Can I volunteer my wife?
Mind you, while she is light, the shoes and handbags might eat into the mass budget.
Women, not men, should form the crew of the first personned mission to Mars, according to boffin and pretend NASA-naut Kate Greene. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) Greene, the crew writer for one of NASA’s HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) pretendy Martian mission, said in an article for Slate that female …
You only need to look in any womans bathroom to be perplexed by the amount of personal products. Likely they would amount to way more than the weight saving.
Real men only need;
Something that cleans when things get too dirty.
Something that shaves (Optional - use the above for "Shaving Gel effect"
"Real men only need; Something that cleans when things get too dirty."
You're not a true man if you recognise the concept of "too dirty". If for whatever reason, the dirt interferes with the functional properties of something, you're allowed to clean it, but in isolation, dirt of itself is no reason to clean. Take a sock, that (for whatever dubious reason) has got rather revolting and gone hard, the reason for cleaning is only to remove the hardness that makes it difficult to put to any particular use.
"if your equipment isnt clean enough to function properly, its no good to anyone..."
That was my point. How will an undergraduate wank into a sock that's as rigid as a carbon nanotube, and as flat as graphene? And in that case grease probably isn't going to do as good a job as a quick cycle in a cheap washing machine.
Augment the gender argument with age and race. One can probably see where this is going.
The first person on Mars will actually be... ...somebody from the NHK / Discovery Channel joint venture video crew that arrives the day before to set up. Amusingly, it'll be 14 long months until an investigative blogger even notices and starts asking who was operating the camera.
Of course, once they are out of earth orbit - and away from the cyclic gravitational pull of the moon, we have no idea how - or if - menstruation would work.
So in that sense, there's valuable science to be learned here.
My bet is that scientists will discover there's a weird backup system in place.
I would downvote you for casual stereotypical misogyny, but then your post did cause a scientific question, so I guess it's evens.
"It is well established that such sychronisation does take place. Pheromones or something."
They DO synchronize - but not with the moon. It is quite common for the women in a given place to have their periods at the same time. It takes time to happen. It isn't something that we see in just one week, but... Probably pheromones, I don't know. But surely not the Moon.
Think about it: the Moon is the same for all of us. That would keep all the women, on a given region, having their periods at the same time.
For a colonisation mission an all female crew is the best bet to ensure genetic diversity.
As long as you include a freezer full of sperm and a turkey baster, that way you could have a few dozen women and genetically speaking tens if not hundreds of thousands of men which should last for several generations until the colony has a sufficiently diverse genetic base.
It's a shame that the D.R.C. is not known for its stable government or high-tech space technology, but MButi women (pygmies) sound like an excellent choice to represent us, the human race, on Mars.
- They're small
- They're black (better UV protection)
- (Wikipedia) "Women are in charge of cooking, cleaning and repairing the hut, and obtaining water." Those are the tasks that are of primary importance in a Mars base or colony, no need for beefy, ambitious men full of adrenaline, they'd just get bored after months and months together in a tin can, or afterwards, when the most vital task is research to find out if Quinoa grows well in a mixture of Martian soil and Astronaut shit. ("what's for dinner today?" "quinoa sadza with earthworms, just like every day" "yum!")
- The environment on Mars might be healthier for them than the environment in Congo..
About sexism and racism: most of the astro- and cosmonauts (not the taikonauts) have been tall Caucasian men. Is it difficult to imagine small black African women on Mars? Could you, dear reader, be proud, or would you grumble "pity they don't look more like me; I don't really feel represented on Mars".
What will they do with the sanitary towel mountain when they arrive????
(Who at the back said "put a cork in it??).
If taken up, this means no Russian females will go to Mars, the amount of polish and powder required for that length of time is likely to implode and create a black hole.
(I have dated RW's so I should know).
In 2312 he had "smalls" - a whole clade of little people who worked in deep space for the mass/life-support/ship-size reasons listed here.
Start with 5'6 and 70kg, say. That way you can get some smaller men as well. It's not like the extra mass for a carthorse like me's justifiable!
"pygmys or people suffering of dwarfism "
Why pick on them? That Warwick Wossname seems like a decent chap, I don't want him sending to Mars. And pygmies, can't say I've met many, but I've no particular reason to think they deserve to be sent i a tin can to Mars.
But if we're looking for short people that we'd like to send off into space, what about Bono? And Tom Cruise. Prince. Woody Allen......
A lot of what this article talks about in order to support the "send women to Mars" viewpoint can be discounted.
Firstly: Women are smaller, and thus consume less. This is true as a general trend, however there are a great many small men out there. Picking a small man would work just as well.
Secondly: Women tend to deal with isolation and sensory deprivation better than men. Again, if true then this is a general trend. There is a rigorous selection process for selecting astronauts, so any general trend that applies to men may well not hold true for astronauts, as they are a carefully selected sub-set of men.
Conclusion: Open your initial applicant pool to both men and women, and carefully select the best of the bunch. If it turns out that women are genuinely more suited to the very specific requirements of this mission, then there will naturally be more women in the final crew. But that isn't the point. The point is that, regardless of gender, we will end up with the best crew.