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One-Way Ticket to Mars?
ahogue writes "Paul Davies, who has written several very accessible books on physics and cosmology, proposes an interesting way to get a manned mission to Mars - leave them there. [NYTimes, free reg. req.] While it may sounds shocking at first, the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives. Any volunteers?" Reader docanime writes with some sober news: "All this recent talk about Mars rovers and orbiters has made one space fan checking out how well Mars has been deflecting and destroying the space probes. The Mars Scorecard lists all the known fly-by, orbital, and landing attempts/failures made by humans. In case you're curious, Mars is winning 20 to 16."
Can't you just hook up one of my legs to a life support system and send it there? at least we will have a "part" of a man there. And I can say I have 1 foot in this world and 1 in the next.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
I nominate George W Bush to be first in line. :)
Pet Peeve #1977832: I hate it when they use overt religious terms in scientific articles. Keep religion relegated to where it belongs and keep science scientific.
Trolling is a art,
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/opinion/15DAVI.h tml?ex=1074747600&en=60630c5edf30aefa&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
This planet sucks, I wouldn't mind it.
proposes an interesting way to get a manned mission to Mars - leave them there.
I think we should have some sort of official voting process to decide who gets chosen for these missions. I know I could think of a few people I would like to nominate.
"Mars needs men!"
A few days after landing...
"Mars needs women!"
- the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives
What are the social and exploratory benefits of a manned mission? How do they outweigh the costs?While I'm a big fan of robotic probes to Mars and elsewhere, I have never seen a compelling economic argument for manned exploration of Mars, at least in the short and medium term.
The argument for seems to be based entirely on the assumption that we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible and this is a first step. But why do we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible? Until we've exhausted what we can learn from unmanned probes, why send manned missions at all?
I nominate Darryl McBride and Billy Goats for the mission.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Google.
Iraq: war to save the U
Send paypal donations to DarlMcBrideMarsTicket@yahoo.com.
Didn't anyone see From The Earth To The Moon?
"Yeah.. we would never, ever do that."
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
Socks!
just think of all the frequent flyer miles you'll rack up!
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote about this very scenario a while back. It's a series of books about the colonization of Mars, both from a technical and a social viewpoint. Very good sci-fi.
(Search for 'Red Mars' on amazon)
Sounds fun. If they send me with a rubber woman I'd be good to go!
Wasn't this done in Kin Stenley Robinson's Red Mars. Personally I think it is an interesting proposal, however I do not work for NASA, yet at least. Perhaps someone with some insider information could reveal whether or not this has been discussed/is an option. I do not see why it is not out of the realm of possibility. Heck, once I finish my degree I would gladly volunteer
I'd like to add that I think Davies has come up with a good idea, but it needs one thing - property rights. A development regime which provides some form of property rights will become increasingly necessary as space develops. Professionals foresee an integrated system of solar power generation, lunar and asteroidal mining, orbital industrialization, and habitation in outer space. In the midst of this complexity, the right to maintain a facility in a given location relative to another space object may create conflict. Such conflicts may arise sooner than we expect, if private companies begin building subsidiary facilities around space stations. Eventually large public facilities will become the hub of private space development, and owners will want to protect the proximity value of their facility location.
It also seems likely that at some point national governments and/or private companies will clash over the right to exploit a given mineral deposit. Finally, the geosynchronous orbit is already crowded with satellites, and other orbits with unique characteristics may become scarce in the future.
The institution of real property is the most efficient method of allocating the scarce resource of location value. Space habitats, for example, will be very expensive and will probably require financing from private as well as public sources. Selling property rights for living or business space on the habitat would be one way of obtaining private financing. Private law condominiums would seem to be a particularly apt financing model -- inhabitants could hold title to their living space and pay a monthly fee for life-support services and maintenance of common areas.
>>esr>>
Mars may be up against the world as a whole, but by my count, the US has been kicking some Martian tail.
The US leads Mars 10-5.
The USSR is trailing Mars 5-16
Japan trails Mars 0-1
And the ESA is up on Mars 1-0
Take me off this planet, the lifeforms are so...passe'
Not more than 2 days ago I thought that I would volunteer for a 1-way trip to Mars. I mean if I was the only person there my odds of getting laid would still be the same as they are on earth.
I agree with Sirinek, Bush Jr should be the first to go to Mars. He already doesn't live in this world.
*runs before the flames hit*
As for the name of the spaceship, I suggest naming it the "B" Ark.
Well, if the manned missions use the bouncing airbag solution used for the unmanned rovers, it could be fun going to Mars. However, the lack of return trip could be a bit of a bummer.
You could always find some adrenaline junkies up for the bounce.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Lets look into this "volunteer" thing: we are looking for a person ready to give up their whole life, move to an almost 100% barren place where he/she will soon die utterly alone!
I don't think it would be wise to bet such a multi-ten-billion mission on a whacko like that.
Sigged!
I just don't want to see any commercials of that stupid guy on Mars saying, "Can you hear me now? Good!"
The trouble comes, of course, when the crew gets into an argument over certain marital infidelities, kill each other, and the Martians living there take in the child that was conceived in space and raise him as their own, then send him back to Earth to cause a hippie revolution of a scale that man cannot even comprehend. (or grok)
Or maybe not.
--Stephen
If it's one-way, I nominate the cast of "Space Cowboys." That was a terrible movie.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
An opportunity to live in a place in the Sol system not yet swamped by commercialism, war, rude Americans, manipulative Presidents, lying corporations? Where I can accomplish something that would benefit all of mankind?
It'll take me about one day to drive to the Florida launchpad from my apartment. Sign me the hell up!
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The worst situation isn't sending a human to mars and having them destroyed in the atmosphere. The worst situation is having them enter the atmosphere and then never hearing from them again (ala Beagle2). People could deal with straight-out death. But if we send a person to Mars and their fate is unknown, that would freak people out.
In their one current mission, the orbiter survived and the lander is presumed lost.
Do you think it would be hard to get approved for a credit card a year before you left?
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
in all seriousness, would it be possible to pick up earth television signals with any amount of clarity?
In all seriousness, I would be willing to volunteer for a one-way trip to the Red Planet. Crazy? Probably. Suicide? Who knows. Incredible opportunity? Darn right. Give me 5 or more years of notice, a hefty paycheck for those years ($1 million-ish, to toss out a figure) and I would be willing to board the ship on a one-way trip there.
What do you mean the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives? As far as financial, how are you going spend any money on Mars? This had better be one hell of an exploration benefit.
Granted, the norwegian blue has got beautiful plumage, but it's still an EX-parrot!
I don't care if it's got exploration benefits if I'd soon be an EX-astronaut.
Yoghurt
It's just political. It's doubtful that Bush really thinks we should put a man on Mars, or even send a mission there. But doesn't it sound really patriotic? "The First Man On Mars Will Be An AMERICAN!" No sissy robots, which can't even cook or do the dishes. No, a real, honest-to-god, white American male. It's bound to get him some votes.
Seems to me one of the biggest issues is sending enough water. And I've been bothered by politicians who claim launching from the moon is cheaper. While the moon might be a decent staging area, stuff to launch still has to get there from Earth's gravity well before it goes. And the worst is the water--it's dead weight that we can't leave behind.
That's one thing I've been wondering about. If it takes a HUGE construct of boosters, launching equipment, and fuel just to escape earth's atmosphere, how exactly do we expect to return anyone from mars? We can't exactly land a launching pad on Mars in any acceptable timeframe, and it would be incredibly difficult to land a craft that would have the required fuel to escape from Mars.
Somehow I doubt that the desire to have someone walk on Mars is going to be the magical trick that makes fusion a viable energy source. We need more general science, not just a space program.
Ryan Fenton
Do you realize the implications of Darl McBride being the first man on Mars? NASA would have to buy licenses for looking at pictures of Mars! So much for the $1 billion budget...
I know of a few older scientists who would give anything to go down in history as the first humans to step foot on / colonize Mars. My Step-dad for one. This is truly an exciting prospect, and I believe after a few years we may even be able to get them back.
The entire United States.
Then the rest of us can get back to living again.
China will own the solar system (or Russia). The U.S. is so obsessed with safety that we will be blown away by a country with a few brave explorers. We might as well surrender now and just redirect the money to midnight basketball.
"New Australia"
If a Puritan revival was to take place perhaps they would build a spaceship named Mayflower and head off to Mars to start a new life.
/me hopes that the indiginous martians won't be called *Red* Indians :-D
And once there they'd take their ship apart and use it to build their first homes.
History repeats itself.
Worst
But, you know, bourgeois governments are keen at wasting money.
Get some *really* tough balloons, forget the braking rockets, and with a good shot, the return trip is free as you bounce off Mars and back to Earth. It would be the interplanetary equivalent of the bungee jump!
Clearly Mars has far more potential to colonize (maybe even terraform?), but how about trying to establish a Moon colony first. The moon certainly would have natural resources to build a colony, and we should be able to set up a self sustaining environment, with minimal needs for resupply. Once we conquer a barren vacuum rock, building up on a distant atmosphere laden planet is not so intimidating.
...or the Martians would develop an even more awful accent than the Australians did... :-)
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
...electricity back to Iraq, but sending some guys to a rusty rock. Strange priorities.
All these planets are yours, except Mars.
Attempt no landings there.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
I've always told my GF that if I was ever given a one-way tocket to Mars, even the Moon, i'd accept it.
For as long as I have a long chair, a six pack and a bag of pretzels.
I imagine myself dying a gentle carbon monoxide death watching the sunset after the most incredible journey one could ever make and having spent a couple of days at the most unimaginable place of all.
Sign me up. Please!
I have always wanted to build a Country. Now I can build a Planet without DMCA and marketing!!
Anyone coming with me?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
So the US can ship off some of that surplus from the prisons in Texas. Saves on needles eh, George?
1.) For all of you who are willing to go, do you realize how poor your bandwidth is going to be? Forget about sniping!
2.) This has the potential to be just like in the swimming pool. Drop something to the bottom and challenge yourself trying to get it. Sending someone to mars is just like setting a goal that we have to try to keep. It's not the first mission that's so important, it's the rescue mission.
...when I think astronauts that didn't pass the final test (after years or studies and stuff astronauts do their whole lifes to be prepared for the one day), because of deadly cancer or other deadly deseases, certainly might be interested in this.
Like Tommy Lee Jones in "Space Cowboys".
...in the full knowledge that they could die in the process, and that even if they succeeded their health might be irreversibly harmed. Yet governments and scientific societies were willing sponsors of these enterprises. Why should it be different today?
Because we are more civilized and sophisticated today? He's arguing for a mission that dooms astronauts, because it's cheaper and more readily accomplished. Absurd. We can afford to wait a couple decades to do it right.
Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might.
America is barbaric and ruthless in all respects, except when it comes to marooning scientists on Mars: in that respect, we are just timid!
Yeah, right. Let the French go on a one-way trip, if they want. I'd like to think this country to sane enough to say "no way".
Though a freeze-dried desert today, it was once warm and wet, with lakes, rivers, active volcanoes and a thick atmosphere -- all conditions conducive to life.
We don't know this for sure yet, do we?
Mars is winning 20 to 16.
When Kennedy said hey let's send a man to the moon. The USA was only getting one rocket into space for very three or four fired, much less any were near the moon. Already the odds above look better. Then add to that all the players included in the scorecard. Fact is when it comes to the good ole US of A, Mars is losing 4 to 7. Nearly two successes for every failure, and when Opportunity touched down it will be two success for every failure.
This signiture copied from somewhere.
Issue 1:
How long would it take you to get there, without all of those things you listed?
Issue 2:
Wouldn't benefiting all of mankind benefit those things that you hate, more than anyone else?
Issue 3:
Are rude Mexicans, French, English, Germans, Brazilians, Japaneese, Chineese, etc. Ok in your book?
Issue 4:
Given the above list, I think I can see exactly how your trip would benefit all of mankind.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Now, before you hit that "troll" button, I suggest you read the moderator guidelines, specifically the part which says you should not moderate to promote or discount specific viewpoints.
I'm not trolling(trolling= looking to get responses; I could care less if anyone responds)- I'm expressing what I believe to be a perfectly valid viewpoint/opinion, shared by many, many other people(that we have no business exploring space until we've solved more basic problems here) that is reasonably on-topic(the article is about mars exploration, its costs, and so on).
But, of course, feel free to mod "troll" or "offtopic", because then you'll get meta-moderated "unfair" by people like me, and then you won't get to moderate anymore- I aggressively meta-moderate, and I look out overuse of moderation, on both sides of the fence- stupid stuff modded "insightful" and unpopular viewpoints modded "troll".
Please help metamoderate.
We will need to colonize Mars! Here's what I propose:
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
I guess Fox can do this next.
I suggest it be a Celebrity Survivor!
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
In season 10, Mark Burnett's wildly popular Survivor series will take a giant leap for mankind. In the newest twist, contestants vie to vote each other off the planet!
Typos... that's just how I role.
And I'd be the first one to sign up. This is after all what the ultimate goal of space exploration should be. It's the ultimate goal of life itself after all.
Blaze a trail to the New World
My high school career prediction (as appears in my yearbook):
Chosen from among many to explore Mars and is now a current resident.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
You can always buy a return ticket once you get there! Right?
Right link
Please help metamoderate.
Life (and Death) on Mars
By PAUL DAVIES
SYDNEY, Australia -- President Bush's announcement yesterday that the United States will soon be pointing its rockets toward Mars will doubtless be greeted with delight by space scientists.
After all, there are plenty of good reasons to mount such a trip. For a start, Mars is one of the few accessible places beyond Earth that could have sustained life. Though a freeze-dried desert today, it was once warm and wet, with lakes, rivers, active volcanoes and a thick atmosphere -- all conditions conducive to life. Microbes might even remain alive there, lurking in liquid aquifers deep beneath the permafrost.
If life began from scratch on both Mars and Earth separately, then evidence for a second genesis would await us, providing a heaven-sent opportunity to compare two bio-systems and learn how life emerges from non-life. And if life were found to have started twice within the solar system, it would signal that the laws of nature are inherently bio-friendly, implying a universe teeming with life.
An alternative possibility is that life started on Mars and spread to Earth inside material blasted into space by the impact of comets crashing into the Martian surface. Mars and Earth trade rocks, and hardy bacteria could have hitched a ride to seed our planet with microbial Martians. Just possibly the journey was reversed, with life starting on Earth and hopping to Mars. Though such cross-contamination would compromise hopes of identifying a genuine second sample of life, it would still represent a biological bonanza, enabling scientists to study two versions of evolution. The economic and practical benefits would be incalculable.
Mars is alluring in another respect. Alone among our sister planets, it is able to support a permanent human presence. As Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society has remarked, it is the second safest place in the solar system. Its thin atmosphere provides a measure of protection against meteorites and radiation. Crucially, there is probably the water, carbon dioxide and minerals needed to sustain a colony.
And yet the scientific community's enthusiasm will surely be tempered by skepticism. Scientists, it's worth remembering, rejoiced when President George H. W. Bush unveiled a Mars project in 1989. The same scientists then despaired when the plan quickly evaporated amid spiraling projected costs and shifting priorities. Of course, the project's demise should not have surprised anyone. Back then, a manned expedition to Mars came with a price tag of of more than $400 billion, a sum that makes the cost of the Apollo Moon landings seem like small change.
Why is going to Mars so expensive? Mainly it's the distance from Earth. At its closest point in orbit, Mars lies 35 million miles away from us, necessitating a journey of many months, whereas reaching the Moon requires just a few days' flight. On top of this, Mars has a surface gravity that, though only 38 percent of Earth's, is much greater than the Moon's. It takes a lot of fuel to blast off Mars and get back home. If the propellant has to be transported there from Earth, costs of a launching soar.
Without some radical improvements in technology, the prospects for sending astronauts on a round-trip to Mars any time soon are slim, whatever the presidential rhetoric. What's more, the president's suggestion of using the Moon as a base -- a place to assemble equipment and produce fuel for a Mars mission less expensively -- has the potential to turn into a costly sideshow. There is, however, an obvious way to slash the costs and bring Mars within reach of early manned exploration. The answer lies with a one-way mission.
Most people react with instinctive horror at the suggestion. I recall my own sense of discomfort when I met an aging American scientist who claimed to have trained for a one-way mission to the Moon in the pre-Apollo days. And in the case of the barren Moon, that reaction is largely justified. There is little on the Moon to sustain human lif
It would be much better to send at least 30 people.
