ApolloHoax.net
Off Topic => General Discussion => Topic started by: onebigmonkey on February 28, 2013, 02:42:32 PM
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You will be aware no doubt that mature established couples are being sought for a trip to Mars, setting off in 2018 for an 18 month non-landing mission.
Would you fancy it?
What technical things need to worked out yet or is it all there ready to go?
Is it pointless, given that they don't intend to land?
Does a relationship guarantee a lack of discord? Obviously if they're mature and in an established relationship they'll be used to going with sex for that long anyway ;)
Thoughts? Observations? Ribald comments?
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Presumably you meant WITHOUT sex. However, there's no reason to expect that they would have to abstain during the trip.
I'd love to see it happen, though. [ETA: the trip, not the sex. Necessarily.] Not sure whether they can pull it off. I would imagine one big problem will be, yes I'll say it, radiation. Maybe that's why they're looking for "mature" folks who won't be around long enough for the extra exposure to matter.
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Might be fun. It lasts 500 days so I could sell my house before we leave because by the time it is over my last kid will be out of college, so we would be downsizing anyway. I wonder how she would feel about me missing the graduation? The big downside is that you will become a reality TV celebrity and I can't act.
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Presumably you meant WITHOUT sex. However, there's no reason to expect that they would have to abstain during the trip.
I'd love to see it happen, though. [ETA: the trip, not the sex. Necessarily.] Not sure whether they can pull it off. I would imagine one big problem will be, yes I'll say it, radiation. Maybe that's why they're looking for "mature" folks who won't be around long enough for the extra exposure to matter.
~cough~ ;)
And yes - interesting Freudian slip there by me, I was having wistful and fond recollections of such things :D
The radiation issue has been mentioned in some reports, and no doubt quotes will be flung around by the Apollo denier community as they fail to distinguish between 18 months and a couple of weeks.
I think this is a marvellous thing, but it will be 9 months of not an awful lot happening, followed by a brief period of "HEY WOW!!", then another 9 months of not an awful lot happening. The periods of not an awful lot happening will be filled with conspiracy theory nonsense about the people they send being somewhere in a basement on Earth and the Mars footage will be all CGI ::)
I think it's a shame that they won't be going to the surface. I can see why, as it makes the cost of the whole thing affordable to the average billionaire space industry backer, but I think it will be very psychologically difficult. You could perhaps cope with the privations of the long journey if you knew that you were getting out at the end for a walk, but to just orbit a few times and head straight back? There will be people arguing that you might as well send monkeys.
I suppose they would get valuable information about human biology and psychology in preparation for a longer surface bound mission, and there is something in our nature that makes eyewitness testimony more valuable and interesting than the view from a camera alone. I am interested and excited to see how this turns out, and look forward to private industry looking at the moon with more seriously in the near future too.
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In 2018, we'll have a five-year-old. That won't work.
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Apollos 8 and 10 went the the Moon and intentionally didn't land, so even though that was part of an overall plan to land, its not unprecedented.
IMO, there is a lot than can be learned about Human Life Sciences from a mission like this. It will break Valery Polyakov's current record of 438 consecutive days, and we saw the effect the long stay in space had on him.
I think the mission would require some kind of simulated gravity arrangement.
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What about going to Phobos? The delta-V isn't much different from going into Mars orbit. And since it's probably a captured asteroid, we can get our first up-close look at one.
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What about going to Phobos? The delta-V isn't much different from going into Mars orbit. And since it's probably a captured asteroid, we can get our first up-close look at one.
They aren't going to Mars orbit. The proposed mission uses a gravity assist to put the spacecraft on a return trajectory to Earth. Following the burn to reach Mars, they only do minor trajectory correction maneuvers until they arrive back at Earth...they would need a couple km/s of extra delta-v to enter and break Mars orbit, and it would screw up the timing of their return.
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Well, just a flyby doesn't sound terribly exciting. Well, maybe more exciting than what we've done lately.
I wonder if there are any low-energy ways to enter and leave Mars orbit via one of its Lagrange points.
There are good reasons to stay for a while even if you don't land. You could operate rovers on the surface with very little time lag.
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This would be great reality TV.
The anticpation during the training
the danger of the launch
the strangeness of existing in weightlessness and slightly veiled suggestions of the wonderfulness of sex in zero G
the sharing of the new adventure as the couple falls into their new roles and work out long standing relationship issues during the cost
the new excitement of the approach to Mars
the bickering over who get viewing time of Mars throught the one small window while the other monitors operations
the drama as the fighting caries into the return coast
the recriminations as each blames the other for real or imagined personal failings
the final solution as one gets "voted" out the airlock.....
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Thoughts? Observations? Ribald comments?
Linky?
