Technology

This also reminds me of something else: Yes, you can have all kinds of problems in space missions. Not just bit flips.

I have been thinking about planning a mars mission. And one of the things that you need to guarantee is the safety of the crew in untested environments. Like on the surface of mars, you have to guarantee that the crew can survive at least until the next ship can arrive to help them. And launch windows to mars appear only once every two earth years (once every martian year), so crew has to survive that long.

You also have to survive when there's a power outage for any reason. Could be that the coworker stumbled over a cable and pulled out a power line's connection. Could be that there's 3-months-long dust storms (which would block solar panels). (they appear each martian year, sometimes more sometimes less severe, i think typical duration is less than 50 days, but just to be sure make that 100 days). Could be that there's a problem with your electronics and they simply won't work anymore and you can't figure out why.

So imagine you're standing in your apartment. I recommend you live inside the Starship for the first few years because it's already a habitat since you flew in it for 6 months to get to mars in the first place.

Power outage. How do you get out of the door? There's obviously a pressure door between your apartment and the outside world. And the power line's outside. So if the power line disconnects because a rover messed up and pulled it out, there's a power outage. And if the door is electrically operable, you can't get out of the door to repair it. That is why i say that every door has to be manually operable. Like, pressure doors should have manual operation mode. You need to be able to operate the pressure door with your bare hands. I already thought of some designs that can actually deliver that, but i'm too lazy to do a drawing now.