You would increase the social life and long term mental stability of the colonists, as well as increase the diversity of expertise.
You would also increase the probability of success of such a one way mission by sending those 30 people in 6 separate rockets. If half the landers fail, you have at least 15 people left -- a small village.
Granted the supply line would be difficult to maintain, but with each one, we could develop the Mars colonists self-sustaining capabilities.
Again we would need to send more than one rocketful of supplies to reduce the risk should one of the supply rockets fail.
Alternatively, we could send the supplies and equipment FIRST, and start sending people when there's enough backup equipment and materials waiting for them on Mars to enable the colonists to survive for at least a lifetime.
The lower gravity would create long-term medical problems and the cosmic radiation that penetrates the thin atmosphere is bound to increase the risk of cancer.
Why would a lower gravity have these effects on the human body, does anyone here know why? Does this mean a full-fledge civilization on Mars would not be possible, because of the lower gravity?
Mad Hatter
Seeing that it is currently warmer on Mars than where I live, I'm thinking about it.
If we used nuclear engines, we wouldn't HAVE to leave them there. Not only would be able to build high powered, fuel-efficient rockets, but we'd be able to refuel them from Mar's own materials. Plus we could build a Mars Shuttle for orbital to surface commutes. Didn't anyone read the article on Clean Nuclear Launches a few days ago?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The primary reason is that man can adapt. He can improvise. Risk brings rewards. With man on Mars you will not be limited as conventional rovers are.
We do not currently make probes capable of repair. While it is arguable that repairing an astronaut isn't going to be easy it is far easier that fixing the machines.
Many people seem to think its okay to risk astronaut lives going up into orbit but balk at other choices? Why should it be any different. We are talking about volunteers. How many people were lost exploring just our world? How many perished going to new depths in the ocean?
The ability to improvise is the key.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If you say that someone who would volunteer is 'whacko' you are meerly forcing your own cowardice in others. Count me in anytime, I'm quite serious too. We seem to have lost our pioneering instincts. The sailors who first sailed around the world had a terrible death rate. Not all of them were forced, many signed on for money (suprise suprise), glory and the sense of adventure. We are also ready to accept that soldiers will gladly sacrifice themselves for military objectives, but we can't accept that people would sacrifice themselves for any other greater good. What about the guy who demonstrated the link between stomach ulcers and heart disease ? He was so convinced he was right, he experimented on himself and could have died. There would be a long queue of high quality, sane, competent individuals volunteering for this.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems unfair to judge the sucess probability of a future manned mission based on past robotic missions. The Mars Scorecard points out the problem pretty clearly, the same problem which NASA team members cited when working on the Mars landing for Spirit and Opportunity. It's simply this: Autonomous systems are difficult to design.Go to the NASA Mars Rovers site, and watch this video:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/mov ies/mer_ch_edl_TerrorComb.mpg
You'll see just how hard it is to get a robotic system to land properly. A manned mission with a pilot in the front seat would have a much better chance of adapting to unforseen circumstances, and thereby increase the likelihood of a succesful mission. Not to mention the added possibility of repairing problems.
One way trip? How d'you think they colonised Australia :-)
Cheers
Simon
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
3: You know, I've met many many Mexicans, French, English, Germans, Japanese, and Chinese (only a few Brazilians), and none of them have ever been as rude as my own countrymen.
4: Well, yes. The primary goal of any society is to rid itself of those it considers misfits. (Think about it. It's a defensive reaction.) Here's an opportunity to not only make America even more bland, but to get some science done as well. Everybody wins!
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
What on earth (!) would you spend that paycheck on? The local martian ferrari dealer?
I volunteer.
I fully understand motivation. Take a ship over an ocean and then break the ship up for building material. You'll find a way to survive. Just make sure you brought enough stuff on that ship.
NASA never had any lack of volunteers. What it has lacked since Apollo is the will to get things done. And what needs to be done now, is starting up Human civilization in space.
There are better choices than Mars, but it's not so bad. Humans can even live on the surface while is is being kinetically terraformed. If an actual impactor is required, then settlements should avoid the latitudes where those will be aimed.
The good thing about a one-way trip is you don't waste fuel and structure for a return. You can then stock with solar panels, tools, fuel cells, emergency rations, and oxygen extractors. And people. More people. People to get things done.
Send me. I volunteer. My bones may end up moldering early in some sandy grave, a casualty of circumstance, but no one could say that I didn't try.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Actually the trip need not be one way, just a very extended stay. Future supply missions could bring a return vechile piece by piece, and fuel could be manufactured on the martian surface from raw materials using solar power. Eventually roung trips to the planet would be routine and the early explorers could be recalled. By this time the base would be self sustaining.
So lets say that somehow, against all odds, a crew finds a way to survive there, and makes a stable colony.
GREAT!
But then... They could declare Mars to be their own, and screw over any hopes of earthlings because we have no way of making it there reliably -- and even if we do, we'd be spent from the long trip just to get there.
How many of you would risk your life to make it there, and then give it all up because someone on another planet says that you owe it to them?
http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/faculty/dportree/ rtr/ma26.html
-Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Don't worry, as this high quality film has shown, it would be easy to save them.
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
whenever you convince the olsen twins to come along for the ride...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Yes. Where do I get in line, and any chance that I can beat, claw and rend my way to the head of the line?
And no Bush in space, unless it's for a one-way trip to the Sun. No toxic waste on Mars!
mark
This was on an episode of the next generation! Space mission from our time presumed lost... the guy was actually living on an alien planet in a simulated world which was modeled after the book he had with him when he landed on the planet.
Of course he was dead by the time the guys find him, but really bizarre.
Let's send up a bunch of misfits and outlaws and turn Mars into an unholy planet of exiles! We will rig it with TV cameras and watch with amusement as the ruthless hordes clamor for critical necessities and compete in a neverending struggle for survival.
You can read all about it in my fascinating new screenplay treatment: The Red Exiles!
What, you think I'm suggesting this is an easy way to kill two bees with one stone?
I'd do this in a heartbeat. Years ago I told a friend that I was willing to be shot in a shuttle straight out into space without wanting to go home. I want to see what's out there and experience it first hand, and I would report back all the scientific findings I could. J
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
Would that be $699 to actually visit Mars or $699 to look at something that might look like Mars but I have to sign an NDA before I get to see it? And would the same fee apply if I just want to visit a Mars-like planet in another star system?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
or for those with an incurable disease who wanted their lives to mean something. This is not mean in an offensive way, but if you had AIDS and there was no hope for a cure before you died, or you were a healthy 70-year-old who missed out on an Apollo mission, a one-way trip to Mars to do some real science and advance human knowledge would be worthwhile.
If we're ever going to accomplish anything by sending people out there, somebody's going to have to go to stay.
I'd gladly go, if my wife could come along. Just send a whole bunch of supplies there first, plenty of air, water, building material, tools, and generators. Keep sending the stuff, I'd keep building. Send more people eventually. Just don't send a Backstreet Boy for publicity.
With enough time, a return trip might be possible, but if not, imagine the benefit to the country and humanity. What more could you possibly want out of life than to have had the chance to enable a new era for humanity? That's fantastic.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Anyone who wants the job, isn't sane enough to do it properly.
Some idiot can be found to volunteer for anything.
Syncerus
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
...just so long as I'm provided Internet access to use to brag about how awesome Mars is on Slashdot... for the time that I am still alive, at least. ;)
Not www.goatse.cx.
... only if they send Claudia Shiffer to .. ;)
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
A one-way ticket to Mars would involve a lengthy trip, a difficult landing, scientific expertise upon arrival, and a slow and possibly painful death shortly thereafter. Obviously, NASA can only send volunteers for such a mission.
That being the case, would you *really* trust a multi-billion dollar mission to another planet to someone who'd *want* to subject themselves to that? All they get out of it is fame after death, and possibly a lot of money for family members back on Earth. Meanwhile, all their scientific research and exploration is tainted by the knowledge that they're a few days away from an unnecessary grave.
Imagine an entire radio exploration being broadcast to the people of Earth by Eeyore the donkey and Marvin the Paranoid Android, and you'll see what I'm getting at.
Sounds like a great idea. Pack a bunch of people up and ship them to Mars.
:D
I doubt there'd be any shortage of volunteers. Just imagine all of the little tinfoil hats marching towards the spacecraft...
sounds ok to US, especially if they don't come back.
don't worry about trying to force the illegal aliens to go along, they're not the problem anyway.
hmm yes but how much less than Earth is Mars (in terms of atmosphere, gravitational pull?). Can somebody provide info? I thought the Moon was a sixth or so of Earth, but Mars was getting quite close to Earth.
Simplisticly speaking, what percentage of energy is needed to lift one kilogramme out of Mars orbit compared to Earth orbit? Any slashdotters care to help?
The case for Mars by Robert Zubrin has a detailed plan on how you could do this with no moonbase, no LEO station and no need to leave people stranded. Interesting read.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
First off, let it be known that i am NOT an expert. I am a college student with far-ou ideas that will probably never happen
:)
Now, my idea: Send a pod of Von Neumann 'bots to Mars. Mars is red because there is a high percentage of iron in the soil, and direct sunlight w/o and atmosphere or vegetation turns this into iron oxide, therebygiving it the red tinge. So why not make a few small robot that can use this iron in the soil to reproduce themselves? They could then go about building a small settlement, complete with shelters, a water supply, and, depending upon the complexity of the 'bots, perhaps even a life support system.
Even if we could not make sufficiently complex robots as to reproduce, how about ones that simply collect a small amount of soil, vaporize it, extract the iron, and then "excrete" it - think of a coral reef - building the primary structures of a base? I imagine it would be much easeir to make a permanent settlement if there was a ready-made cluster of building ready to go, awaiting the installation of life support hardware.
As for getting these robots to Mars, once we have an established moon base, this would be fairly simply, a'la Heinlein - a mass accelerator. Just put a series of electromagnets in a tube, and use it to launch the little metal guys out into space. Make sure you aim then about where you want them to land, and push the button. Attach a long wing sticking out one side of the robot that will detach once it lands. That way, once it entered the Martian atmosphere, it would twirl to the surface at a manageable speed, like the paper "whirlybirds" we all made as children.
At any rate, my lunch break is nearly over, so i must be off - all you space types out there post and tell me why my ideas could never work
Learn about Photography Basics.
...why not Mars?
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
A one-way mission would also be a clear commitment to continuing the project. I mean, Apollo ended because the public lost interest in some men driving around collecting rocks. But what if we had a half dozen astronauts who would DIE if we didn't continue the project. I'm not saying it would be guaranteed support, but it would be much harder to just end the program. On the one hand, a one-way mission seems like a good use of resources, but on the other hand, this sort of seems like a dirty trick to force the public and the government into supporting something they might not be willing to support otherwise.
You have a choice: tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend Republicans. Choose wisely.
Hey, Earth may be losing 20-16 but USA is winning 5-10!
USA! USA! USA!
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
So only NASA is concerned about their astronauts returning? Oh boy...
This article is just dumb speculation. Let's wait until Spirit completes its mission before speculating...
Remember Bush wants to step into Kennedy's steps to get re-elected.
I'm just curious how many Americans will fall for it and forget all those body bags from Iraq.
Ever considered how much poor people you could help with this money??
It's all about politics, guys...
Some might say robots can do it for less. They would be partially right. Robots have a ways to go before they can move over and observe unfamiliar terrain as well as a trained human. One of the painful lessons JPL learned when they sent a prototype rover out to look for life was it missed a plant because the plant was just outside the rover's field of view.
One technique we used back in the 1800's was to give away land to whomever would go West. 160 acres to anyone who would build a house and occupy it. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific were driven by greed to build the transcontinental railroad. They not only got government backed financing, they also got land and anything on it. So while the Union is fighting the Civil War, it's also driving the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Union could do both because the railroad didn't cost the Union anything. The land had zero value because no one was there and the bonds got paid off by the railroads. California gold and free land were a huge incentive to risk your life crossing the Humboldt sink or Death Valley to look for that perfect piece of land to call home. Seems to me that if a nation made a similar offer of lunar soil and financing, we'd see a lot more activity than we have to date. We won't know what's of value on the Moon and on Mars until people have poked it all over.
OK, your somewhat graphic concept gave me an idea that marries the one way trip with a potential ethical escape clause.
The astronauts freeze themselves "before they die".
It works like this: we send them with no ability to return but with the (mythical) cryogenic equipment to freeze themselves pre "death".
The poles are pretty cold it would take less energy there.
They and their families can at least cling to the hope that one day we'll return with the technology to bring them home and revive them.
"social negatives"? Is that the polite way to say "sacrifice of human lives" these days? Is "collateral damage" too strong for us?
What do these really mean? NASA for instance, has been trying to do things on the cheap - not necessarily a bad thing.
But if something happens to a probe out there, there's no human around for an immediate intervention. How many probes would NOT have crashed if there were active humans abord? Hard to say because no human-based mission will be that cheap.
Then there have been stupid mistakes - like the botched Metric/Imperial figures. I think something like that would have been caught by humans on a long 9 month (give or take) trip.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I've often thought about this, wondering to myself. Would I be willing to take a one-way trip to Mars, especially with the knowledge that radiation would probably kill me within some amount of years?
I usually decide yes, but only when I'm old, or if my wife died, etc. Something like that. Otherwise, not sure if it's worth the risk for me, though I'm a scientist. But for someone whose science is areology or geology, I could see how they'd be willing to take one for science...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Ok, so just send someone on a one way trip at the beginning, but include a LOT of tools and supplies, as much as can be stuffed into one trip - BUT, then send a STREAM of auxillary supplies right after set to parachute nearby. Send spare parts, regular food drops, shelters, maybe even other crew members to help with the work of setting up a permenant station.Or launch a bunch of supply missions before sending the human so it will all be there already. Have a car like the apollo missions had to get around and get the stuff. Eventually you could drop enough stuff to build a return ship and launch facilities. Anyway, the key idea is that a human being with enough tools and parts and access to the best engineering on earth can build anything. The whole thrust at first would be basic survival - instead of trying to plan EVERYTHING out ahead, just give them enough and let them engineer stuff on the spot, kind of like camping, you can't plan for everything, sometimes you have to improvise with what you find and have to work with.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Is that what you'd get if Zan worked for Gallup?
And don't forget:
WWJD? (What Would Jayna Do?)
There was an article on yahoo yesterday talking about the latest Mar's rover. One of the scientists said that it would take 30 days to do something that an astronaut could do in 1 day. Sure, robotic probes are the first step to colonizing a planet.. It would provide information on the conditions and hopefully better prepare for a manned mission. But at some point were going to have to put real thinking people up there, otherwise its going to be hundreds of years before we make any significant progress. It took them 8 hours or so the other day just to move the probe 10 feet. Also, we are eating up earths resources at an alarming rate.. Currently in the United States we produce 2 pounds of plastic for every 1 pound of human in a single year. We going to need to harvest other planets/asteroids for their resources at some point. Having the entire human race living on a single planet is like having all your eggs in a single basket.... Would it surprise anyone if we destroyed the world through polution or war? How about natural disasters? An asteroid could hit any day, another ice age.. who knows? I'd feel better about the human race suriving if we were spread across the universe/galaxy, etc. We also need to go for the most basic reasons.. Human beings are explorers and personally i'd give my left nut to be on a one way mission to mars. That would be an adventure of a lifetime.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
All I need is a link to read slashdot faster than the stories get posted ;)
Chances are I would never make a "First!!" reply to any topic anymore though. But I would sign up for that one way ticket. In case NASA is reading: I'm a bioinformatician, and I know Perl, you know anything can be solved with Perl, so I would be the most valuable asset in that mission.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
This is Michael you are talking about. If the article does involve an explosion of some type, the military or scientific/social/political control of the human body, he doesn't post it. People bitch about him modding them down for pointing such out.... Fuck it. I got Karma to burn.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
There is already some sort of reality show underway which is weeding out people for a trip to the space station. So your idea is not as far-fetched as you might think...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess you can't bribe anyone with money to want to stay on Mars for a very very long time. I mean, if you pay large sums of money they can't exactly go and waste their cash on Marsian hookers, or buy a Ferrari, etc.
rm -rf sig
I would love to go.
china will have more success with its manned missions because they will be more willing to accept the risk of losing an astronaut, two or ten. in china, i think that there is still a strong sense of giving everything for your mother country. i also believe that people in such a populated country try to find ways to distinguish themselves from everybody else even if it means death.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Sorry.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
And I was planning on bringing all my Star Wars figures and a Taco Bell banner for photos to help out the family back home with a bit of endorsemnet money - is that going to be a problem for you?
