[ExI] Concerns Grow Over Conditions on Navy Carrier

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 14/08/2026 18:36, spike wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Concerns Grow Over Conditions on Navy Carrier
>
> On Fri, 14 Aug 2026 at 12:46, John Clark via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>> ... Navy Carrier The U.S.S. Abraham 
>> Lincoln has been deployed for nearly nine months. Members of Congress are worried about the crew’s well-being.
> ...
>> _______________________________________________
>
>> ...Nine months, and some crew members are becoming unstable?
>> ...With all the talk about trips to Mars soon, I asked how long that would take.
> The fastest estimate was approx. 9 months going, wait 500 days, then 9 months back.
> The round trip takes approx. 3 years.
> Can the crew remain stable for that long in isolation?
> Can they carry enough supplies for three years?
>
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> BillK, the classic Mars mission was always three men.  But I presented at engineering conferences back in the 1990s that any such notion would result in two fellers killing the third, then the two surviving crewmen fighting to the death, after which the third guy would slay himself.
>
> Even if we found a way for three fellers to get along, that is waaaay too much human cargo, way too much.
>
> We could however imagine a single small woman surviving that ordeal, given sufficient email traffic from home.


Why a woman?

I'm sure there are plenty of men who would welcome three years of peace and quiet. Sounds quite an attractive prospect to me, certainly. I can't be the only one (not that I would volunteer for a mars mission, I don't fancy getting radiation-induced cancer and low-grav. sickness). Of course, I imagine mission control would be on your case all the time, monitoring your everything and ordering you about, so maybe it wouldn't be all that good.

What would prevent such an astronaut telling them to fuck off and turning off the telemetry etc., I wonder?

Yeah, vetting, I suppose. But maybe anyone who would pass the vetting wouldn't be suitable for spending 3 years in solitary confinement?

Hmm.
-- 
Ben