These days we live in exciting times. New dawns of space exploration are upon us. Nobody cares about Moon any more and all eyes are turned towards Mars. Moon is close by but boring and there is nothing there. We are all captured by Mars. It is not like landscape is much nicer there. No lakes, no lush green surfaces, zero animals. A moreless barren planet with bacteria for life at best. Red in color though.
Still, it is certain that in the next 4–5 years people will land there. It won’t be NASA, Russians or Chinese. NASA is mandated to do it by 2033. I am pretty sure that Elon Musk or his crew will be first people walking on Mars. I am convinced that they will beat NASA pants down and by 2033 will already have something like Tesla Mars X vehicle assembling line there.
According to announcements from Musk’s camp, it won’t be just a few people but more like 16–24 members in the crew. Supposedly 200000 people from all over the world already signed up as candidates. So far 100 were chosen. By any rate, there is no lack of interest to staff the rocket ship with ready and willing explorers.
It will be Elon Musk’s show
What Musk decides to make that is what he does! The man like that gets born every 100 years and more.
On the other hand I know almost nothing about space. I am just simpleton from Stoney Creek, Canada but have few pointers to give to Musk the Genius. We all want him to succeed and never in the history of mankind were so many stakes put on the shoulders of such a small group of people so I decided to pitch in.
Proper crew selection is critical for success!
I cannot emphasize enough how important is proper selection of crew. Well, everybody knows that. My recommendations would be not to load space ship full of scientists, biologists or experts of all kinds.
When did such highly trained people did anything useful, let alone flew ship to another planet? I suggest that the crew should be staffed by simple people with practical skills. The kind of people that will make things happen. Use their own hands and skills that will be in demand on such mission.
Did some science doctor discover America? No, it was a sailor, Christopher Columbus. Was West explored by chemists, technologists, engineers? Eeeee, wrong. There were cowboys, blacksmiths, farmers, carpenters. Are rockets made by engineers? No way. Engineers are useless. They have 2 left hands, sit a whole day at meetings, drink a lot of coffee and talk themselves important. Rockets are made by sheet metal workers, welders, trade specialists.
Here are my recommendations:
1. Get steam under control
First and foremost, watch your steam! By now every man and his dog know that all spaceships run heavily on steam. People are misled to thinking that rockets need rocket fuel and plasma burners or nuclear energy to move through space. Nothing is further from the truth. Aren’t you people paying close attention because I sure do?!
Ever since Alien, Star Wars, Star Trek and every other serious space ship movie we can see that almost every scene of the interior shows clouds of the hissing steam powering the ship. And being wasted, thinks I.
Now that’s clearly no, no. That kind of behavior has to stop. A trip to Mars will take place over 7 months. They ain’t get there even in 10 years losing steam foolishly like that. So please engineers, watch what you are doing when creating a space ship machinery.
The problem of steam naturally leads to the selection of stokers. Since it will be 24/7 job 3 stokers would be better. I know, boiler room operation could be automated but I wouldn’t trust electronics that far. There are places where man is not replaceable and this is that place.
I would also introduce a crucial change to ensure utmost smooth operations. I would actually keep the same tradition like on the old British navy and get stokers a well measured portion of rum every day. I am not a drinker but they say that Appleton rum from Jamaica is the best rum money can buy. So I trust Elon to have well-stocked storage of Jamaican rum on board.
2. The most important crew member is a plumber
Secondly, the same scenes and interiors are showing a lot of plumbing problems. You would think that advanced space ships technology would provide a desert dry interiors. However you could see yourself piping dripping all over the place, wet surfaces everywhere, slippery, promoting mold and possible accidents at work. Those space ships look more like submarines that leak water everywhere. That leads us to the selection of maybe the most important person after ship commander, a plumber.
Right on! A good plumber with tool box full of seals and caulking gun and big freaking pliers will make a rocket squeaky dry. I can see him walking around with headsets in his ears and toolbox with a big pipe wrench fixing leaks.
3. Issue with lighting
Is it just me or every space ship that comes along has flickering fluorescent tube lights? The funny part is that some of the spacecraft are presented as 400 or 1000 years in the future and still don’t have working lights. I mean what a hell?
So space travel, checked!
Moving at speed of light, checked!
Space ship miles long, checked!
Working lights so you can see where you are freaking going, no can’t do!
If I was commander I would hire an electrician and get him to repair fucking flickering lights all day long. Wait, there are no days in space, so whole shift long.
