I had a weird thought today about the radio hobby. (Personal receiving equipment on Mars)

[Omega-TI]

This comes under the heading of a thought experiment...

Okay, say you are Mars and you have one radio, for the sake of discussion, say it's an Icom 8600. You have three antennas, one long wire antenna, one Yagi and one 5 foot parabolic dish. What, if anything from Earth do you think you could actually listen to? Signals from Earth would be badly degraded, if you could hear anything, would they all be overlapping making listening impossible?

Are there any specific frequencies that you think might give you short windows of opportunity? This of course does not count uplinks from NASA.

 

[trentbob]

This comes under the heading of a thought experiment...

Okay, say you are Mars and you have one radio, for the sake of discussion, say it's an Icom 8600. You have three antennas, one long wire antenna, one Yagi and one 5 foot parabolic dish. What, if anything from Earth do you think you could actually listen to? Signals from Earth would be badly degraded, if you could hear anything, would they all be overlapping making listening impossible?

Are there any specific frequencies that you think might give you short windows of opportunity? This of course does not count uplinks from NASA.

Interesting, thought experiment, we'll need more information, are you Doug Quaid the construction worker on virtual vacation through a mind implant or are you real and you are Carl Houser the secret agent who really does go to Mars? You probably can't answer that because you won't have "Total Recall"

That's a tough one because the radio equipment that you are going to have through NASA is going to give you probably just about everything you want to hear. And of course you would have the most advanced ham radio. I think the Icom would be totally worthless even as a doorstop because you probably don't have any doors.

My big concern would be reliable communication with my loved ones, family and friends on a daily basis as I think that is the only thing that would keep me from going mad, I am not good astronaut material especially very very long extended missions like that.

As far as antennas and dragging them along with you on the mission I don't think they would let you but again there would be adequate antennas on the Lander.

I don't think you would have much problem with reception at all receiving Earth signals however there could be a delay. I do think the Icom however, would be useless on Mars. .

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

 

[trentbob]

Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk... wize guy ay... why I'll...

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk... wize guy ay... why I'll...

That is the intelligent life now being received about 70 light years from earth.

 

[Omega-TI]

My big concern would be reliable communication with my loved ones, family and friends on a daily basis as I think that is the only thing that would keep me from going mad, I am not good astronaut material especially very very long extended missions like that.

I've given this some thought, I'll use RadioReference as an example...

Our interaction here is not in "real time", one posts a message, the other reads it later. NASA could "suck up" and mirror RR's last 24 hours of activity on a daily basis, and beam it to a holding cue on a satellite in Mars orbit. When you want to read a message, your computer would be hooked to a router that communicates with the orbiting satellite. You would then read and reply to your messages as normal. At some time during the day, barring periods of planetary opposition, your posts would be transmitted back to Earth and inserted into RR's message base. Granted plain old emails with audio or video would be easier, or even news websites. One could surf the web in real-time, if they didn't mind 40 minute waits between clicks.

If we are no longer dealing with a possible future, but indeed fiction, the satellite in this short video below would fix all those issues.

 

[trentbob]

Yeah I don't know what to say about all of that but I'm pretty reality-based. On this imaginary Mission to Mars radio reference would not be in any way part of the operation, I'm pretty sure of that LOL.

As far as the video, I guess that's a new series on a cable network or something? Right away tough to swallow because you would never send a single astronaut on a long time, distant mission, you need at least two people to cover each other's back for the simplest emergencies, especially medical, not to mention EVA repairs... Just tough to swallow the premise. All of that dramatic music in the background would also be very distracting LOL. I imagine long-time space travel is extremely quiet.

As far as the communication goes I think we've established that your Icom consumer receiver would be nothing but dead weight on the mission but I think NASA already has the communication methods down pretty pat. Obviously because we're going to the Moon as the first leg of the real Mars mission which was always the idea, again I think the communication part of it is probably the first thing they have tackled.

I guess I am too reality-based to expand my imagination here but I imagine after being into the first few months of a mission like this where you end up on Mars, psychologically you will definitely be in a different place than when you launched. Don't know what else to say

 

[Omega-TI]

I was coming at this from a different angle, not as a trained astronaut, but as a "worker immigrant". One way trip, 50 pounds of personal effects + 50 pounds of personal clothing. I imagine 1/3 the gravity would be appealing to some "old folks" and be less strenuous on the cardiovascular system as well, it might even add a few years to their lives.

So, no boat anchor radios, but a high-end, well-built, lightweight laptop would be a MUST as it may have to last the rest of one's life. So, I would definitely sacrifice the extra weight for an external keyboard an extra battery and a large HD stuffed with movies and TV series. The question remains, what laptop?

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Every pound of gear you bring to Mars had better be for sustaining life because otherwise you are trading entertainment for survival on a pound for pound basis. To survive, you need water and oxygen. The 1/3 gravity is not going to help much as your oxygen depletes and water evaporate away.

 

[Omega-TI]

Well if a person is going there for the rest of their natural life, you can be sure an accommodation would be made for personal belongings, otherwise no one would volunteer.

 

[Omega-TI]

Oh... and by the time they start sending colonists, you can be sure some sort of infrastructure would already be in place for water/oxygen with a backup system as well. Thinking about it, without any personal belongings, it would probably be like most of us imagine it would be like living in a jail. A small room with no belongings? That wouldn't fly.

 

[trentbob]

Again being reality-based, the first persons going to Mars are going to take a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind and get the hel* out of Dodge. They're going to plant a flag, don't know what kind of flag, maybe hit a golf ball, take some samples and that's it, their goal of the mission will be not only to go to Mars but return home alive.

Colonization would be decades and decades from there. Kind of feel it's not going to be the United States that does that. Given our current wildly unpopular bizarro world direction which will be perpetuated forever by corrupted, unconstitutional election laws, the government will never again represent the majority of people and will be unsustainable.

Colonization of Mars, if it ever happens will be some kind of a globalist effort and it won't be the quickly fleeting free society based on the principles of the USA that we are losing today LOL.

Given the topic of the thread which is a thought experiment, I think successful monitoring of Earth from Mars will be far more complicated than an ICOM radio hooked up to a yagi using knife's edge technology bouncing off of different celestial objects .

In a fantasy world it would be interesting what the results would be if you had a chance to try it. Interesting thought experiment.

 

[Omega-TI]

Sadly, I think you are spot on. I doubt it'll be the US sending the first mission there. Futurists never seem to take financial realities into account when projecting the future. While the technology many be available, it also takes the will. Unless some guy like Elon Musk and SpaceX can convince people to go, and largely funds the trip himself, I figure it'll be China. I'm getting old and I'm afraid I will not live to see the day... unless there is a major shift in political direction.