Destination Mars (2015–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Journey - full transcript

(Rushing air)

(Dramatic orchestral music)

(Roaring rocket engine)

(Dramatic orchestral music)

(Roaring wind)

(Drumbeat)

(Cars and traffic)
(Orchestral music)

The human mission to
Mars will be the most exciting

most adventurous, most ambitious mission

that humans will go on next.

And that is my dream that
I'm trying to turn into reality



and it's basically who I am.

I'm in D.C. to talk about Mars One

at the Mars Society Convention.

The overall project of
getting humans to Mars

is almost impossible to oversee,

but if you take it one step at a time,

one conference at a
time, one meeting at a time,

one supplier at a time,
one investor at a time,

then it's actually something
that can be achieved.

I'm convinced of that.

(Orchestral music)

Hi Bas Hi, how are you?

Good to see you.

So how are things with Mars One?



Going well Oh yeah?

Yeah. A lot of exciting stuff happening.

Welcome Mr. Lansdorp.

(Applause)

Thank you, thank you.

I want to focus on the journey.

So how are we going to
get stuff from Earth to Mars?

We want to send humans to Mars in 2027

on a mission of permanent
settlement. One way.

How do you get to Mars?

We have designed our
mission around a rocket

that is not existing yet.

The rocket needed to
bring everything to Mars

is not there yet.

It's indevelopment.

It would be great if we can use something

like the Falcon Heavy,
which hasn't flown yet

but it's a combination
of three of the rockets

that SpaceX is currently using.

Around 2016, 2017,

the first flight of the Falcon
Heavy will have occurred

Which is in time for our needs.

And this Falcon Heavy is
capable of putting 53 tons

in a low Earth orbit.

We will use low Earth orbit

to basically construct
the final spacecraft.

I think the Falcon Heavy

will be an extraordinary
capability when it's available.

The question, of course, is
going to be whether Mars One

will be able to use it for
its exploration objectives

or whether that's going to be constrained

to SpaceX's objectives.

Do you have a commitment from SpaceX

to use the Falcon Heavy?

I... well we have... I've
been there a couple of times.

They have been to our office.

We're in good contact

and it's very easy. You
pay them, they get you there.

(Audience laughter)

(Music)

Our plan is to assemble a small,

cozy little space station

in low Earth orbit

consisting of one of our landing modules

and a small transit habitat,
a small space station.

The spacecraft which
will bring humans to mars

consists of a number of elements

which will be launched separately

One element is the habitational volume

the second element is the propulsion stage

which will bring the
whole stuff towards Mars

and then the final is the capsule

which will bring people up into spacecraft

and then later will bring people down

on the surface of Mars.

For our Earth Crew to flourish on Mars

they're gonna need a lot o' stuff

That ship is going to be quite large.

And so, we have to launch
and assemble that ship

probably in orbit around the Earth

much like we've already built

the International Space Station.

Now it took us... by the
way... it took us about a decade

to construct the
International Space Station.

It could take us up to a
decade to assemble that ship

in low earth orbit to get it
ready to go on this journey.

With the funding that
appears to be available

I don't see that advancing on a time scale

put forward by Mars One.

(Orchestral music)

The transit vehicle
most likely will consist

of an inflatable habitation module

which is designed in the U.S.

One of the companies
doing it is Bigelow Aerospace.

Now the good thing about
this inflatable structure

is that you can have
a larger transit vehicle

than what you would normally have.

With an inflatable you
can have large diameters

where you create more space.

That becomes easier for people to live in.

They are testing these
inflatable structures

at the moment as we speak.

They have already two in orbit,

two scale models and
they still work perfectly fine

and another one will be attached

to the International
Space Station late this year

maybe beginning of next year.

The transit habitat itself has no means

to go further into space so we will add

a propulsion stage and we will dock that

to the transit habitat.

Then, at the right moment,

we will launch both elements together,

using the propulsion stage, to Mars.

Mars One has talked about using

most of the entrepreneurial
companys' systems.

It's important to realize

that while these systems
are being worked on,

and I think that within the next decade

these systems will be available,

very few of the systems
that Mars One is talking about

are available today.

You can't just go buy a Bigelow inflated...

inflatable habitat

for a Mars transit.

Columbia to Houston,
negative return (Beep)

Roger that, negative return
(Building orchestral music)

On the way to Mars, the
astronauts are exposed

to galactic cosmic rays,
radiation of all other forms

with the result that they
can have an increased risk

of dying due to cancer years in the future.

So we've got to come up
with a way to mitigate that risk

and there are ways to do it,

but they take some time to develop.

I'm actually of the opinion

that radiation is not
one of the big problems

for humans going to Mars

and it's a very acceptable
level of radiation

it will give them about
1½ % additional chance

of developing a tumor
during their lifetime.

That's not great, but
it's a lot less than...

for example, smoking and
we still allow people to smoke.

Space radiation is
different than Earth radiation.

We have a very good understanding

of how Earth radiation affects humans.

However, given that
space radiation is larger,

heavier,

more energy-packed particles,

we don't understand the radiobiology.

We don't understand the
effect of space radiation

on biological tissue.

But it's very predictable.

I mean, we know how
much radiation there is,

the Curiosity Rover
has actually measured it

in a lot of detail now and we know

exactly how much
radiation our crew will get

on the way to Mars.

