travel are immense, there may be other ways to achieve the results that we haven't thought of yet. Similar to saying "why should we go to the moon, we know what it is", some of the benefits of addressing the challenge are the technologies developed along the way. While I agree that the climate change and other problems on Earth are more immediate, we can actually do more than one thing at a time. And while I'm not sure that the reasons for colonizing Mars are completely sensible, there can be benefits from the effort which can repay some of the investment even if colonization never happens.
@@rjs1188 this 💯
7:22 Electrocution is death-specific. If you survive it, you were just shocked.
"Do you know the symptoms of pandorum?"
So disappointed that movie is just "alright"
Not only are they going to be alone on that long journey but they're also going to be alone in their preparation for the journey so that will require being alone for 2 to 3 times as long
PBS Terra is fast becoming morbid.. and I AM HERE FOR IT. Bahahaha Although.. I am also becoming fastly convinced I should be prepping for something 😅😆🤔
You planning on going to Mars?
@@sciencecompliance235 No, but I think a whole lotta world leaders may be 😅
This problem will be coupled with the physical problems prolonged weightless will cause. This is going to be a very tough mission in every respect.
I'd also point out a few non-NASA experiments done - I think there was one called BioSphere2 (I may have the name wrong). Many efforts were made to create a habitat that did NOT interact with the outside world, completely self sufficient in terms of power, food, water. I don't recall right now if there was much in the way of "mission control" but I think maybe not. Within weeks, the ten people locked in there were at each other's throats, what had started out as a fairly reasonable and structured crew had split into two very, very angry factions, and it was just bad. I don't THINK anybody died but I remember reading that no one who participated considered the experiment a success in ANY sense of the word.
For sure. The experiments so far are not promising at all. It's not just they went insane. It's how quickly the insanity set in and how little it took to set off a chain reaction
If I remember correctly, Steve Bannon was part of the project. He was not doing politics yet as a job in those days. I wonder if he got interested in politics as a result?
@@lynnlytton8244 How could anyone be locked up with Steve Bannon without soon becoming homicidal ?
People forget that the first explorers to Mars will likely be taking a one-way trip.
I believe there is a solution:
Send convicts to Mars. In the case of Australia, it worked ;)
It worked for who? Certainly not the indigenous people of that land.
@@sevenstarsofthedipper1047We're talking about colonizing Mars and we need it to work for human colonizers not the nonexistent indigenous Martians.
@@UwU-ok2jr Non sequitur. But, why am I not surprised.
@@sevenstarsofthedipper1047 sounds like a skill issue.
Australia sent convicts to Mars? Wow!
Hey Guy! I recognize your voice Mr. narrator you’re from my favorite Science Channel on UA-cam. I’m glad you’re doing PBS now as well! ❤❤❤❤
They’ll have to be insane to go in the first place
There are several things that can make a positive outcome more likely, starting with the careful selection of the crew in the first place. Chances are good that those selected will go through a six-month confinement in similar facilities in the arctic for observation first. Each person can be given a private space each day for a period of time where they can be alone and listen to music, watch videos, etc. Virtual reality headsets can transport the crew anywhere that the software choses, allowing them to escape the feelings of confinement for a while on a daily basis. A bigger concern might be the risk of dying from radiation from a solar flare or being dangerously weak unless some sort of artificial gravity (such as a rotating space craft) is not provided to keep muscles toned.
What do u think solitary confinement does to ppl.
So you say, we should send prisoners to Mars? With Australia it worked out pretty well.
@@pavelborisov515Prisoners and elderly people.
I think that in order for someone to be willing to go to Mars they'd have to be a little bit unwell, surely? It sounds like the most terrifying thing I could imagine, if someone is volunteering for that then I think they have some "interesting" reasoning behind it.
Good to Mars is a pipe dream!
A hyper loopy dream.
We've made huge advancements in satellites and rovers. We will continue to do so, and maybe even send multitudes more.
Maybe human exploration beyond LEO stopped for more reasons than is commonly discussed?
@@C0deH0wler_ how many carcinogens would be released into Earth atmosphere to do so? It's just not worth it. The reality won't match the fantasy!!
You know... seeing this actually makes me think about jails and how cruel and psychologically damaging it is, specially solitary confinement. And we call it "resocialization".
People should probably figure out how to stop fucking up earth before they go to Mars, lol.
Exactly. Humans stopping destroying the Earth is probably our best chance to survive. Not "Mars" hype distraction.
If you're fool enough to go to Mars, you'll probably flush it down the toilet!!
and if a few want to make a base and colonise mars they can, you are heavily underestimating humanity’s power they could easily fix earth and become multiplanetary simultaneously if we were more efficient and we werent looking for short term gains all the time, not going to space wont fix earth we just wont go to space and earth will still be bad but if we go to space atleast we went to space and earth is bad
Mars is already dead...perfect location.
Great video. Excellent comparison between space exploration and the exploration with sailing ships in the 1700's.