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Apparently they'll be using their own feces as radiation shielding.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission (http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission)
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Apparently they'll be using their own feces as radiation shielding.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission (http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission)
Taber MacCallum told New Scientist about the plan, saying that "it's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding."
Uh. Who is this Taber MacCallum who thinks there's no place for it go? Sure you can use it for shielding but... uhhh... why the hay has it not occurred to him to just jettison it?
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Apparently they'll be using their own feces as radiation shielding.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission (http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission)
My favourite comment on the article:
Instead of Solar and Cosmic Radiation lets add millions of bacteria to the mix and end up with a Ship of Radioactive Faeces.
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Thoughts? Observations? Ribald comments?
Linky?
http://www.interestingthings.net/2013/02/wanted-married-couple-for-private-mars.html (http://www.interestingthings.net/2013/02/wanted-married-couple-for-private-mars.html)
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Apparently they'll be using their own feces as radiation shielding.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission (http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4054664/astronauts-will-use-feces-as-a-radiation-shield-on-2018-mars-mission)
My favourite comment on the article:
Instead of Solar and Cosmic Radiation lets add millions of bacteria to the mix and end up with a Ship of Radioactive Faeces.
Patrick will be behind this. He's the only one obsessed with space-poop!
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You will be aware no doubt that mature established couples are being sought for a trip to Mars, setting off in 2018 for an 18 month non-landing mission.
Would you fancy it?
What technical things need to worked out yet or is it all there ready to go?
Is it pointless, given that they don't intend to land?
Does a relationship guarantee a lack of discord? Obviously if they're mature and in an established relationship they'll be used to going with sex for that long anyway ;)
Thoughts? Observations? Ribald comments?
Well, if the selected couples are the Smiths, Brandts, Seenys, and Rimskys, I'm not holding my breath for their safe return.
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Just to put my two-cents in, (as somebody already brought up Patrick1000/Fattydash/DoctorTea...etc) I've already started to speculate about the magnitude of woo-posts here-there-and-everywhere between now and when mars is reached.
I think it should be interesting, assuming that this goes ahead, to see how the HB'ers start to pile on the whole thing. I keep imagining every incredible theory from "the rocket never reached orbit" to "the pictures of Mars from the flyby are so obviously faked"...
...well, you get the picture.
[/rant off]
As skeptical as I am about this endeavour, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think it'll happen. It would be another victory for private space-flight in the extreme.
Cheers, all!
ETA: Sorry if this post came off as near-sighted or too blunt; it's been a long week.
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Uh. Who is this Taber MacCallum who thinks there's no place for it go? Sure you can use it for shielding but... uhhh... why the hay has it not occurred to him to just jettison it?
Somebody who knows more about life support systems that everbody here put together. He spent two years on Bisophere 2 and since then has been developing a range of life support systems including a number of NASA contracts with his company Paragon Space Development.
Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
edited for clarity....
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
Maybe they can use them to make course corrections ;D
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It's really little like other suggested Mars missions...it's a bare-minimum mission with delta-v requirements considerably lower than other alternatives due to the free return trajectory. The only propulsion needed after departure is for correcting errors in their trajectory. It's all minor variations on equipment that we expect to exist by that time.
However, that free return trajectory means they've got one small launch window in the relatively near future. Even if commercial crew development goes as planned, that leaves them with a small period of time to develop and test the vehicle. If they can't launch on time, their system won't be able to make the trip.
Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
1000 very small comets drifting just outside the windows.
Really, it should be doable. It wouldn't take much of an impulse to get refuse well clear of the spacecraft. But it'd require an airlock just for chucking garbage out of the spacecraft, designed to reliably eject it at some minimum velocity and be cycled perhaps hundreds of times over the mission, and the main result would be less shielding. Jettisoning refuse might be done for a spacecraft that has to brake to enter orbit, but this is just flying by.
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
Assuming two 1 kg turds (and those are big turds) per day for 500 days ejected at 1 m/s from a 10 ton spacecraft will accelerate the craft by 0.1 m/s. The fuel required to compensate for that acceleration is about .33 kg. It's not that big a deal. Sure, use it for shielding but don't say there is no other place to put it.
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
Assuming two 1 kg turds (and those are big turds) per day for 500 days ejected at 1 m/s from a 10 ton spacecraft will accelerate the craft by 0.1 m/s. The fuel required to compensate for that acceleration is about .33 kg. It's not that big a deal. Sure, use it for shielding but don't say there is no other place to put it.
Not even close to the reason.
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
Assuming two 1 kg turds (and those are big turds) per day for 500 days ejected at 1 m/s from a 10 ton spacecraft will accelerate the craft by 0.1 m/s. The fuel required to compensate for that acceleration is about .33 kg. It's not that big a deal. Sure, use it for shielding but don't say there is no other place to put it.
Not even close to the reason.
What is the reason?
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Would they make a good heat shield?
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Not even close to the reason.