Well, at least I am generally polite...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
of people I'd like to send first....
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
I remember getting all freaked and choked up listening to Space Oddity. Now it could become a voluntary reality. Amazing.
--- Submission is feudal.
Life demands it!
Life must spread itself in order to survive, if all known life is limited to Earth, which is one small planet, it can be all killed in one little (little for the universe anyway) accident. Accidents both natural and man made, like an asteroid impact, new unstoppable disease, nuclear or biological war. Even a drastic climate change could kill 80% of all living things on the planet.
I believe life naturally advances to an intelligent level for its own survival. The world has been trying for a long time many times an asteroid set it back. We as humans really have only just come onto the seen, and only the past 10,000 years have we been really moving forward. The next few hundred years may pass as calmly as the last 10,000, but we have been lucky so far. If we are to survive we must leave Earth and this solar system.
Arthur Clarke said "If the human race is to survive, then for all but a very brief moment in its history the word ship will mean space ship."
The Pale Blue Dot
Asteroid Risk
Magnetic Changes
Climate Changes
My 2 cents...
Mars colonizers sent in the year 2020 discovered the air patches beneath the craters. They caved their civilization within, and cut contact with the earth.
They discovered life under the rocks, a sentient breed of metallic, rock-eating insects, very suitable for building machines through communicating with them.
By 2100, the geno-bomb hit our planet, rendering it useless for everything but fighters and war mongers. This kind of people is what the goddess left us to fight with against the mars recolonization effort.
This is earth, and their survivors....
For more, order here...:)
NO SIG
We should probably establish a permanent colony in Antarctica. This way many of the problems of self sufficiency can be worked out first. You would also have the benefit of having a place to weed out potential candidates in a real harsh environment before sending them to the harsh reality that is Mars.
duh
Then humans land, do their thing for a while (two years?) and get in the launch vehicle and go up to the orbiter. Then they ditch the launch vehicle and rocket back to Earth, the Moon, or a space station in Earth orbit.
All of this assumes that the little green men don't eat them first and that the ship's computer doesn't decide to lock them out one day in order to carry out the secret mission.
Lasers Controlled Games!
What public panic can cause the death of a volunteer? (obviously excluding the suicidical ones that want to die killing)
I mean, he is not a terrorist. He accepted the risks. He is not going to crash the ship into the pentagon.
I don't think that after his death people on earth will start to say: OMG! We all will die on Mars!!
WHAT PUBLIC PANIC?
For those of you looking for something a little more recent (2002), Robert Douglas Bruce III has a short paper on minimizing bone loss for you to read on your long trip. Lots of good references at the end.
You probably wouldn't need your left nut on the mission anyway.
"Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might. The next giant leap for mankind won't come without risk."
My question is would a company or group of companies be willing to foot the bill for a one-way trip in exchange for exclusive broadcast rights and ad space? This seems like a "no-brainer" for the current reality TV mindset.
See my blog at Who's Who
The one way mission concept is really that: a one way mission.
As the article outlines, the living conditions are likely to be incredibly demanding. The environment on Mars is so harsh that there will also be a constant risk of death due to equipment failure or mistake. If any sort of medical problem develops (broken bones, organ problems, etc.) there is no large medical infrastructure to use, so odds of recovery are diminished. Additionally, the radiation exposure on Mars is almost certainly going to be higher than on Earth, so the risk of cancer developing is much higher. As for treating the cancer, see my earlier comment about lack of medical support on Mars.
Assuming you live that long, once you spend 10 or 20 years on the much lower gravity of Mars, you'd have an incredibly hard time surviving in the Earth's gravity. Remember -- the gravity on Mars is only 38% of what we have on Earth. You start experiencing bone density loss and other interesting side effects.
So a trip to Mars under in a one way program is highly likely to be just that. Don't delude yourself by thinking otherwise.
The final paragraph of the article is probably the best:
Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might.
Most of asia has a culture where the individual is seen as part of the whole society, and measured by its contribution to same.
China would certainly have no shortage of volunteers, and no PR problems with such a mission. Neither would Japan.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And when this guy thought he was stranded, some of you fussed and cussed on his behalf.
But what happens when these people get on Mars? Then what? What if, after a few weeks, the video/radio transmissions back to Mission Control are:
"OH GOD PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO DIE ON THIS PLANET!"
Imagine how horrifying that would be to everyone involved? It would be like watching a person who was condemned to die and fighting it at the last minute. No matter how justified it is, I think don't think there is anything that can prepare you for someone struggling to live and begging for their lives. Imagine the outrage that people on Earth would feel when the media shows a clip of this astronaut pleading for his life? It would go down as one of the darkest days of humanity.
I mean, they can't just shut off the radio and ignore the person.
The humane aspect of sending a person on a one-way death mission is the aspect that the author has completely and utterly ignored. It's easy to forget that right now, but when death is about to happen, everyone will be thinking, "Dear Lord, what have we done? How could we have done this?" and we as a species will regret the entire thing.
In contrast to a lot of the comments along the lines of "Let's send Bush/Gates/whomever" nobody is supporting sending astronauts to die after a few days when their air runs out.
Sending the equipment to manufacture their own air, and grow some of their own food, as well as a couple of nuclear reactors, is cheaper then sending the fuel to go home, and also means the astronauts don't have to be confined for months twice.
People have lived in the past with little or no contact with civilization - a few dozen scientists and support folks at the South Pole are gearing up to do so now. They won't be able to come home, except in *really* extreme emergency, between February and November because the temperature is cold enough to congeal the fuel of any jet that tried to land.
Granted, they aren't stuck there for life, but they have far less equipment than a Mars expedition would, and they seem to be quite happy - they even develop their own culture over the winter. This is in a place where the average daily temperatures make CO2 a solid, and where it's possible to get severe frostbite just by touching the ground without gloves.
The journal of a recent "winterover" is available here. Read it.
Does Karina seem like she's someone to give up on life? Or merely like someone who was willing to put up with total isolation, being largely trapped in a small station for most of a year, in order to do basic science, and really enjoyed herself in the process?
Parachute
clean underwear (needed for the long drop to mars)
Nutrigrain bars
Toilet Paper
Blow-up Doll (for those lonely nights)
Satellite Phone (in case of emergency)
1 bottle of water (in case I get thirsty)
... ok I'm ready!
~Turd
I've made exactly the same proposal here on slashdot numerous times. It is the only rational way to approach manned exploration of of Mars. It dramaticly reduces the difficulty and cost of the mission since you dont have to get a return vehicle to Mars, with fuel, or produce the fuel there. A roud trip mission to Mars is misguided thinking stemming from an Apollo mindset and it simply isn't appropriate for the much longer mission to Mars. The Apollo approach also proved to be a dead end. Just think if the Apollo goal had been to put a habitat on the Moon instead of go there, pick up rocks, come back, yawn.
It also eliminates the long periods in zero G which seems to be NASA's misguided obsession (evidenced by the fact the 100 billion dollars wasted on the ISS which is now dedicated to zero G physiology research). Not sure after a long trip in zero G and a long period in 1/3 G on Mars a crew will be real happy coming back to earth's 1 G either. You also reduce the risk of radiation exposure in deep space.
Start lobbing cargo containers, habitats, hydroponics, a nuclear reactor etc at Mars ASAP using unmanned ships. Preceed this with a bunch more robotic missions to search for criticial resource on planet like water.
When cargo ships start arriving reliably and you have enough there to sustain colonists send one or two manned flights with a bunch of astronauts, with enough skills, to start a somewhat self sufficient colony or two. Once there there you dont NEED any more manned missions, just some more cargo flights until they learn to tap Mars resources and be self sufficient. When they are self sufficient the huge expense ends but you still have a bold expedition on Mars, in perpetuity, and we have expended our biosphere which is a priceless thing in the event man, or natural events, destroys earth's.
@de_machina
It's depressing to think that we continue to keep all of mankind's eggs in one basket when we don't have to. Zubrin says $20 billion and 10 years to get to Mars and $2B a launch after that -- that's 70+ Mars missions just for what we're spending for W's war in Iraq, which I suspect would do a lot towards addressing the idea of permanent colonization.
Get some puny dictator who poses no threat to the US or do something so great that it'd be remembered forever so long as humans draw breath...
----
asdbt
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
I volunteer my boss! He's so full of hot air he could singlehandedly create an atmosphere.
Think about it!
~Turd
My Master of Orion is better than your Master of Orion!
We should make sure we completely destroy this planet first. I mean, Mars is pretty much uninhabitable, so it makes little sense to give up this plush, fertile planet for one so desolate quite yet...
man rtfm
The idea is sound. I have two grown kids. I am not tired of life and if somebody asked me if I would like to go to Mars on a one-way mission, then I would be stupid to refuse.
Survival is not sufficient. There are riscs which must be taken - always.
Dangers??? I could be run over by a truck tomorrow instead of sitting in a spaceship on the ultimate voyage. And what about if I accepted and thereby made it possibe for my children and my childrens children to have better lifes?
In a blink. What a way to go. Watching the scenery of your own private planet. Ultimate freedom.
"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
Of course, by "system" he meant the Principia Mathematica... Which leads you to a very easy conclusion about the identity of the powerful ``Being" (hint: not Leibniz).
The institution of real property is the most efficient method of allocating the scarce resource of location value.
How can the pale face own the land, kemosabi ?
How do I start registering .MARS domains?
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
Near the end of the article, he mentions that a self-sustaining Mars colony would be an insurance policy against the "significant chance that civilization on Earth will be destroyed by an asteroid, a killer plague or a global war". Now, while I would most certainly volunteer for a one-way mission, I think the chances for civilization on Mars to be destroyed by an asteroid or a killer plague or any other natural or unnatural disaster are tremendously larger.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
I have gone
Note: I ran out of chalk so I've went home to finish.
Go here and seek "900 jars"
What social negatives?
Potential settlers would be volunteers. They won't complain. If some of them (or all) would die it would be easier to sell to the general (stupid) public over TV if they were not meant to return from the start. And if some of them (or all) survive it would the first real step of humanity outside Earth.
Sure such a person might want to strike back at society by destroying the mission, but then the right person might see it as an opportunity for redemption, and adventure.
The biggest problem would be the Earth's commitment to continue sending supplies. 'Aww they are just a bunch of murderers, let em starve' might set in if the public lost interest, although that's an incentive to keep them working on science. Not that there would be much else for them to do to stave off boredom...
Eat at Joe's.
Maybe this current plan for Mars is just a similar situation where in the eagerness of the moment some wild ideas like this get tossed about until technology catches-up.
The idea for the moon mission lead to the novel The Pilgrim Project by Hank Searls which lead to the movie Countdown directed by Robert Altman (of M*A*S*H fame) starring James Caan and Robert Duvall which was eclipsed by a certain other movie set in space released shortly after this one.
In Frederik Pohl's MAN PLUS astronaut Roger Torroway "volunteers" to become a cyborg for a one-way mission to Mars. Since supporting a man on Mars would be so cost prohibitive, they decided to send as little "man" as possible. It's a fascinating read for the human aspects of Torroway becoming a cyborg and leaving his wife behind. The real twist is that going to Mars was not a human agenda.
(The sequel MARS PLUS is entertaining enough, but not as compelling.)
From Davies' article: An alternative possibility is that life started on Mars and spread to Earth inside material blasted into space by the impact of comets crashing into the Martian surface.
I've heard this said a number of times, but never the converse: Life started on Earth and spread to Mars inside material blasted into space.... Why? Is this not possible, given relative gravities or orbits or something else? Or is this possibility less interesting than the Mars -> Earth scenario?
So this is just a USA/USSR scorecard? I saw something from Japan, but I don't remember Beagle2 being a success.. which should count as 1 for Mars.
I have no signature
Thank you!!! It's good to see I'm not the only one whose first thought was that.
Of course, if that's the name we choose, all of your proposed crew are disallowed. We'd have to people it entirely with elephant washers and telephone disinfectors.
-----Chaz
Unless our society change quite a bit during the next 30 years there's no way we're going to do something like that. But eg.: the chineese could probably do something like that.
Radiation shielding and some amount of supplies would be a good investment. One might even want to prepare for the landing with a few caches of supplies to make the stay more comfortable and the responses more reasonable. Dont forget you've spent gigabucks getting the crew there they should be able to do something for the money, even if they're not coming back.
I actually envisage that there would have to be a planned trip involved. A brave martian experiament for all the world to see, almost to the end. I wonder how they would deal with the final moments. Would Popular earth officially lose contact before the fateful hour?
They'd want the world to remember the astronaut as an entrepid adventurer in a frail shelter under the martian sky reading select emails and telling the world how beautiful everything was.
Later their corpse would be treated like an arctic expedition.
I dont think it would be hard to find someone to get in the shuttle. You'd have trouble knowing if they would face their end with dignity and thankfulness though.
Anyone who's played Missile Command knows this - we need to send probe missions out in pairs. One is a big, fat, juicy-looking decoy that we send down right around the same time the _real_ mission starts entry of Mars atmosphere. The Martians go for the decoy, and our real mission lands undisturbed.
Either that or we nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
As I recall this was discussed as a possibility for the Moon landing; landing a man on the moon and not bringing him back. The thought of the world listening as he ran out of life support was too grusome and they abandoned the idea.
Yeah I got first post!!!
Kinda laggy, but everything's looking good up here. I just found a new rock that was like a little bit redder than the other one I found yesterday. Cool.
Please send more corn.
I disagree. First of all, the psychological evaluations for anyone that volunteered would be extensive. Second, the trip would only be one-way in the sense that no means of returning is planned at the outset; not that there could never be a possibility of returning (just no guarantee).
You do know that "Mars needs women" is a movie, right?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060672/
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I am surprised he didn't suggest a far more rational science. Create a modern day Ark and send a variety of life, weighted towards simpler forms, as they have a higher probability of success. Some algae, bacteria, protozoans should be good. Add some roaches, mice for extra effect. Just pick the most successful species and rain them all over mars. There is a more than even chance that some species will evolve and find a way to propagate. Definitely, this is more scientific and non-ghoulish way to establish life on mars.
Still they went. People have gone on suicide missions before. And this is a little bit more diginified then bleeding to death on some beach or if you made it to die somewhere further along.
Don't mistake the general populace with the trail blazers. There are people out there that are not afraid to die. Personally I would never qualifie but I would volunteer.
Certain dead is not all that scary. It is uncertain death that scares people. Just spend some time around people who in the last stages of a terminal disease.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
David Bennahum: Can you give me a sense of how the interest in these unmanned missions to Mars have influenced the urgency, or the interest, in a manned mission to Mars?
Dan Goldin: Can I respectfully push on you a little bit, and say "we have robotic missions and we have piloted missions." We do not have "manned missions" at NASA. We have thirty female astronauts.
DB: Okay.
DG: I don't want to be pushy about this, but when I took this job, I told my daughters, "You will no longer use the name 'the manned spacecraft program.'" Okay. In any case, I think that it was a watershed event, the Pathfinder mission.
So now Earth sends a human to Mars. They're the FIRST to land on the planet. IANAL, but what's to prevent them from saying "All your bases are belong to ME!". Sure seems like that would hold up in court. What would be the result of that person putting a big no trespassing sign on the whole freaking planet?
I'm not keen on the idea of sending someone on a one-way trip culminating in death by:
- asphyxiation
- starvation
- radiation poisoning
- [insert other hideous demise]
But having sent someone on a one-way ticket, where is the real control on what they do once they're there?"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Kirk!!!! I can see it now, in the year 2028, a disgruntled scientist from the colony sent to Mars in 2006, and abandoned after the supply shipment failed to drop supplies, returns to a war ravaged Earth to exact revenge...
Mars Needs Women ;-)
Pretty much says it all.....
. there used to be a sig here.....
First, look at all the crap (in addition to Tang) that was developed as a direct result of the space program and the incredible challenges that have been overcome in the process, including computers, etc. Technology spending returns well on investment. Spending on technology research advances mankind.
That said, what is an example of something that will more directly affect mankind? I presume not bandaid solutions for problems? Because the return on investment there is 0.
Admittedly, I'd at least turn the American public school system into something functional before going back to the moon, which we already did 35 freaking years ago.
