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Friday, August 31, 2018

A challenge to Filipino youth: be among the First “Filipino Martians”


 (Published in Enrich magazine, 2018)

TODAY'S FILIPINO  TEENAGERS might want to consider launching themselves on a career that’s well and truly out of this world -- the first Filipino colonists on the planet Mars.

In other words, the first Filipino Martians. The trek to Mars will be extremely dangerous, and will probably be a one-way trip. But you’ll be part of humankind’s greatest adventure.

Once you get to Mars, you stay on Mars, however. That’s what’s in store for the first astronauts to land on Mars given the state of interplanetary travel. But further technological advances over the next 50 years will shift this objective to one where astronaut colonists will be rotated in and out of Mars.

The United States, NASA, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and a slew of major space companies are committed to landing the fist humans on the Red Planet, which is 225 million kilometers away, on average. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which will be responsible for the Mars missions, calculates a voyage to Mars will last about nine months at most.

As it stands today, SpaceX plans to land its first unmanned rocket on Mars in 2028. SpaceX, and not NASA, will land the first humans on Mars, hopefully in 2031. NASA plans to attain this feat by 2035.

The year 2031 is 13 long years away from 2018. This means Filipino teenagers now 13 years-old will be 26 by the time the first humans (mostly Americans) land on Mars in 2031.

These future Filipino Martians are now in high school and when these teenagers get to college sometime in the early 2020s, they might want to enroll in courses that better ensure their chances of being among the first humans to colonize Mars.

SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Bigelow Aerospace, Boeing, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems are among the leading companies partnering with NASA to land humans on Mars. These private American firms are building the hardware (spaceships, landers) needed for this grand venture.

NASA, on the other hand, will train the astronauts who will risk their lives on the voyage to Mars, and on staying alive on this lethal, radiation-wracked, airless and deadly cold planet. The hit movie, “The Martian,” released in 2015 isn’t an accurate depiction of the dangers of colonial life on the Red Planet.

Astronaut requirements
The official NASA requirements for its Astronaut Candidates (non-piloting background) consist of:

* “Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics.

* “Degree must be followed by at least 3 years of related, progressively responsible, professional experience, or at least 1,000 pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft.

“An advanced degree is desirable and may be substituted for experience as follows: master’s degree = 1 year of experience, doctoral degree = 3 years of experience.

“Teaching experience, including experience at the K - 12 levels, is considered to be qualifying experience for the Astronaut Candidate position; provided degree is in a Science, Engineering, or Mathematics field.

* “Ability to pass the NASA long-duration Astronaut physical, which includes the following specific requirements:

- “Distant and near visual acuity must be correctable to 20/20, each eye. The use of glasses is acceptable.
- “The refractive surgical procedures of the eye, PRK and LASIK, are allowed.”

Astronaut candidates must also have skills in leadership, teamwork and communications.

Unfortunately, you still have to be a U.S. citizen to be an astronaut candidate -- for now, at least.

The colonization of Mars, however, will be an international venture and adventure that will draw volunteers from many of the 193 countries in the world. This will mean ending or at least modifying the requirement for U.S. citizenship.

That’s good news for Pinoys that want to explore the final frontier in the future.
NASA, however, currently has astronaut positions for non-U.S. citizens. 

Filipinos can become astronauts and the way to do this is to become either an International Astronaut or Payload Specialist Astronaut.

“These astronaut positions do not require U.S. citizenship,” says NASA. 

“Payload specialists are persons other than NASA astronauts (pilots or mission specialists) whose presence is required on board the Space Shuttle to perform specialized functions related to the payload or other essential mission activities.”

It’s certain NASA will relax its astronaut candidate requirements as the missions to Mars forge ahead since the major objective of these missions won’t simply be to land a few humans on the Red Planet. The main goal of America’s Mars program, and that of other countries with similar ambitions such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will be to colonize Mars.

This magnificent objective will mean transporting thousands of humans to distant Mars. SpaceX plans to accomplish this by building hundreds of what it now calls the “BFR” or Big Falcon Rocket. Each BFR will carry over 100 humans to Mars. BFR, by the way, also stands for “Big F****** Rocket.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk envisions hundreds of BFRs circling the Earth awaiting its passengers. Once fully loaded with colonists and supplies, the BFRs will blast-off towards Mars in large fleets numbering a hundred spaceships.
This, then, is the future awaiting the Filipino teenagers of today that aim to become Filipino Martians.

