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."

Comments

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[cyt0plas]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/opinion/15DAVI.h tml?ex=1074747600&en=60630c5edf30aefa&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE

Mars is NOT winning

[Waab]

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

Shouldn't the ESA be 0-0-1

[AzrealAO]

In their one current mission, the orbiter survived and the lander is presumed lost.

Re:Would you want such a volunteer?

[dema]

As noted in the article, it is suggested that a four-peron crew be sent, so there would not be a total loss of human contact. Read the article, it's rather interesting.

Re:Sending water

[kippy]

Seems to me one of the biggest issues is sending enough water.

Mars has two ice polls and probably underground water. No need to send anything and in fact, you can make a lot of stuff just from the air water and dirt that you find there.

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.

me too. I've read that even if there were spaceships fully built and fuled waiting on the moon, it would still be cheaper in every way to just launch straignt to Mars. I think you should read up on Mars Direct

Re:Indeed!

[mcmonkey]

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?

The same way they returned from the moon...Mars is smaller than and has less atmosphere than the Earth. Lift off for the return trip takes much less energy.

Not a new idea

[J05H]

"One way to stay" mission designs are not new. George W. Herbert, an aerospace engineer and regular on the sci.space newsgroups, has made several detailed proposals like this. Most of them revolve around the point that sending a life-time's worth of food to Mars is not that expensive, especially compared to the scientific and engineering returns on such a project. One way missions to Mars should be considered the start of colonizing, not "abandoning" astronauts there. Also, even with a nominal one-way flight, there is always the possibility of getting home 10, 20 years in the future.

http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/faculty/dportree/ rtr/ma26.html

-Josh

Re:Why do a manned mission?

[JeffSh]

that delivery method would not be used of course.

the reason it was used is because it reduces the variables of an automatic landing. you can test drop something from 150 feet off the ground all day, but you cant test a landing by a computer program using retro rockets.

in a manned mission, the landing would be by parachute with retro rockets to slow acceleration to 0 on the surface, because the trained pilot has that ability.

currently, programs don't have that ability, so they didn't do it.

-jeff

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not www.goatse.cx.

Mars...The Australia of the 22nd Century

[Guncrazy]

Paul Davies isn't the first person to suggest leaving astronauts on Mars. I doubt that Henry Spencer is the first, either, but he did suggest it back in 1997, in an article he wrote for Wired magazine.

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.

Citations.

[rijrunner]

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.