But outside of that, I see space exploration as being a problem so difficult that it acts as a spur to develop innovative, useful solutions. It also is a goal with so many inherent problems that it requires a diversity of engineering solutions - unlike a particle accelerator, which while expensive, doesn't require innovative engineering to accomplish, and only advances one kind of basic science. Not to say that's not cool, but I think space exploration ends up being more useful to all of us.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Also mars possibly has water. At least some oxygen. All wich makes a possible base much easier.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Can I bring the redhead from the OSDN personals ad?
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Taking into consideration Chinas recent interest in space exploration and how wishy washy most western countries are about a "one way mission", I predict that the USA will probably not have a very large stake in Mars real estate.
Where's that signup sheet?
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
And thirdly there's no way the public would get to here their last cries for help...
Incidentally...
Please vote against this sort of thing at every opportunity you get.
Also in that magazine, just last September, a convict volunteered for the trip, and suggested that others in his position might also be suitable and willing to make the trip.
Maybe that is where Osama is hiding? Are there spider holes on Mars?
I've been upgraded to "bad"!
Once they thought there might be minable ice to make fuel with, but now it seems to be dry as a bone. Nothing whatsoever there of use.
Eat at Joe's.
Problem solved.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Reaching escape velocity from earth is comparatively very hard compared to reaching escape velocity from Mars. There's several meteorites that originated on Mars that have fallen on Earth. While theoretically I'm sure the converse could happen, the likelihood would be a lot smaller. Also, since we don't have any undisputed proof of lifeforms of Mars, the potential spread of lifeforms from Earth to Mars isn't particularly interesting, while on Earth we know there are lots of life forms and want to find out their exact origin. The converse would become a lot more interesting if undisputed proof of Martian life is found, and it bears similarity to organisms found on earth.
Without the USSR on our team the score would be Earth 11 - Mars 6. We need to send them back to the little leagues!
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
In fact, shouldn't man prohibit all travel there until its clear beyond a doubt that there is no life?
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Nothing on Mars is worth the price at this time. Thrown people on a oneway price cost even more - the soul of our society, to throw away good people for so little. Good gawd, we have even finish the I.S.S. or settled on a successor to the Space Shuttle. And for all of this we are going to throw away the Hubble?
The U.S. space policy is as insane as it's policy in the Middle East or it's tax structure.
I have been diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer. A wierd form of gastric adeno-sarcoma. It's not responding to chemo or radiation, but it's not growing very fast either, but it's already starting to spread a bit via skeletal metastasis, and into my sternum already. My oncologist says I've probably got at least 24 more months before it'll start getting very bad. That's enough time to get there. Give me a rocketship to get me there, some scientific equipment to set up and get running... and enough morphine to do the "job" when I'm done.
http://www.stars4space.org/President.html
i cle.html
e gjohnson/greg_johnson_17_07_03.htm
"Historically, every dollar invested in the space program has brought seven back into the economy"
http://www.ae.utexas.edu/Archives/bishop_moon_art
"We have documented the cost-effectiveness of space exploration, witnessing a 9-to-1 return on every dollar invested in the moon landings. "
http://www.meteorobs.org/maillist/msg27191.html
" For every dollar invested in space, economists estimate a return of
|6-10 dollars"
http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/gr
"For example, it is estimated that for every dollar we invested in the lunar landings, our economy received 7 dollars in payback. "
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Being fruitful, multiplying, and taking God's Word to another planet . . . That fits in with the RR's point of view. Solving the basic mysteries of creation? . . . Those answers are already laid out in Genisis. Nothing more to see there, please keep moving along.
HAHAHAHAHA. Someone mod this guy funny.
Live on Mars? I bet that will really have an effect on my Counter Strike Ping Times.
There is evidence that being vibrated at the right frequency stimulates bone growth, not tension/compression from muscles. It may therefore be possible to send a vibrating bed along with the astronauts to keep their bone mass up. The theory is that muscles in use cause these vibrations naturally, and bones use that as a trigger for growth.
This was proposed in the 1970s by an astronaut who volunteer to go and not come back. It was discussed, but he was turned down. I was just reading about this last week, I wish I could find his name.
I agree. Remember how helpless we all felt when the last taps from the Kursk occurred? With all our technology, we couldn't help those poor sailors trapped like rats, drowning to death? Imagine how public the death of these martianauts would be, and how helpless we would feel? I think there would be outrage especially if an accident occurred and they died, just like how there was outrage when both the Challenger and the Columbia exploded.
please? it actually works.
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
What irreversible health risks are there besides radiation from thinner atmosphere, and would the first generation of Mars born children adapt to not have these?
Ship out an initial crew of 4-5, specialists who can evaluate the terrain, make measurements, etc. Then a few years after, send up 10-20 people, more varied, with a lot more equipment, to set up a bigger site, and ready for the next wave: within 5-10 years after initial launch, send 100-200 people of all kinds, who are going to start colonizing, and expand from there, gradually. Don't expect to get any of them back, they're going to stay, but expect it to grow over time as we send more and more people with more resources, and do all we can to make it more self-sufficient.
Now, where do I sign up?
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
If we look at the one-way-trip as an "insurance policy against catastrophe at home", then we have to think about what kind of people we should send.
F.x. what kind of political alignment or what view on human rights should the colonists have?
Shouldn't we try to agree/unite at "home" before each nation, which are big enough, are sending their own people?
At last someone looks at the value of human life objectively. Our lives have an immeasurabley high value, but not so high that it is unthinkable to sacrifice one's life for the good of the group. It's just that our list of acceptable sacrifices is growing shorter.
.
.
Sacrifice your life saving your family = acceptable
Sacrifice your life in defense of your country = acceptable
Sacrifice your life in hopes of new discoveries = no
In the wake of the Challenger and Columbia disasters, there was such a loud outcry and long delays because NASA has to do everything it can to make space a safe place for people. Loss of life is simply unacceptable for us "civilized" westernerns.
Space is dangerous, there is risk and will always be risk. We have to keep trying, and keep learning, and the risk will go down. But it will always remain. Wasting billions of dollars to make it an old program a wee bit (percentage wise) safer is ludicrous. We should set LOWER safety standards, and encourage our government to risk lives and we will have progress in SPace exploration.
If we continue to place this high value on human lives we are doomed to low earth orbit for a long long time. We need to make dieing for scientific discovery as acceptible as dieing for terrorism. Heres a thought how much would we have learned if we lost the ~500 people attempting to establish colonies instead of fighting in Iraq?
True there are plenty of people opposed to the war. Though, I imagine a lot more people can accept 500 deaths as the price to eliminate "terrorism" and threats of biological/chemical/nuclear arms against the US and allies, than could the nebuolous cause of better all mankind through discovery.
Think back to the late 1400 and early 1500's. Our society was just leaving the dark ages, that set science and discovery back 500 years perhaps. We were waking up and things got done. At the time going across the ocean was a major risk, and often represented a one-way trip. We owe our modern western society to these early colonists and explorers.
Granted they did some horrible things in the process, but we learned (and continue to learn) from the mistakes of the past. If I had the opportunity to voluteer for a harsh hard life on mars, leaving my friends and family behind, I would do it. I would encourage my children to do it. Everyone is going to die, and I'd rather I have some say in how it happens.
Exploring in the long run is about survival of our species. All animals have the instinct to protect themselves, and to propogate. Adaptation and exploration are critical elements. As we, as a species, have gotten more intelligent we have become increasingly self centered on survival of the individual. Hence we place extremely high values on individual lives. For example, we often do things to our environment that are short sighted and produce positive effects for only a small subset of our population, while causing a negative effect for the larger community.
Anyway, I applaud someone who has the courage to at least propose the idea. Obviously it will not get far, as it would be way too controversial for any government (at least any Western Government) to support. Maybe the Chinese would consider it?
Another point worth mentioning is that while, we may not have the technology at the time we send them to bring them back. It is certainly possible that after a few years things will have progressed enough to send a "rescue" or retrieval mission. So if they can hold out a decade maybe there will be hope. . .
For what its worth thats my take . .
MS2k
They better not cancel the Pluto mission for the sake of W's manned missions. I will really be pissed. I have read some speculation as to such, and hope it is not true.
Interesting. I found a 1991 study in Nature that discusses this, but nothing since then to support or undermine it.
Have you seen anything about this subject since then?
It has always made sense to me to do it this way. Here on earth there are plenty of people willing to blow themselves up just to kill a few people... I'm sure there would a queue a mile long if you asked for people willing to make the heroic trip. I'd expect the chinese would be the first people do to something this sensible.
I don't know whether a man would survive more than a probe, but a human is more adaptive and self healing than a high tech moon rover - and cheaper too!
No doubt you'd get someone pretty depressed taking the trip, would be like having Marvin the paranoid android up there... oh I could take some rock samples, but what about this pain all down my left side... oh so depressing..
I actually had a similar idea to that of the parent article but not quite as inhuman.
Because of the way the entire space program has gone, we expect that there ought to be a "right stuff" team of people sent to Mars - picture on the cover of Time, etc. etc. I think that a Mars trip is so much more involved in every respect from a Moon trip that we need to abandon that altogether and instead send just ONE human being with absolutely singlular resolve and capabilities, knowing all the while that he or she may not only just NOT come back, but PROBABLY won't come back.
The mission cost associated with having just one person is immensely larger than sending just the weight of one person in the form of a robot lander or rover. But, sending even just a second person adds tremendously.
I believe that the only reason to send even one person is to get an answer one and only one question: did anything ever live on Mars or does anything live on Mars? All other science is a very distant second. You would only risk one person because a robot's ability to get a definitive answer is limited. It's probably almost impossible to geta firm "no" answer about life on Mars but in order to get a definite "yes," then you've got to send some incredible hardware, and a human being is awesome hardware!
It's taken DAYS for the current rover team just to get the rover off the lander. Every day, every minute, is a huge risk for human or machine; a committed, able person is going to get out there and start digging!
What kind of a person could do this? I have no idea; I have trouble imagining what kind of person could stay cooped up in something of any size by himself for however many months and still be able to perform before, during, and after landing. But I'm sure someone is out there who could do it, even if it meant they only had maybe a one in ten shot at returning.
I consider a planned one-way mission abhorrent and I'd never support it, no matter how much more it costs.
for me. I'm ready now. I'll accept the one way to anywhere in space. Who wouldn't? I think that the opportunity to get there is well worth the price, such as it is.
Many years ago: Vikings Spain and Great Britain had Real explorers and them just launch their vessels to adventure, and risk, and probably death, Why are you so shy now when is your time or you are going to let to Europe to do again the dirty job? You are promising missions and you do not do anythin unless Europe do something (moon) What are you waiting for?
Extended Warranty? How can I lose!
They seem to only have one episode on their site. Is the first season available anywhere?
RE a "precious insurance policy" for humankind should catastrophe befall us in the next millenium:
Why do people care at all what will happen after they die?
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
Its not so much about getting there, but what new technologies will be developed in the effort to try. New fabrics, new electronics, new radio gear, new sheilding technologies, better batteries, better solar power, etc etc. And then there are jobs, new businesses created, institutions of education focusing more on sciense, more college kids going for science and tech degrees, etc etc.
In the end it doesn't matter at all if we actually end up going, but rather what new things we learn and develop along the way.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
How come they can get 11KBps from Mars, but I can't get 5KBps from 17km?
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
How about this?
Their criteria for scoring is
"For every piece of hardware that returns useful information from the Lobbee's planet, the Lobber scores a point. For every piece of hardware successfully thwarted by the Lobbee, they score a point."
So the score is not Mars 20 Earth 16 but Mars 8 Earth 16.
Based on their own criteria, the following points awarded to Mars are disallowed because Mars did not participate in the failure as the above requires:
event 2: Marsnick 1, launch failure
event 3: Marsnick 2, launch failure
event 4: Sputnick 22, launch failure
event 5: Mars 1, failure in transit
event 6: Sputnick 24, broke up before Mars trajectory
event 7: Mariner 3, failure before Mars trajectory
event 10: unnamed, launch failure
event 12: Mars 1969a, launch failure
event 14: Mars 1969b, launch failure
event 15: Mariner 8, launch failure
event 16: Cosmos 419, ignition failure
event 29: Mars 96, failure to enter Mars trajectory
Launch failures are incompletes and failure to enter Mars trajectory means Mars didn't even know it was coming.
"Stupidity: it's a renewable resource"
your exactly right. it takes 2-4 years for presidential policy to effect the economy.
therefore Reagans success was due to the Carter administrations invention of supply-side economics due to the desparation to recover from the depression of the 80s'
also, Clintons success was due to policies passed by George Bush senior...
because of this, in a way republicans are doomed to be the fixers and democrats will continue to consume their repairs...
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I work for NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), thus this post as an AC. If this program (HST) is any indication, mr. bush's plan to send men to mars has completely demoralized NASA. Funding his mission to mars by diversion of funds from existing science projects will mean the end of space and earth science at NASA. We've already been told there will be no more HST repair missions and to expect the end of HST's science mission in 2007, rather than 2012 as we had expected.
There is a SF novel on the subject by Pierre Boulle ("The Bridge of the River Kwai", "The Planet of the Apes"). The novel is "The Garden of the Moon" (Le jardin de Kanashima"). It was written in the sixties. It is about the rush to the Moon : Americans, Russians and Chineses compete to be the first on the Moon. The Chineses opt for a much more easy one way ticket and win the race.
I love this quote. It's probably true. It might only mean a slow demise. Or "not quick" in the sense that smashing into the planet at 11 miles/sec would be "quick".
Of course, this is the same fantasy author that gives us quotes like
This is utterly false. The fact is that every two years the orbit of Mars creates a window of opportunity to send fresh supplies at a lesser cost than at other points in the orbit. But the cost is still extremely high and extremely risky.
Here's another gem:
This has not been proved at all. This is pure fantasy and speculation, and I don't think it's likely. I doubt it was ever warm, or that it ever had a thick atmosphere. It appears that liquid water in fairly large amounts did exist at some point in its history, but the evidence suggests it was not for a long time.
I think sending someone to Mars planning to die would be a lot worse than sending them to Mars where death is not part of the plan.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote three books on this subject ten years ago. Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. If I remember correctly, Arthur C. Clarke praised it as compulsory reading for any future attempt at colonization. The only reason this is getting so much publicity is because the vast majority of Americans are illiterate and unimaginative.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No I think those are elections held in Alaska.
I dont understand, why is it that no one is bothering to look for sponsors for such a project? Can you imagine what kind of a media blitz can be accomplished. The entire world will be watching, why not put a few fliers and posters up on that rocket? Why not have most of the equipment that comes from the commercial sector anyway be sponsored? If we as a race want to go some where I see it as only fair if everyone did their part! Order today and recieve your chance to win a one way ticket to mars! BLAH!!
I thought the one-way trip was the plan for that N*Sync guy's trip to space....
and I'm sure you could otherwise survive the unending, deadly wind of alpha particles, free neutrons, and other ionized nasties streaming out of the sun. You do know that if the van allen belts suddenly failed, you'd be a dead man.
Setting off hydrogen bombs in space is a drop in the bucket, my friend.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
20-16 mars vs. earth, but 4-10 mars vs. USA.
An accident might kill or disable an astronaut who provided some vital expertise. A supply drop might fail, condemning the colonists to starve in a very public way. Even if nothing went wrong, the astronauts' lives would certainly be shortened by the harsh conditions. The lower gravity would create long-term medical problems and the cosmic radiation that penetrates the thin atmosphere is bound to increase the risk of cancer. Add in the debilitating effects of general privation, and the lack of sophisticated medical equipment, and the prospects for longevity look slim.
Oh, poi. There hasn't been a colony in the history of the Earth that didn't face the same level of danger. Colonists to N. America faced limited supplies and had to live in housing and clothing ridiculously far below the standard of living available in Renaissance Europe. And they faced strange agriculture, swamps, hurricanes, and natives, without benefit of military defense. Same with colonists to Africa, who tended to travel further inland, facing some of the meanest beasts on the planet, strange diseases, and treacherous terrain, not to mention generally more territorial natives than in N.A.
Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might.
A great idea. I can imagine what a lot of Europeans would say to this. "Colonization? We've been mastering that for half a millennium! Americans don't know the half of it."
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
You suck, munch a won-eyed fyeRman.
In other words, eat a dick, and choke on the blood.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'll take that one-way ticket.
y /space_elevator_020327-1.htmll
I hoped that G.W. would've proposed stepping stone constructions first. Like a Space Elevator!
