Shit. I mean lol but there're real candidates who bet their lives on that project
Does not really matter. There are a lot of questions about whether man can live on mars. For example, the dirt is similar to bleach, it is an oxidizer. So what happens if you get it on you? You get rashes. What happens if it gets in your lungs? So forth and so on.
I think some animal tests would be in order, plunk them down on the Red Planet with some months of supplies and a test program. At the end of the test period, they would be killed - if they lived that long. Anyone who says that's not practical because of the long trip to get there better back off and think about how that applies even more strongly to humans.
No, testing Mars with animals is not good. If we could afford to transport animals to Mars we can do it with humans at the same price probably.
And while this mission may be suicidal - but truth to be told everyone signing for this kind of adventure know they may not live long.
Testing Mars with animals certainly is good. Number of reasons for this.
First of all, understand that these animals will die. Just like the early space tests with dogs and monkeys. The animals will not be brought back to Earth. This is no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The big advantage is that one of the hibernating animal species could be used, such as marmots, ground squirrels, praire dogs. This means they would be asleep during the transit to Mars. We know from LEO operations with humans how humans do for six or eight months in weightlessness, that is not an issue. The questions have to do with sustaining life on the surface of Mars.
After their arrival a number of useful tests could be ran on the animals. Possibly food, water and breathing air could be provided for a year or so. They'd be split into a number of test cells. Some might have the local surface dirt injected into their environment, others might be exposed to the direct sun rays.