Isolation sounds great, covid19 was great preparation
Going to Mars by definition is insane.
How to know if someone will get along with someone else?
Two examples how:
1. Let all candidates spend couple of months together in confinement, and you will find people who formed really nice friendships and would enjoy working alongside that person, but also you will people who would hate and would not ever wanted to work alongside someone particular.
2. Get them all drunk and their personalities will show you their true faces.
Yeah let's just erase the fact that Hudson wanted to continue what had already proven to be a dangerous journey after being trapped for months by ice. Like dude would have survived if he'd been able to swallow his ego and concede to returning to England.
Yeah there are more reasons for the mutinies than just "the crew went completely insane" 🙄
I dont know why anyone would want to go to Mars in the first place...no one wants to colonize the Sahara desert, and it has air, food, a livable temperature, a magnetosphere, etc., but sure lets go live on Mars lol
Lol exactly. Mars looks like a really shitty place. If had the choice between Mars and Sahara Desert, a sane human would pick the Sahara every single time.
The idea of space exploration in general seems ridiculous. Humans can't live anywhere other than Earth in our solar system. It's not possible to travel to worlds outside the solar system within a human lifetime and it's likely physically impossible to ever travel fast enough to be able to do so and even if somehow we did make it to some other world the chances of it being something that won't kill us immediately aren't zero but might as well be. I've never understood comparing space travel to sailing on the ocean like somehow we'll just sail through space like we did the oceans. The idea's just nonsense. Space isn't an ocean. It's a literal endless cold hostile mostly empty void where things are so far apart our brains can't even properly comprehend it.
@Dug88 you're correct. The science fiction "spacefaring" is not anywhere close to reality. Even if we could get to another planet it would have to be nearly identical to earth. Just any gravity difference alone would be enough to make living there impossible. Our bones hearts blood birthing everything is for earth gravity. You're right the science fiction is pretty much nonsense. Even the "geoengineering" you can't "geoengineer" gravity
Anyone ever hear of Submarines? Maybe start looking there first for crew selection?
The first human on Mars will be running around with their underpants on their head yelling "Shut up about your Funko Pop collection!"
wow that intro was so well written i got chills xD never thought about it that way... a person can't survive alone
As of March 2024 the longest deployment of a submarine is 201 days or nearly 7 months.
The crew did not go mad and they did not become violent to one another.
Perhaps there is something to be learned about long duration space travel from the worlds Navy's who have already had to solve a very similar problem.
I have wondered if a large part of what makes Navy sub crews docile enough not to murder one another over who got the last slice of pizza is the constant hypoxia they must endure as a fire prevention measure. I use 5L of supplemental O2 and I would be a fairly useless mutineer.
You want the captain thrown off the boat, you do it. I'm trying to read.
how about whalers who stayed on board for years? Maybe the real problem is that only extroverts are considered in this whole debate.
@@deathsinger1192 You have a point but whalers certainly had a chance to let off their aggression from time to time. Chasing down a whale in a row boat and stabbing it with harpoons would certainly use up a person's aggression. I don't know if whalers tended to be introverted or extroverted or if the whole thing was really about BAC.
@@sherilynn1310 So provide crews with a way to let of aggression, maybe a punching bag or some kind of sports match for them to watch; this is not an exhaustive list by any means.
@@OmegaWoodworm I don't know if submariners have that kind of option in the limited workout equipment they get. My son-in-law is a tall man and he injured his shoulder at the beginning of a tour of duty. 6 months at least IIRC. Because of the low oxygen, he thinks, it just got never got better, and there's no avoiding ladders and other shoulder-wrenching tasks. Chronic hypoxia also made his eyesight worse. I can vouch that even small disabilities can impact mental health--a lot. I would guess it's far worse if you know other people depend on you to be their best and you can't be.
If only there were a group of people alive today, that thrive in doing repetitive tasks, in doing the same thing everyday, in social isolation, who have deep rooted obscure interests (such as geology and engineering) to an obsessive degree and who do this all willingly for their entire lives.
Reminiscent of The Terror.
Between the psychological issues, the severe mission limitations, and complete lack of redundancy, a crewed mars mission shouldn't be attempted unless both a) reusable rockets can be employed extensively and cheaply and b) nuclear thermal rockets can be used to both reduce transit times to one month and allow for the possiblity of rescue in a timely manner.
A traditional disposable rocket and small capsule approach would not only be horrifically expensive but also destroy public support for crewed space exploration. Any failure would be broadcast to the entire world.
Just send with them a good game master for a TTRPG
Aren’t submariners go on tours lasting 6 months underwater confined in tight space facing instant death at any moment?
Look towards submariners for inspiration and candidates. There have been documented instances of crews going on patrol for 200+ days. Stuck inside a tube and in an environment as deadly as space.
More deadly even. Its a matter of logistics at this point
I've wondered about the weird research about how lack of doorways affects the human brain and how that would apply to the mars missions.
