Page 168 - MY STORY

effort required to establish a habitat on a faraway planet

after one year of zero-g space travel, even with the
onboard exercises required of the astronauts.

Crew Size
Initial thinking by NASA was that a crew size of 12 souls
would be about right. That would have required pretty

large living quarters along with very large consumables.
One thought was to maybe make two complete systems
that would travel together (6 crew each), in order to

minimize structural and human needs. This also might
enable the potential for rescue if one of the systems

malfunctioned and required a mission abort. This was
definitely an open issue, not completely resolved at the
time. Human interactions in a highly confined
environment over long time periods was not well known.

Another worry not easily defined or resolved.

Communication Time Lag
Communication or command links were victimized by
the speed-of-light-limits. It would take about 20 minutes

each way for any communication to take place with Mars
inhabitants. So – no quick answers to problems, human
or other. The astronauts had to be trained to be

self-sufficient in every way imaginable, including