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technolog
http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/fd02_elev.htm
Spend $40billion now, make future exploration easier/cheaper, recoup costs by doing the world's heavy lifting.
Right now. No questions asked, no conditions.
There are somethings in life that are more important than individual survival; the "zeroth law".
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Watch out, this is Eric S Rayrnond.
I've been unemployed for a while too, but I'm not that desperate for a paycheck.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
To futher the progress of humanity - it's like getting to the final round and all the bonus points in one step. People willingly die for far less.
If we just followed the 'nauts around with robotic tv cameras 24[:39]/7, we could broadcast their heroic struggles and romantic tangles to the world--for a fee, of course. Naturally, you'd want to pick the crew for optimum "spice" in their interactions. With the current appetite for intrusive, salacious, mind-everybody-else's-business television, this would probably pay for the launch before we even released the dvd set.
You and I both posted "hey, I'm willing to go" posts, but gave different reasons.
I'd be willing to go in order to get away from an over-commercialized Earth. My post got modded down 3 points as a troll.
You'd be willing to go for a million-ish bucks. Your post got modded up as interesting.
I'm genuinely curious. You're the pioneer to an uninhabited planet, and you're not coming back. What do you plan to spend your million bucks on? More precisely, where and how do you plan to spend it?
(Possibly by that time we'll be able to deliver pizza that far, and of course Starbuck's seems to infest random countries without human assistance, so you could order a decent pepperoni deep-dish and some doubtful-quality latte.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Would it be possible to begin the terraforming process before we sent actual humans to Mars? Send enough bacteria or whatever microbial life needed in mass quantities to begin converting the atmosphere to a more human-friendly one? Seeing how this is one theory how life on Earth started:
"An alternative possibility is that life started on Mars and spread to Earth inside material blasted into space by the impact of comets crashing into the Martian surface. Mars and Earth trade rocks, and hardy bacteria could have hitched a ride to seed our planet with microbial Martians."
So this plan is basically "The Dirty Dozen Go to Mars"?
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.
#1 reason - because we can. I agree with the former poster that we should go to mars because we can. Another good reason to go is to rape the planet for its resources. Also Mars has less gravity then Earth so it would be easier to launch material into space. There is all this talk about putting a space station on the moon. The moon is thought to be 99% basalt rock which is mostly silica based. Now basalt rock is one of the most common rocks found on the earth and silica is an abundant resource. The moon then cannot offer us any resources that we cannot already get easily here on earth. The moon would be a decent jumping off point because of its very low gravity and zero atmosphere but radiation and temperature would make a base difficult to build. I would guess that it would need to be built deep underground with heavily shielded and fortified above ground structures. Mars has atmosphere, gravity, less temperature changes(although its always pretty cold). I am not sure of the radiation factor but it certainly must be less then our moon. Mars has readily available resources. and I would guess what would happen eventually is that we would send an expedition to mars, setup a permanent base of operations, and start automated factories to make liquid hydrogen and oxygen so that the expedition can make it back to earth. ~6 months there and ~8months. Also automated factories and robots could begin extracting minerals for some beneficial purpose. Lastly the fastest way to make use of Mars would be for private industry to do the manned expeditions. NASA is in the spotlight and if the first manned mission to mars went poorly it would likely be 10-20 years later until another atempt was made. NASA is great for funding new technologies and research. But unless pushed will not do anything overly risky by themselves.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
They'll probably be right.
For the record, I am on that first Mars colony ship, even if they have to duct-tape me onto the outer hull. I'll hold my breath, Goddammit.
I'd like to add that I think Davies has come up with a good idea, but it needs one thing - property rights.
It's already decided and agreed that there are *no* property rights in the Solar System other than on planet Earth. This is, in my opinion, a very good thing. Ownership disputes are prevented by preventing ownership.
Here are the relevent parts of the 1979 Moon Treaty:
ARTICLE 1
1. The provisions of this Agreement relating to the moon shall also apply to other celestial bodies within the solar system, other than the earth, except in so far as specific legal norms enter into force with respect to any of these celestial bodies.
ARTICLE 11
The moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement, in particular in paragraph 5 of this ARTICLE.
The moon is not subject to national appropriation by any claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or byany other means.
Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof. The foregoing provisions are without prejudice to the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this ARTICLE.
States Parties have the right to exploration and use of the moon without discrimination of any kind, on the basis of equality and in accordance with international law and the provisions of this Agreement.
Sign me up!
Seriously, There's few things worth dying for, but I think a space journey is definitely top of that list.
I think his article makes a lot of sense. Akin to the information world, life is a service and two planets would provide horizontal fail-over just like a two-node cluster.
It actually makes a lot of sense when you consider an ELE (extinction level event) type of situation. Imagine the costs of trying to protect the primary node (earth) from a huge asterroid. Imagine building a huge force field which would be impossible/expensive beyond all reason.
If Mars eventually became self sustaining, it would act as a backup for Earth.
In the database world, you can have a smaller less expensive box that provides at least some level of service rather than no service. Of course, you can't protect against all disasters. (if a black hole swallowed Earth, it'd be bound to swallow Mars) But you could protect yourself against at least the most likely (environmental disasters, political unrest - although would a dictator simply just have a two year invasion delay attack to Mars?).
Interesting.
But why do it that way? Save money? Sure. That's just not what Americans want to hear about
Why not wait until we actually have proof that we could live and produce oxygen and food there. Start sending supply missions, which would be difficult, you'd want them to be as close together as possible; and just how do you do that?
But send oxygen supplies, food, tools, and materials to build a structure to live in. Then, once you have all that on the planet, send a group to go up there and put it all together. Instant colony.
Yeah, this idea has a lot of problems.. sue me.
There is no spork.
Ummm... are you kidding me? We can't test a landing by a computer program using retros?
I, as an aerospace engineer that runs simulations of rocket launches for a living, can definitely refute that statement. First off, simulations of this type are extremely easy. Secondly, testing them in the real world is pretty easy as well... back before the CRV (x-38) was cancelled, they did live drop tests of the thing. It had a huge parafoil chute system that was completely computer controlled and guided (not just a passive parachute, but a guided and steerable system). Also, there is that one rocket being tested for the X-prize that uses retros to land (I forget the name of it), and it has completed many tests. Finally, as another reply to your post pointed out, many of the probes/landers on Mars and Venus used retros and chutes to land. Pathfinder was the first to use the bounce technique; before that, chutes and retros were all we had.
Now, I will grant you that our track record with retros aren't great lately, but a lot of those failures were due to not having full telemetry during that stage of landing. If we had some telemetry from the landers that crashed and burned, we might have been able to make adjustments in our schemes and prevented future ones. The newest rover finally did have that full telemetry during landing.
IANAL, but I play one on
Actually, the economic boom you speak of was arguably initiated by Bush Sr. in his latter two years.
The economy tends to lag years behind governmental changes.
And in fact, the bad economy that GWB started with was handed to him by Clinton. So in fact, your example is completely opposite reality.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I see all plans having narrow focus. Send the people to Mars, leave them there. OR. Do full return missions. OR. Build a colony and then have supplies only. OR so on and so on.
Real life will probably turn out to be a compromise. I do not think anyone will volunteer to go stay on Mars with only annual supply missions to help them out. And I do not think Mars colonies will develop until we start having multiple Mars trips every year.
I think the first point we have to prove is that the travel is viable. This might be expensive if we need to plan for the return trip, but I do not think any sane government is going to "sell" a one-way mission. Once we have proven the travel, we might send pieces of a return shuttle to Mars and demonstrate it works (no people to be launched, just that it can be assembled with robots and sent back to space...with maybe some help from a manned mission) - mainly that we will take the shuttle when needed, but we can assemble from pieces if needed. Once we demonstrate ability to configure / launch such flight from Mars, we can think of keeping one or two such shuttles available on Mars and talk about a colony of 4-6, so that the people have an exit plan. This does not mean these people die of old age at Mars. Once you have proven and established the travel basics, if you can have 1 Mars mission per year (initially) and Mars remains your focus, you should be able to scale up to 20 missions per year in a decade or two. People would be coming and going on a fairly regular basis, with some staying back for a longer period.
The other challenge is this discussion is about Mars being in a good position for launches only once in 2 years. We will need to get around that, maybe with a space station, maybe by willing to take a longer trajectory. And an Earth centric space station will not work, cause Mars might be directly opposite to us. The space station does not need to be a Star Trek type thingy, but just something which has supplies, maybe just a few boxes floating in space might do.
Ok, that is a non-rocket scientist's thought on how this could work. I think the progress will be slow. It is easier to say "go live on Mars", than to realize that we would pretty much freak out on Antartica, except for maybe a couple of hundred people. There would be times when mobility will be low. There would be times when it will be hot. Gravity would be an issue. Transport would be an issue. Cost will be exorbitant. But the colonies would emerge. And it will most likely not be the result of a gameplan developed now, but improvisations every step of the way.
For a one way mission, NASA would have to set up a satellite relay with a large amount of broadband so that they could stream entertainment, news, and video messages from earth to the colonists. I just wonder what the look on the controller's face will be the first time he gets a request for pornos to be streamed across a multi-billion dollar government satellite network :)
Yvan Eht Nioj!
Interesting to see this pop up.
When the lander touched down last week, I offhandedly mentioned to my girlfriend that I would volunteer in a second if they wanted to send someone there, even if it meant being unable to return.
Apparently the female mind takes this as a personal slight. D'oh.
Look how difficult it was to resupply the aging Mir, and it's final fate? These resupply missions would be orders of magnitude more expensive.
I do think it's an interesting idea, but we've got to be realistic. Like early explorers (think vikings whose names you don't know, not Christopher Colombus), the people that go do not have long and prosporous lives ahead of them.
thats exactly the conservative spin I was talking about (which liberals do the same with). Right or wrong, it's still the same... Good economy = From Bush one, NOT clinton. Bad economy = From Clinton, NOT Bush 2.
This plan is extremely similar to the one used in the book Red Mars. I think the plan proposed in the article is good, but it is not original.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
We've been reading about it for years -- hell, the guy wrote an epic three part series about it. Sounds like a great idea to me, where do I sign up?
Such a mission would surely end in a desaster if you send men and women together. Better send two crews, one male, one female to very different places on mars. That way you can even make it into a tv-game-show, pink-team vs blue-team, and recoup the huge cost of the mission.
Seriously, a mixed crew will result in fighting over sex with 100% certainty.
Men wanted for hazardous journey - small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.
Ernest Shackelton placed this ad to recruit applicants for his Antartic voyage. Five thousand individuals responded. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is it, save for the deep of the oceans there is little adventure left here. Everst and K2 have been summited, the globe circumnavigated, Antartica traversed. We must look elseware. We must look to the Moon and Mars. Honour and recognition await those who dare apply...
If we do send a one-way manned mission, we'd be playing for high stakes: If it succeeds, having a bunch of hungry people on Mars is an excellent motivation for the public to continue funding further Mars missions. If, however, these people die in some horrible way, the public will become rather cautious about future missions. This could set us (humanity) back by decades.
I think the fate of a bunch of individuals is not very relevant. More people die in road accidents every day than have ever died in (or getting into) space. But the publicity generated by their fate could well dictate the pace of future space exploration.
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Monty Python is hilarious!!! I love that show!!! I'm so glad other people here like it!!!
I would go in a heartbeat and my wife would understand... I love my wife very much and we have a great relationship...
We have three interesting alternatives to choose from here:
1. You don't actually love your wife (you don't know what love is).
2. You have no wife.
3. You, sir, are an idiot.
Seriously, what are you, 25, and too young to know what the hell you're talking about?
Sheesh.
dude, that's not spin. and I'm not a conservative, I'm libertarian if anything.
you're in denial, and you keep repeating things not based on fact (which is a trait of many liberals).
the US political system is totally broken, and the sheep on both sides of the fence (liberal and conservative) are blind to reality.
so you're no better than the conservatives you obviously hate.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
But an accident wouldn't have anything to do with the one-way aspect of the mission. In fact, an straight forward accident, such as a asteroid collision on the way or explosion on lift of, would be the best possible way for the astronauts to die, because there wouldn't really be anyone to blame.
boom boom boom
I like this idea - make it a permanent colony right from the start.
I wonder how much less it'd cost than Zubrin's original plan, since a big part of his plan was sending two fuel-factory-return-ships. Maybe not much, since a lot of the cost is R&D. But we'd get a lot more science for the money, and each subsequent mission would build up the base faster.
A lamer flaming a ranter! Extra cool!
Against what? Against shooting 76 year-old women in the face in the course of a robbery? I'll vote against that any day.
I don't really favor the death penalty, but really, don't turn them into martyrs either.
Granted, they're a series of novels, but the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars books by Kim Stanley Robinson explores a lot of these issues.
I won't give away the plot, since a lot of posters here seem not to have read the novels. But suffice to say I think he's written an excellent summary of many issues and I think it's a fairly reasonable scenario politics/sociology-wise.
-Geoff
Cyanide pills. Don't imagine for a moment they won't have some of them handy.
They're older and smarter than us.
After all, they don't live here, do they?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Dude, send me what you've been smoking. Commercial products like those you described CANNOT simply be ordered off the shelf. They need multiply redundant, ruggedized components for absolutely every system on the ship.
If your Dell dies, you can walk down the street to CompUSA for a new one. Try that 20 * 10^6 miles from the mall.
Of course, it's also up to us to make sure it doesn't come to that. I'd want to design the mission so that even when stuff goes wrong, there's always a good fighting chance for the people on the surface. I wouldn't send people there with one oxygen generator or one inflatible crop dome or without some construction gear or anything.
I mean, Mars isn't the moon. There are resources and things to work with all over the place -- the ground, the atmosphere, etc. And compared to space or the moon, it's a really safe place to be.
Send construction gear. Send machine tools. With some basic gear, plenty of power and know-how, you can make all sorts of things on Mars -- shelters, oxygen, water, food, wire, plastics...
Give me 50 skilled people, a dependable nuclear reactor and enough gear to get started and I'll make Mars a safe place for human life inside of a decade. If something breaks, I'll fix it. If we run out of spare parts, we'll mill new ones. If a few of us die, well, we'll mourn them and move on.
Leave the weak and timid back on earth. This isn't a venture for people who aren't willing to take serious risks or who think real "work" is sitting in front of a CRT all day typing TPS reports. Give me people who know construction, farming, materials, mechanics, people who can think on their feet and who can make a round peg fit in a square hole when they need to. Give me people who will work every day to survive and I'll turn the red planet into humanity's second home.
In short, give me pioneers.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
In fact, especially back in the '60's, getting into space was hard. Look at any of the mission timelines, like the Scorecard, and you'll see that a good number of the "failures" were really failures to get off the ground at all, especially the USSR. It didn't matter whether the goal was Earth orbit, the Moon, Venus, or Mars, a good number of those early rockets couldn't hold together long enough to get into space. Even then, the payloads often stopped working after they got into space, or if they worked, we didn't even push 'em in the general direction of the goal.
So, let's use the Scorecard and see what really happened:
Launch failure: 8
NEO failure: 3
Payload F.U.B.A.R enroute: 5
Payload F.U.B.A.R Mars orbit: 6
Payload F.U.B.A.R. Mars landing: 5
Successful flyby: 3
Successful orbit: 9
Successful landing: 4
So, the stats come down to definitions. If we ditch the lauch and NEO failures as a cost of doing business in space, most of which were back when you could still buy a Studebaker, the actual success rate for the Mars mission doesn't look quite so bad. In fact, if you cut the Russians out of the picture, it looks pretty damn good, which leaves the program managers for the Mars Climate Orbiter looking like even bigger retards than before.
Luke, help me take this mask off
marsquestonline
Warning: Flash required.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Ever heard of war?? Do you think those boys didn't wish they were back at home?
Rav
Dreams are better as dreams than reality.
What you're talking about is possible, but the chance of it occuring could be reduced.
As the other poster said, the people chosen to would be chosen based heavily on their mental stability. It might be a good idea to send a psychiatrist along too, just in case. This would depend on the size of the mission of course, but even in a small mission, you could just send a biologist with cross training in psychology.
As implied above, the mission won't just be one lonely guy. A crew of around half a dozen would probably be a good number. You would have the team train together og course, and try to inspire a camraderie between all the team members. The compatibility of all the crew would be a topic of extensive psychological study I'm sure.