Why Mars?
This undying question’s been asked since NASA came into existence in 1958. The fact Mars “is there” waiting to be explored by the restless human race is often cited as a reason by those that champion manned missions to the Red Planet.

Others like renowned cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warn that humankind faces extinction over the next 100 years unless it finds a way to colonize Mars or another planet (Venus or one of the Jovian moons?), and become a “multi-planetary species” in the process.

He also believes the Earth is becoming "increasingly precarious" due to threats arising from "climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth."

Musk has his reasons for spearheading the effort to colonize Mars.
“Humans need to be a multi-planetary species,” said Musk in 2015.

SpaceX was founded by Musk in 2002 with the aim of colonizing Mars, apart from slashing the cost of space transportation (which it’s successfully attained with its re-usable Falcon 9 Full-Thrust medium-lift launch vehicle).

In 2012, Musk revealed the awesome scope of his Martian ambitions -- he wants to ultimately build a colony housing 80,000 humans on Mars. Musk expects SpaceX to land astronauts on Mars by 2025, which is about a decade earlier than NASA’s timetable.

A massive colony of the size envisioned by Musk is expected to ensure the survival of humanity should a future extinction event such as a thermonuclear war or an asteroid strike wipe-out homo sapiens. Musk, however, is more concerned about a nuclear war than an asteroid impact.

Musk believes a nuclear war will inflict such indescribable damage on the Earth as to render the planet almost uninhabitable. He argues "an extinction event is inevitable."

"I don't think we can discount the possibility of a Third World War … Perhaps there's a complacency and arrogance in assuming this won't happen again."
There's also a moral imperative for colonizing Mars, claims Musk.

"It would be, I think sort of immoral not to (colonize Mars) if it meant preservation of life on Earth as we know it."

Musk, however, realizes his aim of colonizing Mars is only be possible if almost everything goes his way. He said landing on Mars in fewer than 10 years might not be possible.

Interestingly, he said reaching the 2025 deadline not only requires that everything goes according to plan, but that SpaceX "get lucky."

Musk believes it won’t be difficult to find volunteers that will make the dangerous sojourn to Mars. He said the Martian pioneers will find the going "hard, risky, dangerous, difficult." There's also the risk of complete failure and deaths among the pioneers.

"The first mission wouldn't have a huge number of people on it because if something goes wrong, we want to risk the least number of lives as possible," he said.

He noted that "probably people will die." Those deaths, however, will "pave the way" toward his vision that "ultimately, it will be very safe to go to Mars, and it will be very comfortable."

SpaceX’s timeline to Mars
Reusable SpaceX rockets will make successive trips to space quite cheap compared to what the U.S. government pays other launch providers such as the United Launch Alliance. That's also why Musk pushed hard to reuse the first stage of his Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

SpaceX aspires to launch the first BFR Mars-bound cargo flights as early as 2022. This will be followed by the first BFR flight with passengers in 2024.
After the Mars landing, the key challenge facing SpaceX will be establishing a logistics lifeline to ensure the survival of the company's Martian colonists. This mission will involve establishing a regular supply run from Earth to Mars.

"Essentially what we're saying is we're establishing a cargo route to Mars," said Musk.

"It's a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It's going happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station.

"And if scientists around the world know that they can count on that, and it's going to be inexpensive, relatively speaking compared to anything in the past, then they will plan accordingly and come up with a lot of great experiments."
Musk expounded more about SpaceX’s goals for a Mars mission in October 2017.

“Our goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place,” said Musk.

“A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.”

BFR will make the trip to Mars every two years when the Earth and Mars are at their closest. If all goes well, the first human landing on Mars will take place in 2025, said Musk.

He said that fully colonizing Mars will demand 1,000 spaceships, an astounding number that might only be realized by the 22nd century. These Mars-bound spaceships will orbit the Earth as they take in colonists and supplies.

Every 26 months or so when Earth and Mars are favorably aligned, hundreds of these spaceships will blast-off towards Mars at the same time. That should make for a fantastic sight.

Musk believes each ship should carry at least 100 persons and that the three to nine month-long journey to Mars “should be fun.”