Quote:
Originally Posted by Doodler
Touche'. In defense, I only listed specialties, not numbers. At the same time, I seem to recall a doctor on a recent Antarctic expedition that had to do surgery on herself, so the one person per position idea is not without precedent.
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The South Pole is easy going compared to Mars. After all: a plane was able to drop supplies. And communications with other doctors was for all practical purposes instantaneous. Of the two, it would be communications that most concern me here. When seconds count, asking for advice from Earth and waiting 20 minutes for the radio waves to do a round trip will not work. More than one person must know the piloting, engineering, and medical aspects well enough to be able to correctly perform the deeds under duress and without any immediate help from mission control.
This lag in communications will be something completely new to manned spaceflight. No longer will can there be instant (okay delays of a few seconds) communications with one's peers and with experts. This means that the astronauts will need to be more independent of mission control than they are now.
This communications will also take part of the psychological part of "What type of astronaut?" and "How many?" There will be no normal conversion with non-crewmembers for at least two years. Can one one imagine only being able to talk to a small handful of people? I don't think they will have spirit rations, the old way to make such misery bearable. Of course on the plus side, "letters" from home will be rather easy to get. How people will react to it without going mad is a big unknown. I don't think there are too many good analogies from past events. Social dynamics on the old sailing ships are too different than what would be accepted today. (Well I am assuming that they won't bring along a Cat o' nine tails along nor will the captain be so utterly in control and there is likely to be females crew members.)