I'm not sure if sending couples would be a good idea, or even if sending a co-ed crew ouldn't be asking for trouble. You can imagine what would happen if two of the crew had a messy break up omn Mars. (Or even worse - cheating with another crew member.) Of course, the possible implications of being on Mars for the rest of your life without sex might be a problem for a lot of people.
What else? Well, it wouldn't be a straight forward death mission, I hope. Planning to sustain the crew on Mars would be a lot more useful than an unsupported suicide mission. Knowing that supplies (and more astronauts) are continuously streaming from Earth would certainly help me feel better.
So that's all the reasons I can think of why a non-returning mission wouldn't cause madness and public death.
boom boom boom
As fast as the line might form, they'd have to boot them out of the program.
Remember, in most things Federal, gays remain sub-human.
If they can watch our TV, there is no way in hell the martians are sharing their corn.
The donner party died surrounded by water, plants and air. Three luxuries that will be in prescious short supply when the first astronauts land. Oh, and it'll be colder too. Until night when it will be much much colder.
Maybe we should send north koreans, I hear they're into cannibalism now. It can be like Survivor, with less voting, and challenges like, "make a stone hand axe."
Yes, they all died. Have you ever met one of them? Of course not, becayse all the settlers died a few centuries ago.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
With all due respect, I don't think Mars needs property rights. If the purpose of reaching mars is scientific, then I believe Antarctica provides a realistic way of achieving our goals without property rights.
Since 1959 (through a cold war) Antarctica has been the model for the suspension of territorial and property rights. Perhaps the idea of keeping science as the paramount priority there would also enable something like the Antarctic treaty to work on Mars -- even while the population on Mars builds the diverse infrastructure needed to sustain life there...
Two fish swim into a wall, one turns to the other and says, "Dam".
Why not send prisoners that already have a life sentence? Find four that might not kill eachother (probably the biggest problem - they're more likely to kill eachother in transit), and give them some science and medical training. It doesn't have to be a lot because you'll always have the real "brains" here on earth guiding them through anything tricky. They'd basically be robots, but better. Oh, come on - we were already being pretty far-fetched. Send twelve and we can call them the dirty dozen.
Couldn't we just vote on the person who most pisses us off? You know who I'm talking about don't you Daryl?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Lots of people would be willing to go, even if it meant probably only a year of survival. They could get an amazing about of research done in that time, including great applying human-style reasoning as to what makes sense to examine.
There would be a huge benefit, and if these people are willing to go why not let them and let us all gain from it?
Yes, I am one of the ones that would be willing to go as it would be a tremendous opportunity. Who would not want to be one of the first visitors to a whole different planet?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Years ago this book was written on the premis of sending a man to Mars on a one way trip. After many years and to many surgeries, he was modified into a creature that could survive the surface of Mars an breate it's air. Pretty good book.
China has just announced that thousands of Falung Gong followers have registered for the first Chinese one-way ticket to Mars.
China thinks this project may cost as little as $50 compared to America's $400 billion projected bill.
Two words: Cyanide capsules.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
> You can imagine what would happen if two of the crew had a messy break up omn Mars.
As usual, Larry Niven covered this. If you send a long-term all male crew... some of the men will engage in homosexuality, some will be violently opposed to it, and you'll get fights.
Basically, any colony will have sex, regardless of makeup. It's a hard drive to surpress.
A.
We don't even leave people in Antartica for overly long periods.
Leave them there, how long until they're all dead suicide? What a fucking fiasco that would be.
The article says supplies can be sent to the austronauts there once in two years, when Mars is closest. That is obviously not often enough. Plenty of food is needed for two years for several people, and not much can be grown on Mars for in the first year or even decade.
that shit was funny, i'm still laughing.
Perhaps the real reason for proposing a Mars trip is to fund the technical community. Even the President and his advisors have common sense...there are no justifiable reasons for the trip itself (especially with the budget deficits in the US). All the reasons that have been presented are possible indirect outcomes (possible technological improvements), thoughts from people who have a very high opinion of themselves (we deserve to conquer the universe, it is our destiny to..., we need to inhabit...) or some historical justification. I believe that the purpose for this project is to continue funding the technical/scientific/aerospace community. Look around...most of our (USA) leading edge technical/manufacturing projects can be done by others elsewhere in the world (or could be done by others soon). Why are people in the US so upset by offshoring? Because there are no clear technical (economically solid) fields to replace software/advanced manufacturing. Boeing, Lockheed, etc... need funding, since their non-military sales are falling. Biotech, nanotech, etc.. have not developed enough yet to contribute substantially to the US economy. Homeland security is a high cost for local/state/national governments, but has not really generated high revenue industies. The purpose may be to throw a lot of money into fields that may otherwise be politically difficult to justify. Additionally, it will help support our military (and other agencies) without being listed on the books as such.
from "my two cents"
Actually if you think about it perhaps it makes sense.
At least in my addled mind. Here goes.
1:Look for caves or a region of Mars that is likely to have caves without the constant hazard of caveins.
2:Look for that in a region of Mars that tends towards the more Tropical and is lower altitude. That way even if it's a high of 10F during the day the explorer wouldn't have to expend as much energy trying to stay warm. Besides, if you have a cave chances are you will be able to better survive one of those nasty (max 25mph?) dust storms.
3:Send the astronaut (or two, or three) in a vehicle that can return to Earth, but don't necessarily send all the fuel required to do so the first trip. Instead send food, water, etc.
4:Send the supplies in a device similar to the way the recent landing were: with parachutes and airbags. Send the astronauts in a vehicle that can "land" but don't burden them down with all the supplies. An astronaut can better walk to where the bags bounced (hopefully) to pick up the new supplies of PowerBars than a rover could.
5:Someone suggested a nuclear reactor. I agree with this one, and ship it separately. But have enough spare solar panels for backup too.
6:Free lifetime subscription to the Playboy Channel. Oh, and DirectTV. But only during the day when the earth is facing Mars. (Wouldn't PPV be a real bitch?)
7:At regular intervals send airbag protected supplies, but also smaller probes that could be launched with rocks, sand, and other materials back to Earth. Don't burden them down with parachutes for Earth entry, just pick them up in orbit when it's convienent.
8:Did I mention send Fuel for that rocket back?
9: Find astronauts who don't mind drinking their filtered recycled urine.
10: Send tanks of O2 as well.
I could be mistaken, but I'd think that making a shipping system similar to the Rover's lander, without having to add a rover, would be less expensive and you could launch a bunch of them at a time and just keep sending them..
Martians are gonna get pissed off about us littering their planet.. but hey...
box "A" has a little Korean boy in it, box "B" has a Mustang convertible. At the end of the day you get to take one home to keep in your garage.
And the other, well, you can only drive it.
If he hasn't changed it since 1993-4 when I heard him speak in Ames, IA, the plan is to send a robotic mission to pre-manufacture the return vehicle's fuel, oxidizer, and the astronaut's water and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere using a nuclear power plant and relatively small amount of hydrogen. The beauty of manufacturing the fuel on Mars is the massive weight savings. The beauty of the robotic prep-mission is that you don't have to send the astronauts into harm's way until you know everything worked and the consumeables are waiting for you.
Here are the details:
1. Send a robotic site preparation mission first. The mission would be scheduled, as all Mars shots are, to coincide with close approach. The mission would only have enough fuel to get to the surface, and not have enough to return. Also, because it's robotic, it wouldn't have to have any oxygen for breathing or water for drinking. It would carry some hydrogen, a portable nuclear power plant, and a crew recovery vehicle capable of Earth return, were it properly fueled.
2. After landing, the nuke would be driven by a robotic rover to a safe distance, preferably in a nearby crater. Putting it in a crater allows one to reduce the (heavy) shielding.
3. Using power from the nuke, hydrogen from the lander, and CO2 from the atmosphere, the next two years would be spent making methane, oxygen and water. The water and oxygen are obvious (and heavy) needs for astronauts. Methane will be the fuel for the return flight. Also, it will fuel Mars exploration buggies/rovers/aircraft; no more need for staying near the equator to milk every little bit of energy from the Sun.
4. If something goes wrong with supplies production over the course of the two years, we'll know about it BEFORE we send the astronauts. If there is a problem, you send another automated site prep mission.
5. Once we have a fully fueled and equipped crew recovery vehicle waiting for us on Mars, we send the astronauts. Again, this vehicle can be fairly light, because it doesn't have to bring along return fuel or oxygen; that's already waiting for us on Mars.
The plan is absolutely brilliant and doable with today's technology. The sticking point would probably be the politics of the nuke.
Note that this plan does not depend on the existance of Martian water reserves. Finding appreciable amounts of water there would make taking the hydrogen unnecessary, but is not a necessary component of the mission.
I really wish they would cite prior work here. George Herbert published a piece about this back in 1996, if not before. It's an old idea. It was also one of the proposals for a quick mission to the moon back in 1961. The newsgroup also sci.space.policy beats this to death every few years.
The main issues right now are some specific unkowns when it comes to Mars. The core idea of what they are discussing is possible. NASA's baseline mission to Mars calls for a hab to be sent out in advance of the main mission. That will have working equipment running for a couple years converting the atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen and some form of fuel. Then, a few years of manned habitation, then return. It's an incremental increase in cost to make that an indefinately prolonged mission if you allow for repair and resupply.
The author is downplaying one major item though. There is a definate conflict of resources between building a base and science. ISS is a very good example of that. A smaller crew has to be focussed on whatever task is required. I suspect that the initial crews sent would need to be focussed on building out infrastructure, then latter crews directed at the science.
I haven't seen new updates on the JPL web site for over a day. What's wrong with it? Or has it started some secret stuff they don't want us to see? Or am I paranoia?
--- Sigmentation Fault - Comments Dumped
If there had to be a compelling economic argument for everything we do we'd still be living in caves!
OK you already got ripped into a few times for this statement, but let me actually give a link where you can read some more about this issue. Robert Wright (author of book Nonzero) (who also happens to have a website of the same name) makes a very powerful argument that every advancement in cultural evolution and science in our history as a species has been as a result of the games (as in Game Theory games) we play. Zero-sum games where I take something from you, and Nonzero-sum (i.e. positive sum) games where we cooperate and advance our common cause. Anyway, I can't do it justice in a few sentences, but it's a great book and well worth the read. At the very least, poke around the website (above).
--
For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.
...don't bother coming into work on monday.
And in fact, the bad economy that GWB started with was handed to him by Clinton.
Ooh ooh can I play? "No, it was handed to GWB by the Republican-controlled senate|congress". Isn't this fun?!
>
>Dan Goldin: Can I respectfully push on you a little bit, and say "we have robotic missions and we have piloted missions." We do not have "manned missions" at NASA. We have thirty female astronauts.
>
> DB: Okay
>
>DG: I don't want to be pushy about this, but when I took this job, I told my daughters, "You will no longer use the name 'the manned spacecraft program.'"
Tackhead: Mr. Goldin, can I respectfully push back a little bit, and ask you, as NASA director, to spend a little more of your time concentrating on how to send piloted spacecraft to Mars instead of fucking around with language and identity politics like the sniveling bureaucrat you've just proven yourself to be?
DG: Okay.
Tackhead: I don't want to be pushy about this, but when I paid you taxpayer dollars for this job, I shouldn't have to tell you that "I don't care if your astronauts have cocks or cunts. I care about your ability to get them into space, and if they haven't volunteered for a one-way trip (which the Shuttle astronauts sure as fuck didn't), I care about your ability to bring them back again alive. I care more about these things than your crass display of oversensitivity towards people who think gender politics are more important than space exploration."
"One Way Ticket to Mars" .. now that's a reality tv show that I might actually watch. (:
- return vehicle
- return fuel
you could fit a lot of food on a rocket in exchange. We're talking many, many tons. And it woudl be very efficient, high-calorie food. I don't have any exact numbers, but it seems it could be done.boom boom boom
As long as you send me with my Playstation 2, a bunch o' beer and Tyra Banks. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Part of your dream involves ending the relationship. Here's an idea: break it off now, and at least have the decency to remain here on earth while she's getting over you. You'd have to have a pretty huge ego to leave while you're still married.
Hands in my pocket
it's an old idea, and not very shocking. I've wanted to do that myself.
That's what makes you read one newspaper instead of another: you pick the one that agrees with your taste.
It's the local movie listings.
I've only read "Red Mars". It was good, but I decided at the time that "Green" and "Blue" would be concerned with changes to Mars that were so far in the future they couldn't possibly be as scientific as "Red". I still might read them because I liked the first book, but I didn't feel compelled to follow the story. I thought that Red Mars was very interesting for about 3/4ths of the way through while it followed the course of the first colonists, and only somewhat interesting describing the struggles in the last part of the book because it was more fiction and less science. Not bad, just not why I picked up the book.
Maybe I should read the other books to see how property rights are hashed out in the new world. From what I remember of the first book, the colonists wanted to own Mars in a sort of joint trust (it's been a while since I read the book, so I could very well be wrong). I find this too utopian to believe it could survive as a system, but a reasonable first attempt by idealistic colonists. It's possible Mr. Robinson addresses the problems with this in his later books. The first book had bigger issues of survival to deal with, so property didn't come into play much.
From what I've read, the point of the vibrations is that they place stress on the bones that has similar effects to the shock experienced under use in normal gravity. It is best applied by having the subject stand on a vertically vibrating plate so that the shock waves travel lengthwise through the bones. Lying on such a plate would probably be fairly ineffective as the stresses would not be in the right places.
Anyway, none of this addresses other issues like cardiovascular fitness that could also be an issue.
Finally, I don't think anyone who would volunteer for a long-term Mars mission would be overly concerned about these. The chances of dying before a return mission was available are pretty good no matter what. Anyone who is going has already commited their life to doing the job, much like current astronauts. Long life and a return to Earth would be icing on the cake.
Mars is teeming with an army of vampires below the surface. There's no life there, only undead. Out of the reach of the Sun's beneficient rays, the vampires merely shun the surface, the way humans shun the depths of Earth, each from primordial fear of the other. The iron content of the Martian soil provides the comfort to the biters, the way humidity comforts humans on Earth.
Now these interplanetary probes threaten the stalemate we've enjoyed for generations. A one-way trip is the only acceptable human mission, lest they bring the pestilence back with them. Meanwhile, join me in developing the sunlaser, which stores the beneficient rays of the Sun in optical storage, for discharge against the horde of biters waiting across the vacuum gap. Stake 'em and bake 'em!
--
make install -not war
Men, it's a dream come true (yes I'm a ./ reader)
Yeah and for you that's all it will ever be... just a dream. Unless maybe you go to Las Vegas and hire the three girls.
The Mark I eyeball is what we use to verify our understanding of remotely acquired information. Without going there, there is no certain means of verifying that some unusual conditions aren't confusing the sensors on a probe.
Yeah Canada, he means YOU!
Large scale expeditions were by no means vanity projects for adventurers, unless they could be bankrolled by a very small group of people.
For a society to commit so many resources to such a task, there has to be some tangible payback. Tang doesn't really count.
Also, keep in mind that progress is often exponential. What costs immense amounts of money and entails large risks today can often be done cheaply and safely with tomorrow's technology. Think Moore's Law applied to space exploration. You certainly don't want to undertake a challenge ahead of its time. Those billions are better spent on healthcare so less children die in the US, one of whom might invent the space elevator/ion drive/whatever else that will get us to Mars much more easily.
Lying on such a plate would probably be fairly ineffective as the stresses would not be in the right places.
Depends on what you mean by "ineffective" and "not in the right places". Lying face-down on a properly designed vibrating bed could be...quite pleasantly stimulating; effectively acting on just the right place. If you are male, of course. If female, sitting just so on the bed should have a similar effect.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
pricely correct, dude
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
no really
the glory of exploring is lost
unless the poet is a scientist
the sunsets, the endeavour
the low swift moons, the mourning of endless rock
for lives never lived
canyons beyond seeing, mountains
beyond atmosphere
beyond belief
these hopes
we'll never live without a voice
what should I wish for
when I sign up
the glory of a battle
or vistas of hope?
death is waiting
at the next corner
but the god of war
waits in the sky
what better pilgrimage
than a journey without guns?
Since they were traveling on a one-way ticket, they would have to have "SSSS" stamped on their tickets and be strip searched before they could blast-off.
"Start lobbing cargo containers, habitats, hydroponics, a nuclear reactor etc at Mars ASAP using unmanned ships. Preceed this with a bunch more robotic missions to search for criticial resource on planet like water"
I'd like to see a little teraforming on Mars after verifying no native life (bacteria, maybe) and before sending humans. Crashing a giant ice asteroid/comet into Mars would create heat, water and atmosphere on the Martian surface, then seed with green life forms, allow a little time for evolution, and we've got Earth II going!