Find former Navy submarine sailors, to fly to Mars.. They are good at isolation, in a tight space.
I can certainly think of some people I'd like to send there.
What about prisons?
Stuck in a small cabin for *_five years_* without a single break? In any case, are you saying that prisons are full of well-balanced people?
@@davidhoward4715 He's definitely not saying that. Maybe he is actually alluding to your point. It's a well known fact that prisons don't typically produce the most adapted members of society, usually quite the contrary, irrespective of their initial state.
The penitentiary system as it was originally created was considered incredibly inhumane and was terminated for the prison systems used currently
Honestly, it sounds like a pretty tranquil journey. Not to mention, you'll most likely be busy a lot of the time preparing for when you land
Hey PBS terra, Joe here
that should definitely be on a coffee mug 😮
I read this in Michael from Vsauces's voice
Joe Rogan?
It’s not good to be together it’s even worse to be alone
it's not, it would be quite peaceful, imagine being the only human on Mars, what a dream, without any media you'd have your own mind to dive into, with media the possibilties would be endless, I would hope to find revelation in thinking there
We have people locked up in prison that could make that trip look like Disneyland trip.
I can see why it'd be so tough out there.
My average interaction with most other human beings is a psychological onslaught against me.
I think me doing the Mars mission alone could make things easier
The answer is so simple. Mars is a pointless deathtrap... send boston dynamics robots, and never colonize Mars.
Exactly
Send Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Also send Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vlad Putin.
Big gain for planet Earth! 😊👍
It will happen eventually. We don't want to die here on earth. We eventually want to reach our hand out to the rest of the milkyway
We will need to colonise other planets when earth is no longer inhabitable. Mars could be the base from which expeditions to other planets embark
Reminds me of the movie *Pandorum* 2009
These types of difficulties make me go: sign me up immediately.
They must be able to build something for themselves where they go. They must be able to create their own living space. Abundantly. "Simple" as that. It must be fundamentally worth it and gratifying beyond just an academic exercise.
Fermi paradoxe solved.
For that research group in Antarctica. It wasn’t the antagonist who was spoiled the book endings that caused the stabbing. It was the isolation that caused the fight.
What can I do to help or where can I go to volunteer in any way for these experiments and missions? I want to see humans reach Mars and be a part of it in some way.
That would be a haven for me, fewer people around, plenty of space, just need water, food, and air!
"...the kind of monotony that few people have ever known" is true for the rest of the world. In America, oh, theres lots of people who've known it via solitary confinement thanks to America's Prison Industrial Complex. Maybe send those people to Mars as they are most qualified to endure the isolation. Ask them how to survive this supposedly "deadly" journey. After all, "it's our humanest" that justifies the punishment.
Are you actually claiming that people locked up for years in prisons are so mentally balanced that they can be entrusted with a multi-trillion dollar mission?
@@davidhoward4715 Not to mention many years of science education and training.
@@davidhoward4715apparently he is lol
Do you know the percentage of psychopaths in the general population is like around one percent. Do you know what it is in the prison population? Somewhere around 20 to 30 percent. And these aren't your CEO type psychopaths. They're your straight up shank a man murderous psychopaths
It's very important that we learn how to manage the psychological challenges of a manned mission to Mars, while we're at least hundreds of years away from having the technological capacity to build and send one. What the hell are we doing?
"Never send people to do a robot's job"
-a wise man.
Seriously, for Mars exploration, for many decades to come, invent better robots. Then send these better robots.
Exactly. Robots are the obvious answer yet they keep talking about humans being sent to go insane and if happen to "make it there" extremely high chance ofdeath. They won't even be able to get out of the spaceship because their bones and muscles are mashed potatoes. But I guess Robby the Robot isn't as exciting clickbait as sending humans to their deaths
Then send a gazillion of those robots for the price of one human mission. Also - why not - send those robots all across the solar system for the price of one human mission.
It's always pleasant to hear a familiar voice. 😄
Imagine being trapped on Mars with Elon Musk...
Good Godzilla NO 😂😂😂😂
Just the thought of being stuck in a spacecraft that could be hit by something or having a hull failure of some kind and killing everyone is enough psychological torture to break most people. Let alone getting along with five other people for six months one way, a month or two on Mars and then six months coming back. I one hundred percent agree that mental fortitude will be the greatest challenge in making long distance space travel a success unless we come up with a faster form of travel.
Id love to see human feet touch down on Mars. At the same time, let's focus on Earth. Ya know, the only habitable planet in our solar system. Let's work on preserving it.
The first humans to go to Mars are probably on a one way trip 💀 let's face it.
The entire surface of the Earth gets cataclysmically reset and remolded in periodic cycles. Some are bigger than others, some are less frequent, some are more frequent. Simple fact of the matter though is we're gone in the blink of an eye if it happens again and there's largely nothing we could do about it. Being isolated to a single planet makes us very vulnerable.
Yes humanity can do this thongs at the same time people saying we can only do one at a time are truly underestimating us