Not referring to the meteor shower upon return? Possibly the first earth-orbiting satellite to be taken out by a turd?
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Not even close to the reason.
Not referring to the meteor shower upon return? Possibly the first earth-orbiting satellite to be taken out by a turd?
Nope.
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I think I'll sit out the game of twenty questions.
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days
A big brown streak down one side of the ship?
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Not even close to the reason.
We await your outpouring of wisdom most wise one. Please rescue us stupidheads from our ignorance.
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We await your outpouring of wisdom most wise one. Please rescue us stupidheads from our ignorance.
I do rather like the idea of using it as a heat shield. Reenter earth's atmosphere as a flaming turd . . .
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In all seriousness, the most valuable commodity on an interplanetary voyage is mass. No matter what it is, it always has at least two uses:
Radiation shielding.
Propellant, i.e., reaction mass for propulsion -- even if the energy has to be supplied externally.
It has always bothered me that the ISS doesn't seem to take this seriously, as we're frequently told it is gathering the experience we will need someday for such a trip. The ISS throws a lot of stuff overboard or back into the atmosphere instead of finding other uses for it.
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One problem with ejecting human ejecta is that some of it would land on Mars with the non-trivial possibility bringing non-native life to the planet.
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One problem with ejecting human ejecta is that some of it would land on Mars with the non-trivial possibility bringing non-native life to the planet.
Yikes, another Late Heavy Bombardment!
Somewhere (maybe CQ) I was recently reading about the theory that this is how life started on earth. I think it came from a work of fiction, rather than being a serious theory. Can't remember the reference though.
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It has always bothered me that the ISS doesn't seem to take this seriously, as we're frequently told it is gathering the experience we will need someday for such a trip. The ISS throws a lot of stuff overboard or back into the atmosphere instead of finding other uses for it.
I've had similar thoughts. Compress refuse into bales and anchor them outside as radiation/micrometeorite shielding, or just pile it up for its mass (extending the time before orbital decay is a problem) and future raw material for recycling experiments? Nope, they just dump it.
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or just pile it up for its mass (extending the time before orbital decay is a problem)
For the uninitiated, is the idea here that the decay is due to friction with the tiny bit of atmosphere still up there, and that this friction has to do with the surface area? So if it is more massive with about the same surface area, the friction accelerates it less?
Or does that completely miss the point?
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It would certainly affect the trajectory, though how much I don't know. I remember how Apollo 13 was worried about the urine dumps throwing it off course. Storing it as radiation shielding I can see making sense. I've heard water as shielding, but I wondered what they would do once they drunk it. As long as it's not allowed to contaminate the atmosphere, I don't see it being that bad.
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For the uninitiated, is the idea here that the decay is due to friction with the tiny bit of atmosphere still up there, and that this friction has to do with the surface area? So if it is more massive with about the same surface area, the friction accelerates it less?
It's more about cross section than surface area, but yes, that's right. The rate at which momentum is lost to drag doesn't change, but you have more to lose before it becomes a problem. In the long run, you still need to perform the same reboost maneuvers, but you have more margin if something interrupts your ability to perform those maneuvers.
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I've had similar thoughts. Compress refuse into bales and anchor them outside as radiation/micrometeorite shielding, or just pile it up for its mass (extending the time before orbital decay is a problem) and future raw material for recycling experiments? Nope, they just dump it.
I assume you mean to increase the ballistic coefficient of the ISS to reduce deceleration due to atmospheric drag. But with a mass of 450 tonnes or so, I doubt it would make much difference. And you'd have to be careful not to increase the cross sectional area in the process.
My idea is to build some sort of electromagnetic catapult above the ISS so that refuse could be accelerated retrograde, deorbiting it and at the same time providing a prograde impulse to the ISS to reboost its orbit. The energy would come from the sun, and you wouldn't have to spend as much lofting chemical propellant for reboost.
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or just pile it up for its mass (extending the time before orbital decay is a problem)
For the uninitiated, is the idea here that the decay is due to friction with the tiny bit of atmosphere still up there, and that this friction has to do with the surface area? So if it is more massive with about the same surface area, the friction accelerates it less?
That's exactly right. Every orbiting object has a ballistic coefficient, defined as the mass divided by the cross sectional area along the velocity vector. It has units of kg/m2. The higher the ballistic coefficient, the less deceleration there is from a given residual density of the atmosphere. So you have the somewhat counterintuitive fact that a cannonball will be much longer lived in a given orbit than a feather, even though when dropped on earth the cannonball would hit first.
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My idea is to build some sort of electromagnetic catapult above the ISS so that refuse could be accelerated retrograde, deorbiting it and at the same time providing a prograde impulse to the ISS to reboost its orbit. The energy would come from the sun, and you wouldn't have to spend as much lofting chemical propellant for reboost.