If one can make a plate that vibrates up and down for people standing up, one can make one that vibrates back and forth for those lying down - though I suspect it wouldn't be as effective. I'd rather see a chair set up to vibrate anyway - Martian gravity might be enough to get the vibration to have effect, and people are far more likely to sit for 30 minutes than stand in place. While in space, the Russian bungee cord solution would probably be just as effective.
As for your final point, I suspect that you'd still be worried about bone loss on Mars - you need your bones even in Martian gravity, but your body isn't designed to maintain them at Martian gravity. So, even for people just staying on Mars, a vibrating chair would be more or less a necessity unless and until we get drugs that solve the problem.
The score for USA launches is Mars 4, USA 11.
:-)
The score for Russian launches is Mars 14, Russia 5
I'm surprised though that after 10 straight failed attempts, that they managed to get the 11th launch approved.
All in the name of beating the USA to Mars, I'm sure!
Damn them Ruskies!
If NASA was given the funding to add Mars and the Moon ONTO to its existing systems we would forever be saddled with the Space Shuttle until the next disaster.
We are very fortunate that SOMEONE finally came out and said the space shuttle must go. How long have past Presidents been sitting on their collective hind ends just letting NASA be NASA?
Sorry, to give them more money means they keep that Spruce Goose going forever soaking the taxpayers and dooming and real chance at manned space exploration.
The shuttle effectively ENDED the manned space program.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This, being sent to you from Mars you pitiful Earthlings. Nobody asked how we feel about your visit, or the constant barrage of metalic projectiles raining down on our prestine home. There is no tabacco here, no women, no Starbucks. Pure heaven. But, ahem, it really sucks, so stay away.
http://www.techyrants.com
That idea was mentioned, at least at the brainstorming level, in the Moon Race days. There was a proposal to send a crew one-way with lots of supplies and a promise to follow up with a return vehicle a year or so later.
It was also suggested that they should be armed in case the Russians arrived and tried to take their supplies.
rj
A one-way trip would be an interesting idea if there were a reasonable chance of survival on the other end. The problem is that we humans have a very primitive understanding of what it takes to make a self-sustaining ecosystem, particularly one complex and robust enough to support humans. Full-ecosystem projects like Biosphere 2 are not only spectacular failures, they are so far beyond our understanding that most scientists don't even believe they yield scientifically valuable information.
If you believe that building self-sustaining colonies away from Earth should be a long-term goal of humanity (as I do), then we need to start with research here on Earth focused on understanding and learning to engineer these kinds of self-sustaining ecosystems. We have to be modest enough to realize there are many baby steps between our current understanding and any hope of self-sufficiency away from Earth.
This is the defining element of the mission and clearly ranks as a defeat.
+++
Though a freeze-dried desert today, it was once warm and wet
*sigh* Sounds like my wife.
Sony ha
is like going to Silicon Valley to find a job.
Let's just give it some more time, eh?
On the other hand you WILL get paid for the mars trip.
I have nothing in principle against a one-way mission to Mars, but we have to realise that it's much more important to develop strong AI and advanced nanotech as soon as possible. When we have them, a trip to Mars would be as simple for any human as a trip to the mall is today.
Wasting money on manned space exploration when nanotech research is underfunded (and no matter how much we spend, it is still less than we should) is stupid. Of course, spending money on Iraq invasion is even more so...
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
By and large I agree with your post, but I don't agree with the characterization of teachers. Usually, it's the teachers (by which I mean the people actually *in* the classroom) and parents against the mindless administrators. Teachers, when they fight/go on strike, usually fight for things like reduced class size, better classroom budgets, etc. in addition to meager cost-of-living raises that should be automatic.
I agree with the school board/bureaucrat characterization, as they're useless ideologues. Until they realize that some children cannot and do not want to be taught, and will prevent other children from being taught, no learning will occur in most schools.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
You can get a PDF of some of his later results here.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Anyone foolish enough to embark on a one-way trip to Mars should be nominated for a Darwin Award prior to departure. (Presumably no one allowed to embark on such a trip would be allowed to have procreated and procreation after leaving Earth would not count against the nominee).
So what. The heat death of the universe guarantees this is only a temporary solution for survival of the world. The lifespan of Sol means this only buys us a few hundred million years at best. And in any case; the survival of the species has a very low utility to you and me as individuals; we're probably better off spending the money on buying every American a really large TV and making a few hundred SCI-FI movies. I mean think about it; we're all sitting on Earth; while 10K colonists are on Mars. Kaboom the Earth is hit by a Commet. Those of us on earth arn't going to care that the colonists survived. The colonists will be pretty unhappy that they can't video conference with old Earth. Also given the Martian conditions; the ods of an extinction level event whiping out the smaller pop on Mars is much higher; than the odds of us whiping out.
This article read pretty well up until he makes the claim that "During the next millennium there is a significant chance that civilization on Earth will be destroyed by an asteroid ..."
WTF? I don't even have a response to such an asinine statement.
You don't think that soldiers everywhere sometimes want to scream this at the people back home? Come on, firstly, we can find people who have the courage to endure it. And if we choose the wrong person, we can just hide it like the military of the world's largest democracy does all the time!
5 km/sec is about 11,200 MPH. That's not even enough to make a good ICBM on Earth, but it'll get you completely off Mars. It is pretty obvious that we have had the rocket technology to get back from Mars for a long time, and getting back is much easier than getting there in the first place.
One of the things people keep claiming is that it's necessary to leave a return vehicle in Mars orbit. This is exactly how NASA got the $400 billion figure for a Mars mission; it is a huge mistake. Landing everything instead of leaving it in orbit has terrific advantages:
- You can aerobrake your entire mission instead of having to insert into orbit with rockets. This eliminates the mass budget for the fuel.
- You can manufacture your fuel supply for the return voyage from Martian atmosphere, instead of having to carry it with you. This buys you something like a 12:1 advantage.
- You avoid having to rendezvous with an orbiting return vehicle to get home; if you cannot rendezvous, you're dead.
- You avoid leaving your return ticket in orbit where you can't maintain or protect it, with its precious fuel in tanks which can be punctured by meteoroids, etc.
Not even NASA wanted to leave an orbiter for it's own sake after seeing Mars Direct. Zubrin has that much right.Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
that this will be ignored as soon as someone starts making money from ex-Earth resources.
That it will be defended with lives if deemed strategically important.
Ever looked up a list of what countries have ignored, abrogated or simply broken treaties. Or flouted UN resolutions?
Or governments ignored it's own laws/courts?
If you are US based look up Andrew Jackson and what he did when native Americans won a court case.
I am not saying this is right, or that some or all UN treaties are good or bad, but it is unrealistic to expect greed for money and power to not surface.
Primarily - how will you stop claiming and enforcing their ownership in the great beyond?
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
It will still be there in when we are ready to go there. In the meantime, we need to get fusion power into prodution ASAP. The world will be a much safer place when all nations are energy self sufficient.
moron moderators
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
The idea that an administration does not have a significant effect on the economy until after they are replaced is silly. Following your logic, Carter had nothing to do with the crap economy that occurred while he was in office - that was caused by the Nixon administration. And the growth under Reagan was actually caused by Carter's economic policies.
"you're in denial, and you keep repeating things not based on fact (which is a trait of many liberals)."
As do you. It's a trait that's pretty much universal of anyone discussing politics, because there are precious few facts to go around.
Example: You say economic changes tend to lag behind administrations. Most of the time when people say this it is spin; They like the administrations that in recent history have coincided with not so good economic times. So it's not unreasonable for someone to assume it is spin when you say it.
But you say it's not spin. Well either way, I say it's hogwash. Presidents have at best a small ability to impact the economy at all. Regardless of what they do, it's going to go well some times, and get fubarred other times. Maybe a President, with the cooperation of Congress and a bunch of state governments could gaurauntee a fubar if they worked at it. But obviously they're not going to. Nobody has the magic formula for making everything run smoothly forever. The economy is a stupendously complex system, with a few billion participants (worldwide) trying to push it in their own favor. To suggest it's behavior is attributable to the actions of a single person (even a president) is inane.
That's your proof? The economy lags behind government changes? A blanket statement with no specific evidence?
So, the recent "upturn" (not quite a recovery, I think "jobless recoveries" ain't, but getting better) in the economy can't possible be due to Bush, then. No, it's too soon. Thank you, Clinton!
Parent poster was talking about exactly this. Do you, or do you not, know EXACTLY what caused the recession and then the recovery? Meaning, you hear Greenspan speak and you can understand every - single - word? I sure as hell don't, but I don't go around laying blame on other people for things I don't understand. I don't understand the economy well enough to make that kind of statement, and I don't think you do either.
I'd be pretty happy with a 45% hookup rate...
It's very good and it's also quite short. But in a nutshell:
1. Yes, he's completely frozen and when the sun sets on Pluto it's pretty near absolute zero.
2. He's sorta undead. He doesn't breathe at all but because his brain is superconducting he still has consciousness when the sun sets.
Really, read the story and you'll understand.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Martians are using Linux, so I think Darl will volenteer himself.
Learn something new.
The technical advantage of having humans orbit Mars over purely Earth-based mission control is that, the speed of light being as it is, you get the capability of operating your Mars rovers near realtime. With a VR kit (supplied by say game developers eager for the "Made for Mars" seal of approval), you could get the feeling of humans being actually on the surface of Mars.
Of course, you also miss the benefits of having the crew land on Mars, like gravity and the possibility of living off the land. I suspect the glorified asteroids, Phobos and Deimos, might have enough frozen gas resources to provide the modest thrust needed for artifical gravity. A side mission to one of the satellites could be made just for the purpose of mining ice. The main crewed orbiter itself stays a safe distance away.
Bereshit, or better transliterated 'veres-hiit' means literally 'in a beginning', tho a better translation is 'in The beginning.
Vereshiit barah elohim eth-hashamayim we'eth ha-arets, in case you were wondering, depending on what pronunciation scheme you are using.
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.
The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
The junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell but Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.
Ya know, I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon.
I think I'll send these doctor bills airmail special...
to Whitey on the moon.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There's no need for a one way trip, there is Mars Direct.
Mars direct was devised by an aerospace engineer called Robert Zubrin a few years ago in response to the previous Bush's original estimate of the cost of sending humans to Mars. Bush's administration devised a plan whereby a giant spaceship would be constructed in Earth orbit. This spaceship would package together everything required for a trip to and from Mars, and a stay of a few months.
Mars Direct proposes a multi-stage approach whereby the required supplies, infrastructure etc. are sent over several years. It is safer, has more redundancy, allows a longer stay on the surface, and best of all, it's cheaper. Much cheaper. The cost of the original plan was estimated by NASA to be $400 billion (1989, unadjusted.) When researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center considered Zubrin's Mars Direct proposal, they decided to be generous, and scale it up by a factor of 2. The ultimate cost still only came out at $50 billion dollars.
Mars direct can be implemented now, using current technology, with no need to leave people on Mars, and no exotic propulsion methods. Of course, with the development of more exotic nuclear propulsion methods, the cost can probably be brought down even further, and the travel times reduced.
Mars Direct could constitute as little as 20% of NASA's annual budget if implemented. This means that by retiring the Space Shuttle, and ending the commitment to the ISS, Mars Direct could probably fit within NASA's current budget.
Any NASA plans to send humans to Mars will almost certainly emcompass elements of Zubrin's Mars Direct plan.
For more info
For a more recent critique of the plan
Having so many examples of heroism and unselfishness in the history of humanity you think that our most important embassador would not raise to the occasion.
I believe any normal person would made us proud, for a rare ocassion, to be humans.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... attempt interstellar travel, we need to deal with zero gravity.
Heck, for pracitical puprposes the exteoriro planets of our Solar system ar far enough to make this an important issue if we ever want to go there.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... that you attacked the wrong country last year.
Check the nationalisties of the terrorists and their known sponsors.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
one flaw this idiot forgot is the fact that the radiation levels are incredibly high on mars, due to a weak atmosphere and magnetic field (IIRC) and if the magnetic field thing is the cause, then it would explain why there's no water or life there.
and we currently have no protection for men, nor our space probes against this radiation.
safest bet would be to send people to the moon and start bases there first, before we send people to a planet that is known to be a graveyard for probes. I think some people are getting anxious.
just because we got a probe on mars, doesnt mean we're ready to go there ourselves. in fact, it took a long time before we actually got on them moon, several missions before that happened, and we're still not officially on the moon yet. it's human count is 0. so mars is another 70 to a hundred years away before we even think about sending people there.
think closer to home first.
.... how will we ever go out of the Solar system if it is not assuming that people will be born, live an die in space for many generations just to spread our species around the Galaxy?
Heck,we live and die in space, we are just too dumb to realize how fragile is our home. In stellar terms we here on Earth are just marginally better than the guys in the ISS or in a hypotetical trip to Mars.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... one is tangetially connected to the topic and the others are a dissertation about the moderation system.
Dude, you (and I) are off topic.
Somehow the words "high" "horse" "come" "down" are tickling my cerebelum.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.. is that we remember his expedition as a noble failure (in spite of some people trying to paint him as a fool recently. A daring fool with vision that would be).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
C'mon, tell me you haven't been thinking about this already?
;)
We send 14 men and women to Mars, and we watch every waking moment of everyone's lives through cameras in every conceivable location. As tensions rise, Big Brother gets to vote them off the island, and they go to... the... um... other side of the island.
The programme could start on Earth, in Mars simulations and "team building" exercises. We should start now to develop the techniques that will be needed to help 14 people cope with each others' company for 2 years at a time. Starting with day-long "Mars on Earth" expeditions (camping in the desert, in the arctic, in underwater habitats, etc) and work up to the final pre-mission selection camp - 6 months in Anchorage, Alaska.
Imagine the advances we'd be able to make in psychology when we have access to situations where we could experiment with stress handling and counselling techniques? Wouldn't that pay for itself?
As a lead-up to the Mars expedition, move all those robot-vs-robot competitions to the desert, then the Moon. The only entry criteria for the Moon and Mars robot-vs-robot competitions would be that you get there. The robot that retrieves the most useful scientific data wins - the competition being the Lunar/Martian environment (and other robots).
Wouldn't you love to be one of the first owners of domestic robots who have "Moon Muscle 1" as their ancestors? Not only does it vacuum the carpet and prune the roses, but it can kick the Roomba's arse...
Perhaps there could also be "lifestyle" shows, where people come up with new and amazing ways to decorate a 2m x 2m x 2m bunk module, cook in an all-electric kitchen module, grow exciting (and mind-altering) herbs in the garden module, and do make-overs of each others' recreation modules. We'd also have the "adult" segment - voyerism to the extreme as we explore sex in low-G, and find new and exciting ways of pleasuring the person we've been bonking non-stop for 18 months... and then we can redefine that stupid "wife swap" show. The mind boggles and the hedonistic opportunities presented.
And don't forget the opportunity for current affairs programs such as, "A Mars Affair", "The Late Show: Starring Martian Letterman".
But we should be careful to send people other than scientists to Mars. Sure, absolutely include geologists, microbiologists (for the "practical science" on Mars), chemists and physicists (for the "research science"), but they'll need horticulturists, photographers, cameramen, a poet and a singer/songwriter. Don't let Spirit and Opportunity get all the credit for being the "Ansel Adams of Mars" - get some human photographers up there who can do lanscape shots for the sake of art, rather than navigation.
I can't wait till I can have such contrasting pictures as Little Fisher Falls (a Tasmanian waterfall) sitting right next to a Gusev Crater panorama. Wow.
So there we go - an entire pantheon of entertainment prospects that would allow the space program to be entirely funded from pay-per-view media.
The next step will be to find some resources that the Moon and Mars can provide that are unique - the cheesy souvenir rock pets for starters. I wonder if herbs grown on Mars would have unique flavour properties compared to those grown here on Earth? Imagine parsley that's twice as expensive as Terran saffron
So there you go - start off with all the robot-geek shows where we slice, dice and experiement our way to the top of the survival heap. Boost rocketry and extra-Terrestrial manufacturing to the scale required for consumer launches (manufacturing robots in space would be cheaper than building them on Earth and launching them to the Moon or Mars).
Once we get space elevators or sling-rides up and running, we can start with the human voyagers.
What do you reckon? Any grain of sense in my babbling?