The Curiosity Spacecraft and Rover

were very helpful in
terms of trying to determine

what the actual space radiation exposure is

en route to Mars.

There was a detector on that spacecraft

which measured the
radiation on the way to Mars

and the good news is that
the level that it's detecting

are lower than predicted.

However, what it did not do
is it didn't give us a good idea

of all the different types of radiation

that people could be exposed to

or how that radiation
may affect biological tissue

because as we know,
there was no biological tissue

onboard that spacecraft or rover.

So we need to put two things into place.

One, a general protection
of the spacecraft itself

which you could do by
adding a water layer around it

So basically store water
around the living area

and what you also should
implement is a radiation shelter

So if there is a solar
burst, a solar flare,

you know that that one is coming,

people can be warned in advance

and they can sit inside
this radiation shelter

for a couple of days and
basically endure the storm.

(Orchestral music)

from a medical perspective, we're not ready

to go into deep space at the moment.

We have a lot of work to do

to learn how to keep
people alive and healthy

in deep space on long-distance
space transportation.

Mars One's plans are not feasible

from a health perspective

at least in terms of timing.

They can build us a rocket.

They can build us a spacecraft right now

that will take us to
Mars, but can they ensure

that they people inside that spacecraft

are gonna be alive when they get there?

(Applause)

Kind of two-part question.
First off, today you presented

the plan that's been on
your website for three years

that we believe was shown to be infeasible.

So my question is: What
is the Mars One plan

and when do you intend to present evidence

for the feasibility of that plan?

Mars One is at the pre phase
A stage of a mission plan.

Every plan starts there.

Every plan starts at the drawing board.

We are of the opinion
that Mars One mission plan

as it is currently presented
and as it has been presented

for the past three years is not feasible

and is inherently unsustainable.

The key element here...
the key elephant in the room

is the landing.

If you can't land on
Mars, nothing else matters

if your plan is to go one
way and land on Mars.

Once we've reached Mars,

the spacecraft will basically be separated

into two elements:

one is the lander in
which the people will be in,

and the other one is
basically the spacecraft

which brought them to Mars

and that one will not land
on Mars. It will be discarded.

If you've overcome the challenge

of launching to mars, traveling to Mars,

you've still got to reach
the surface of Mars

and even though it's only
a few hundred Kilometers

from orbit to the surface,

that's probably the most
dangerous part of any mission.

(Dramatic orchestral music)

The spacecraft is traveling super-fast.

When it comes to Mars, you've
got to remove all that energy,

all that speed through
the atmosphere itself

and you only have a
very short time to do it.

Mars is a thin atmosphere,

just enough to heat up the
spacecraft but inconvenietly,

not enough to slow it down
and make that landing effective.

It's the worst of both worlds.

(Music)

The lander comes out of the full spacecraft

and then it goes into this entry,
descent and landing phase.

So it has very high
speed (Rushing air)

So it will first go hypersonically

into the atmosphere of Mars.

It will use its heat shield

to get rid of most of the energy and speed.

We've built these heat shields before

and they work well for smallish rovers

for example, up to a metric ton,

but we don't quite know how to do this

for something as massive

as the human vehicle's going to be.

And then it will slowly get into a phase

where the speed of the
vehicle is between supersonic,

say Mach One and Mach Two.

During that time, we will use
supersonic retropropulsion

to reduce the speed of
the spacecraft, or the lander,

even more such that in the end

the spacecraft can be
fully propulsively landed

on the surface of Mars.

(Roar)

To land humans on Mars, we're gonna need

to employ propulsive descent

at much higher velocities
than we have previously.

Those kinds of technologies

have certainly been analyzed today,

those technologies have been proven

in Earth-based testing today,

but none of that technology
has ever been proven

in the space envoronment,
let alone at Mars.

(Gentle music with bells)

The Curiosity Rover
was about one metric ton

that was landed.

We need to land between
2½ and 5 metric tons,

so that's a step, but
it's not unlike the steps

that NASA has been taking before.

A scale up of the current
landing systems to what we need

is definitely one of the
biggest technology challenges

for our mission.

But because it is a mission
of permanent settlement,

and we don't need to
land the large components

for the return mission,

it becomes a lot closer to what
NASA has been doing before.

NASA's the only organization
that's landed things on Mars

not crash-landed...

and even they have had
some trouble sometimes.

All we're saying is the
schedule and the costs

that you allocated doesn't solve them.

So I don't believe that
the Mars One timescale

for landing humans on Mars is consistent

with the technology readiness
of the systems required

to land humans on Mars.

Scientists, engineers,
always want more detail

and so do we, but we
can't make those details.

We're not an aerospace company.

We are the management
bureau of our own project

and aerospace companies
need to implement it,

but we need to secure the
financing to make that happen.

I think that Mars One should
start paying more attention

to working out the technical details.

It's quite true that Mars One

at this stage of its
development cannot be expected

to have a fully detailed design.

That would take tens of
millions of dollars to develop.

But to have a more
thorough conceptual design

in which they can lay out

"this is how we're gonna do this,

this is how we're gonna do that"

I think that can be laid out.

Well when we have the funding secured

for our first mission,

then NASA will be knocking on our door

to be able to be part of
that but we're not there yet.

You can't do a mission to
Mars without receiving criticism.

It's simply impossible

and what we do is learn
from it and move on.

(Music)