If you think this is foolish just read on and you will see how important details like that are!
4. Frozen meat operator
Here we come to a very important recommendation. It probably won’t apply for a trip to Mars but to anywhere else sure will.
Since our propulsion still has a lot to desire for all travels will be a quite long. As nicely shown in “Passengers” crew will be frozen in individual fridges and woken up when the spaceship is about to arrive at destination. There is nothing to it, even Ripley did it in the end of the first “Alien”. She went to sleep for a few hundred years together with ship’s cat.
It is evident that there must be a specialist on board for cryogenic life. Somebody with hands-on experience with refrigeration. I can’t think of nobody better than some guy from Tyson Foods meat packers or similar place (there are plenty to choose from) working in the frozen meat storage facility. Right? For him it is easy peasy lemon squeeze thing to do.
Here you can’t go wrong and let crew lives depend on some obscure biologist with no experience. I am happy to report that there are a plenty of frozen meat operators available around so mission control won't waste time with that.
5. Travel in style
This one is also very important. Traveling in comfort and style will make the crew happy and enthusiastic about the mission. Leather seating, large screen 4k TVs, hot water showers, FaceTime to loved ones … and yes, live feed to read.cash is a must.
I trust Elon to make accommodations better than Tesla S. He will get creative here I am sure.
It is a really long ride, so if you really want to pamper the crew couple of hookers could be thrown into the package for the male crew members. That would solve the problem of long, lonely nights and kill boredom for good.
I am sure that some kind of corporate rates could be worked out so everybody walks away with the money’s worth.
For ladies in the crew, it could be a chip and dale dancer with good interpersonal skills. Same deal and chance of adventure of the lifetime.
6. Pull your shit together!
You could probably hear that in army, at work or at though jobs. It is unpleasant and a bit offensive to be on receiving end of such directive.
On Mars, however, it shall be a completely different story. “Pull your shit together!” will mean that you are going to sow potatoes.
On Earth, it’s called farming and on Mars that will be survival on the highest level. Yes, there will be a handling shit, a lot of it, but I trust there will be a supply of rubber gloves handy.
Just remember Matt Damon as Mark Watney in “Martian”, there you have it. If he could do it you can as well. Potatoes mean food, mashed potatoes, fries or whatever menu calls for. I bet you dollars to donuts that fries will never taste sweeter.
7. Duct tape
Talking about “Martian” we got next super important clue right there: you can not have too many rolls of duct tape! Home Depot or Lowes will not be around a corner … yet. It is yet to be seen who will setup their store first. Whoever it is going to be I predict bright future and killer profits. Building something on Mars will probably start from the second day and never stop.
Repairing washroom leak, run to Home Depot. Building hen house, Home Depot. Need some tools, Lowes. Need 2 by 4, Lowes. Drywall, Home Depot. You got the picture.
Also, if builders are like me they will be at the store a 3 times a day. Whatever I repair I break 2 other things so have to go 3 times to the Home Depot. At least.
Going back to original thought, space travelers must load on duct tape. They are essential repair tool. Don’t leave a home planet without it!
8. Selection of weapons
Space is a peaceful place … most of the time. But here and there our crew will run into space pirates, predators, aliens, and other cosmos scumbags. Leaving well-stuffed armory at home is an uneasy thought for every man in the crew. Female crew members may feel differently about this, but chances are that shoot first and ask questions later rule shall apply. So some well-chosen fighting hardware is desirable.
Here my vote is split between 2 choices. First one would be a barker. A Colt 1911, 0.45 caliber. It is a 100+ year-old handgun and still going strong. I know that Dirty Harry would think differently but it seems to me that Colt 1911 will never go out of style. It is combination of stopping power, beautiful design, reliability and it gets job done so you can’t go wrong with that piece.
On the second thought, my money is actually on longswords. Just ask Jon Snow or Sandor Clegane from “Game of Thrones”. They would know a thing or two about it. It is a simple, sharp and idiotproof weapon. Kind of when properly swung produces flying heads or arms.
Let’s face it. Laser gun ain’t kill no aliens. A longsword will. Especially in close quarters. Sigourney Weaver knows. She had to endure monsters over several occasions and it wasn’t easy. However, there was nothing that longsword could not slice into pieces.
And don’t think that aliens don’t know that. Remember “Predator”? His favorite weapon was an expandable lance. When needed, a cutlass like blades would protrude from that lance and he would slice through people, aliens, and things. So longsword it is. Somebody, please take care of that.