Poop; the new rocket fuel!
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If they put some sort of bioluminescent ingredient in their food you could use it as a trail marker...
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Poop; the new rocket fuel!
Nothing new about it, haven't you seen/read __________? (Insert your most hated SciFi here)
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Poop; the new rocket fuel!
Not fuel; propellant. There's a difference.
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The Rocketdyne RS-40 crap engine . . .
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Not fuel; propellant. There's a difference.
Ship up some extra LOX and it could be both.
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You know, the ISS is already making oxygen from urine and exhaled moisture.
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People should read the original paper
http://inspirationmars.org/IEEE_Aerospace_TITO-CARRICO_Feasibility_Analysis_for_a_Manned_Mars_Free-Return_Mission_in_2018.pdf
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People should read the original paper
http://inspirationmars.org/IEEE_Aerospace_TITO-CARRICO_Feasibility_Analysis_for_a_Manned_Mars_Free-Return_Mission_in_2018.pdf
Why don't you summarise it for us? You appear to have all the answers.
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People should read the original paper
http://inspirationmars.org/IEEE_Aerospace_TITO-CARRICO_Feasibility_Analysis_for_a_Manned_Mars_Free-Return_Mission_in_2018.pdf
Why don't you summarise it for us? You appear to have all the answers.
No, only some. Because I clicked and read.
Since you asked, here are some details:
Authors - Dennis Tito (Wilshire Associates Incorporated), Grant Anderson, Barry Finger, Gary Lantz, Taber MacCallum, Jane Poynter (Paragon Space Development Corporation), John Carrico, Jr. (Applied Defense Solutions, Inc.), Jonathan Clark, (Baylor College Of Medicine), Michel Loucks (Space Exploration Engineering Co.) Thomas Squire and S. Pete Worden (NASA Ames Research Center).
Title
"Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free-Return Mission in 2018"
Abstract
In 1998 Patel et al searched for Earth-Mars free-return trajectories that leave Earth, fly by Mars, and return to Earth without any deterministic maneuvers after Trans-Mars Injection. They found fast trajectory opportunities occurring two times every 15 years with a 1.4-year duration, significantly less than most Mars free return trajectories, which take up to 3.5 years. This paper investigates these fast trajectories. It also determines the launch and life support feasibility of flying such a mission using hardware expected to be available in time for an optimized fast trajectory opportunity in January, 2018.
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The mission, which uses an unusual low energy and fast free return trajectory that occurs on two successive windows every 15 years, will last 501.5 days. Launch date will be January 15 2018, Mars arrival after 227 days on August 20 2018, Earth arrival after a further 274 days May 21 2019. Landing could occur up to 10 days later, depending on which aerocapture profile is used for the 14.18 km/s entry.
The preferred crew is 2, one man one woman is implied (and stated specifically in the press conference).
The life support system is expected to mass 2,432 kg and have a volume of 6.6 m2, peak power requirements of 5,489 watts and average power of 2,208 watts. Supplies will mass 3,131 kg and occupy a volume of 17.7 m3
State of the art technology of TRL 9 is preferred. Critical system spares will be carried and the system will be designed for ease of servicing and repair.
Air (sea level N2 & O2 mix and pressure) will be stored at high pressure and recyled through a molecular sieve, Sabatier reactor (to producde water), and electrolysis of water (to produce oyxygen), water will be processed through multi-filtration, ion exchange, distillation, and catalytic oxidation of waste to recycle at 75% efficiency.
Falcon Heavy and Dragon is used as indicative hardware, although, as the press conference showed, more volume than Dragon alone is needed and no decision has been made.
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Think of the consequences of putting a bowel movement a day by two people overboard for 500 days (that's a thousand movements at least) on a mission without any major orbital changes and you can work out why jettisoning it is not going to be a good idea.
Assuming two 1 kg turds (and those are big turds) per day for 500 days ejected at 1 m/s from a 10 ton spacecraft will accelerate the craft by 0.1 m/s. The fuel required to compensate for that acceleration is about .33 kg. It's not that big a deal. Sure, use it for shielding but don't say there is no other place to put it.
Not even close to the reason.
So what is the reason?
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Inspiration Mars's reason is that it is too useful to dump.
Additional issues I can come up with regarding dumping include:
Planetary protection - this is a close flyby 100 km and if gthe spacecfraft is surrounded by an expanding cloud of human waste there is a chance that some will end up on Mars. Small maybe, not not worth it, especially when it is not neccessary.
Obscuration of the view - constellation Urion aused some annoyance to astronauts takingstar sights during Apollo, hundreds of waste bags could do the same, not to mention imaging opptunities during the flyby.
Air loss - a small amount will be lost each dump, they may wish to avoid this.
But the main reason is what they have stated - it is too useful onboard. The amount is not that large anyway- 109 kg for the total mission (dry mass).