You know, "From the creators of Real World (c)..."
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
The thought of Bush donning a spacesuit is really growing on me now.
this is a very realistic scenario.
> I mean, they can't just shut off the radio and ignore the person.
thats exactly what we do, build the radio so that a remote command will kill it permanently.
I would volunteer for this mission. Besides it's not necessary one-way. If we sustained a human presence on the surface, certainly after a decade or so, someone would come along with a return vehicle, as outlined in The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin.
Where's the application?
Enough talk already!! Just give me a shotgun and 24 ounces of pure grain alcohol and ill get there on my damn own!!
They think it's all over, it is now...
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
whew...i almost couldnt breathe in there with the fuming faithful...
but seriously, trying to convey reason to people who have so much vested interest and pride in one particular viewpoint is quite pointless, and maybe even inane...
do we achive by landing a man on mars at such a high human and material cost.yes no machine can as yet substitute a human being but that doesnt mean that our ultimate aim should be to land a human being on mars but rather to understand more and more.
i would rather postpone a manned landing in favour of an intensive martian exploration programme.
Wanted : A Signature.
Kim Stanley Robinson? He won a Nebula Award in 1993 for Red Mars.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The poster is a person, just like you are and I am. "Going to Mars" is not a "thing", it's a human activity which that human being wants to do. If you believe in "people first", how about giving some weight to everybody's life, including the lives of people who *need* to explore the universe around them?
You might want to look into it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why not go back to caves, wait a few million years? It's no difference to anyone. We have time before the heat death of the universe!
If we keep waiting, no-one will go. It's as simple as that. Why not push up the timetable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In other words, since we can't have them come back yet, have them set up a permanent base they can live in. (Not that I'd consider this a terribly bright idea, what with our track record of sending probes up...)
Tim
NASA was interviewing professionals they were figuring on sending to Mars. The touchy part was that only one guy could go and it would be a one way trip.
The interviewer asked the first applicant, an engineer, how much he wanted to be paid for going.
"One million dollars," the engineer answered. "And I want to donate it all to my alma mater--Rice University."
The next applicant was a doctor, and the interviewer asked him the same question.
"Two millions dollars," the doctor said. "I want to give a million to my family and leave the other million for the advancement of medical research."
The last applicant was a lawyer. When asked how much money he wanted, he whispered in the interviewer's ear, "Three million dollars."
"Why so much more than the others?" the interviewer asked.
The lawyer replied, "You give me three million, I'll give you one million, I'll keep a million, and we'll send the engineer."
I recollect a Reader's letter to Wired about a few isuues ago. he was writing from a prison, he said, a lot of people serving time for life, would not mind a one-way ticket, if it helps in any way.
The reader was suggesting that if the job is given in a set of procedures, they can execute it better than a monkey.
If any of you collect the wired issues, go ahead and dig in the issue, just after the columbia disaster.
Is there any way to download all the comments? A lot of them are really well written and express really interesting ideas.
boom boom boom
I want some martian pussy... how much?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Sorry, that narrow band has more to do with communications to earth I believe than with elevation - that only factors in after the position is considered. Basically, watch NOVA. :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now now, looks like we're all getting upset over this, but if we go and RTFA, it's clear that this is about and guaranteed reduced life expectancy, and a hope to survive as the first mars colony.
/. headline has been interpreted that way.
Although the debate on wether we should send people to their certain death for the sake of science is somewhat of an interesting one, this is not what the article is about, and it's unfortunate that the
I'd go, but I know my skills wouldn't fit the scientific requirements, I'd want to have a look at the resume of the other people going first tho, after all if they picked me, it'd be a cause for concern! Anyway, does that make me an idiot ? I prefer to see it as it meaning I'm willing to take my chances.
lone, dfx.
Since this is such an important, one way mission, and both President Bush and President Bush II have proposed manned missions to Mars, I nominate the whole Bush family to go on this important, one way mission to Mars.
Let's make sure we get all of them. Jenna, both Barbaras, Jeb, Barbara, both Georges, Neil, and all the rest. They will be the selfless heros who first colonized Mars! This will cap off their family's long service to America and humanity in general and put them in the history books as truely great and selfless pioneers!
And Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Karl Rove can go along too!
The sooner we send them, the better.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I mean, you can send them in a ship, then send them another ship filled with stuff to help them get back...i think thats smarter, if applicable..
Actually Mars may turn out to be a pretty cool place? Why not send them to explore a distant sun. Like, for example, ours. Express rocket, we could test new propulsion systems too.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Of course, the answer to that is simple, and one that 'secret agents' have used for years. Give them a cyanide pill. Tell them: You will *never* be on Earth again unless you build a goddamn rocket on Mars yourself. So either you go to Mars, become one of the greatest heroes ever, or crack and end your life.
Either way, it'll probably be covered as Mtv's Real World: Mars.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
I think we can all agree that sending someone to Mars to die is more affordable and feasible than returning them back. And we can also all agree that our society would be pretty much horrified at the idea alone, much less color film of them being eaten alive by forty-two foot tall Martian monsters with six heads.
So what do we do? Don't tell the public. Do it in secret, and as soon as you get them there alive, and relatively O.K., announce that [space agency] has developed a mission to Mars which is almost to the red planet. Or about to launch, or whatever.
The point is, the people can't be outraged at what they don't know. And all those marooned astronauts on Mars certainly aren't telling anyone.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
I like beautiful pictures and fun experiments about the possibility of past life as much as the next person. However, we should begin sending interesting machinery to mars. Interesting machinery would be;
1. Machinery that mines martian soils to extract materials to build other machines.
2. Machines that excavate, construct building materials, begin the process of creating maintainable habitats for first plants and then people (human habitats should rotate to insure that animals can function in a 1 G environment.)
3. Machines that can collect water and necessary metals and hydrocarbons from the asteroid belt and ferry it to Mars (then shuttle it down to our busy little habitat.)
4. Machines that can assemble buildings, produce power from solar radiation, harness wind power (tricky with such a thin atmosphere), grow gardens (including compress the martian atmosphere for plant use), process plant byproducts to produce food, oxygen, water, clothing, and building material.
5. Machines that can build large information management technology, including wireless remote control for an army of autonomous robots, informations collection and storage for evolving more efficient machines for changing the face of Mars.
6. Machines that can store energy, fuel, process animals for agricultural products (rabbits, and genetically engineered animals that produce large amounts of meat, milk, fur, hide, and drugs that can easily be separated from milk or other body fluids.)
7. Machines to create and manage massive data pipes to earth and earth outposts, allowing software update, and remote control and programming through local telemetry.
Mars is rich in iron, aluminum, titanium, carbon, and silicon. Just what the doctor orderd for building cities and habitats. Carbon is also perfect for building polymers... we can make wood and plastic in abundance... sounds like someplace that could be made real homey.
With a healthy ecology of smart machines building living space for people and the associated lifeforms needed for the long term survival of people, it should be possible to create small reproducible towns on Mars, and ultimately cover significant areas with human habitats. In fact, creating a variety of connected habitats would allow humanity to begin the process of insuring earth's biodiversity. We could reconstitute a number of recently extinct species and insure that hundreds or thousands of earth habitats might exist to protect our genetic heritage. Add that to having high quality living accomodations and Mars could easily become a garden planet.
- Genda Bendte --
So now we're _openly_ disregarding human life. Sacrifice some poor bastards who're too ignorant to realize what's going on to save some $$$. A waste of life, and an open admission of how degenerate we've become. A shame. We invented money, and it has become bigger than us! Never mind the "machines taking over" - $$$ has taken over a long time ago and has enslaved us, including our minds! Wake up!
Must-not-watch TV!
I consider a sewer of gnaa and linux slash fiction far more readable than a crowd of "me too"-style group think posts.
abolishing moderation will do nothing to increase the noise level (it's already deafening!), but it will eliminate the groupthink.
I can think of one thing that might justify such effort, and that is a solar sail which would help pull the crew return vehicles to Mars and then return to Earth for the next. This could reduce the fuel requirements for launching a CRV to that sufficient get to an orbit a few thousand miles up, rather than Earth escape velocity; the improvement in mass delivered to Mars might be sufficient to make it worthwhile for second-generation missions.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
There are two general trains of thought I've noticed in this thread that I want to respond to. You'll have to forgive me if this has been gone over before, but I set my threshold pretty high.
Robots can do it better and cheaper than people
Let's do a simple thought experiment. If you dropped a thousand Spirit-type rovers into the South Dakota badlands, you might have found a fossil or two at the conclusion of the mission. On the other hand, you may not find anything. However, if you send a trained human geologist with a rock hammer out, he'll come back in a few hours with a wheelbarrow full of fossils. Only the presence of humans will be able to uncover the subtle signs of past life on Mars, if it once existed. This is a question we cannot afford to ignore. Its implications are too fundamental to the basic questions that puzzle the thinkers of our era.
True, each robotic mission costs less than a manned mission would, but you are certainely not going to get anywhere near the same kind of scientific returns. Robot missions are cheap and don't put people at risk, but they aren't by any means giving you the same value for your dollar as manned missions could.
We don't have the technology/money to put people on Mars and bring them back.
This is patently false.
In 1990 two then little known engineers named Ed Baker and Bob Zubrin introduced a new Mars misssion architecure called Mars Direct. Mars Direct used sound engineering, no-nonsense thinking, and some novel ideas to bring the estimated cost of a manned mars program down from NASA's existing estimate of $450 billion to only $20 billion, with a unit cost of $2-$3 billion per mission, round trip. Zubrin and Baker's cost estimates have been varified by NASA and Lockheed Martin costing experts, but Zubrin himself claims that a private company could accomplish the same mission for only $4-$6 billion in development and $1.5-$2 billion per mission.
$20 billion spread over a 10 year development program is only $2 billion annually, or around 15% of NASA's current budget of $15 billion.
The lynchpin of the Mars Direct concept was a technology called In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) or as Zubrin puts it "living off the land". This is actually a lot more modest than it sounds. All it means is that instead of carrying oxygen, water, or rocket fuel for the mars surface stay and return trip phases of the mission, only a small amount of hydrogen feedstock is brought from earth. Once there, the hydrogen is is processed by a series of chemical reactions into water, oxygen(for breathing and propellent) and methane(rocket fuel). The only martian resource needed is carbon dioxide. Since carbon dioxide is 95% of the martian atmosphere, it is readily available. This relience on martian resources is therfore not nearly as risky as it firsts sounds, and still enables huge mission mass savings.
At the time of its introduction, Mars Direct relied on no unproven technology except for the ISRU equipment. Everything else, propulsion, power, materials, life suppert, etc... was all based on proven, time-tested technology.
However, in the intervening decade, Lockheed Martin has designed, built and tested working prototypes of all the chemical gear necessary for a Mars Direct-type mission. Zubrin himself has developed several succeeding generations of the technology at his own company, Pioneer Astronautics.
In addition to low cost and simplicity, Mars Direct offers a number of other advantages over competing architectures. It incorporates a spinning tether system, like a bolo, to provide artificial gravity to the crew, avoiding the negative effects of prolonged exposure to microgravity. Mars Direct requires no on-orbit assembly. Everything is built on earth, where our industrial infrastructure coincidentally already happens to exist. On Earth, everything can be built and tested in the presence of trained specialists, not by glorified pilots. On Eart
" Want a second honeymoon, perfect location, perfect distance from the kids, NO iritating phone calls, NO disturbances. Plus you'll be hailed as national heroes! NO CHARGE! No hassel! No chance of survival! Call NASA!!!
I'd get a better net connection on mars that I get here thanks to the TOTAL lack of all DSL, Cable Etc. ..The orbiter gets like 128k, the rover like 50k, me.. f'in 26.4!
Lets just see the RIAA try to sue me for DL'ing tunes to mars. (Rockin' Rover beep..beedly-beep)
Have not been keeping up lately - was on VACATION. That mythical time period where the boss demands you do to no work. Took full advantage since I'm not sure when or if this typically mythical time will come again.
Questions if I were to go (or anyone really)
Can I get my taxes I've paid to the Government back so I can do with them what I see fit?
Can I take as many legal or illegal MP3 files as I like without penalty? How about DIVX and DVD rips?
Seriously sending someone on a one way trip is a very good suggestion however the absolute WRONG people to send are the young idealist scientist types newly graduated and looking to save the world through such an extreme effort. I don't really think that going away for the rest of your life to a far away world would do acomplish this anyway.
That being said I do think there is a valid reason for this to happen. In ideal candidate should be someone who, not necessarily a scientist, should be skilled and able to make research and good observations for report back to us here on Earth. They should be healthy (of course) but not definitely NOT young. They should have had a good chance to have lived a life, done the things they would like to do here - raise families, have grandchildren, etc.... in other words have no regrets for things they may not have done in life.
A person who would fill this would also have lived a lot of life, experienced many different situations, gathered knowledge, skills, and the wisdom necessary to deal with unknown, unpredicted, and changing circumstances and situations. By virtue of age they will also be more mature and emotionally stable - able to better cope with the knowledge that they may never return and that the work they are doing will benefit both the people remaining on Earth and those who would next be able to make the bold and courageous decision to pursue life and livelihood beyond the stars.
Who would choose to make such a journey and sacrifice - I really do not know. For the right person it would certainly be an interesting, intriguing, and challenging opportunity and would definitely bestow upon any and all of the first travelers a time honored place in history I would think of far more importance to any who have gone before and perhaps those who would go later.
Cheers!
The requirements should be: If it's a guy, he must have a large penis. If it's a girl, she should have a nice set of tits.
Send President Bush.
The global and national benefits would be felt almost immediately.
well you know, I personally feel presidents don't have a lot of power over the economy too. but if someone is going to stand up and say the two bush presidents have been bad for the economy, but clinton was good for the economy, then I have to disagree.
that's not specifically saying bush policies made it so.
but it's absolutely ridiculous to think that what power a president has over the economy would take effect within even months of his actions. thus, what power a president has over the economy won't be evident until many months, or even years after.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
with a jackass name like "d34thm0nk3y", how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
/.
you're some college boy, living in a liberal haven also known as "higher education", jumping on a bandwagon to refute my points. of course you add nothing.
get out of the lab once in a while. I'm sure there are more interesting things to do on a campus than sit and show off in
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Your points would be valid, except that they are only valid for about 10% of the martian surface!! The other 90% requires humans to land/drive the probes there, because we cannot land probes there (too dangerous, no good line of sight with earth, etc).
But even then - of course humans are going to use some robots to do dangerous things or things humans cannot do (like scaling cliffs, not easy in a spacesuit). And yes robots are good at repetitive things. But a lot of what humans are looking for does NOT require repetition - For example stromatolite fossils are very rare, but key signs of early bacteria activity. You probably are not going to find those by searching every square inch of 100 square foot patch of ground. You are going to find that by noticing an oddly round rock "way over there" and wandering over to pick it up.
It's not going to be a geologist collecting soil samples - robots are still fine for that. It''s going to be a team of people setting up a drilling rig to go a few kilometers below the surface after a month or two of traveling all over with a big ol' ground penetrating radar. Oddly, I have not heard of robots doing either of those things well at all. After all, oil rigs are dangerous - surely if robots could do as well they would just replace the workers with an automated crew.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, I agree that whatever effects an adminstration has on the economy won't be felt immediately. But a lot of people essentially claim the effects of the guy they like better will be felt whenever the next boom is. Which is nonsense. More likely, the effects of what a president can do will be felt over the very long term, extending over many boom/bust cycles.
I think Bush's policies (cut taxes, particularly on the wealthy; radically increase spending; remove restrictions on corporations enriching themselves at the expense of the commons) might probably help the economy recover in the short term, at the expense of completely trashing it over the long term. But by that time there will have been a few democtatic administrations to blame it on.
Do you have any idea how much better the human eye can see than even the CCD's we have out there now? I guess you don't, or oou would realize that even in the high-rez pancam image (which took about a day to send to us) a human eye could see about 10,000x more detail than what we have - AND move around to get a 3D view in seconds, instead of laboriously piecing one together. Then the human ALSO does not have to wait hours to be told where to go look, they just go look there. The camera simply cannot resoolve "that odd looking rock" or look behind someting just to see what is there (in case it's being obscured) without explicit commands - and because commands and the rovers time are a precious resource, chances are the rover will never be told just to poke around looking at stuff.
Rovers on mars are the equivilent of writing a program over the phone when you don't know what computer the person on the other end has.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's funny is that the guy who modded this down is almost certainly a Mustang owner.