And by the way. A crew has to have the smallest and weakest woman they can find. At least one. That’s the one who kills the alien in the end, not the big hunks. That concept is proven in about every Sci-Fi movie we watched. So swim with a stream and not against it. Get small and weak women on the crew list pronto!
That leads us to the next issue …
9. Watch your 6!
Space ships are built with long corridors, many turns, doors, and passageways. Sooner or later when walking through, there will be a monster creeping from behind. That is like an inevitable thing to happen. So my advice is loud and clear: watch your 6!
Now you see how important were previous selections of a good plumber and electrician! All monsters start their life as small ugly worms or leach like slimy creatures. They thrive in the wet and low light environment. If go unchecked they grow into big and troublesome forms. Maybe unstoppable monsters. Then they search for victims trying to creep up from behind. Almost sure than not lights in that place will flicker so crew member will see a shit.
Again a whole situation could be prevented from the beginning so you don’t get jumped in some dark, wet corner of the ship.
I am thinking, with good old American ingenuity a glasses with small rear view mirrors could be developed. So a person walking could constantly check his back for dangers lurking from behind. Actually, I saw similar rear view mirrors on bicycle helmets so there you go.
Pennies to pay and prevents crew being wiped out one by one.
10. A medic
Selection of medic is also absolutely critical for mission success. Mission managers could be easily tempted into taking 2–3 doctors on board to care about the crew health issues.
I wouldn’t do that. Doctors are good only when they have a whole hospital and supporting teams behind them. Otherwise, they are pretty much useless. Can’t say: “Jane, hand me a biceps” because nurse he is usually banging is not there to jump on every request. So forget doctors, they would be a dead weight and we can't allow that.
No sir. I would actually take US Marine corpsman, a sergeant like Desmond Doos from “Hacksaw Ridge”. A guy who will run into thick and thin and not ask for special privileges first.
Practically that would be any situation, with a medical bag on his shoulder and patch up wounded crew member. It doesn’t matter if laser beams are slicing air or hot lead is flying around you could count on medic coming to the rescue. He doesn’t need 3 meetings, papers signed, a report from the anesthesiologist, biochemist’s lab results or X-Rays. No sir, corpsmen like that and his bag is a whole nine yards as far as healthcare is concerned.
On the way to Mars and there my money is on efficiency, practical knowledge and hands-on experience tending crew in need. Comes hell or high water I am for USMC medic.
11. Autopilot
Here again, my money is on Elon Musk. He created an autopilot for Tesla cars that can drive the car safely in Los Angeles kind of chaotic traffic. If it works there it will work in space where there are no nearby cars or trucks to wreck your ship. Here and there will be meteorite or space debris to avoid and I am sure Tesla kind of autopilot will know how to handle that.
So as soon as leaving Earth proximity they will just press a button and relax. After that, it will be smooth sailing. Navigation and autopilot will find the way to Mars and relieve people from the burden of steering the ship. There are enough cameras and sensors on Tesla cars already so getting to Mars is going to be a piece of cake and avoid trouble on the way.
12. Finding water immediately after landing
I daresay that after landing the first course of business should be finding a water. The crew will surely be sick and tired drinking own pee for over 7 months. Yes people, even big sacrifices have their limits, right?
A good supply of shovels and picks shall be present on space ship because crew will want to dig for water next day after landing. You may ask yourself a question "Where to dig?". In medieval times water seeking begun with looking for an underground water by dowsing-rod. There you have it! Why fix what ain't broken? That simple looking but still sophisticated instrument will undoubtedly find water pronto.
I know, some mislead people may say that NASA should deploy a robot - explorer that is specialized in finding water on Mars. That is a multi billion dollar piece of machinery we are talking about. On other hand carefully cut piece of branch fork will solve that dilemma.
When found frozen or liquid water shall be run through reverse osmosis filters to produce drinking water. I bet you dollars to donuts that it will be of better quality than municipal water we drink from the tap.
And please be responsible and protect that pile of red rocks. No plastic water bottles, and straws please. We can't risk that future animals get choked on that shit. Every bird and animal life matters.
There you have it. Following those rules and guidelines trip and exploration of Mars will be an astounding success.
If somebody is a personal friend of Elon Musk please forward this article’s link to him. Man is a pure genius but he will surely appreciate good advice and fresh perspective view at things.
