Slashdot Mirror
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."
Well, I think that mankind need to learn how to escape its home planet as fast as it can.
As we do not know how long it will take, today is not too early to begin.
Benefits are for the future.
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 does this have to do with money? Humans are naturally curious. We're explorers. That's what we do. I'll tell you something else, it wouldn't take a man a week to move off the lander. A guy in a suit would have already picked up half those rocks, drilled 30 feet into the crust, and sifted for gold. No robot yet built can outdo a dude in a suit.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
It could be a manifest destiny thing, however I suspect other motives. Why not do a manned mission, sure it is dangerous, and yes the possibility of people dying is very real, but the old argument of "Why climb a mountain" applies. Probes cannot convey the human experience of standing on the Martain surface and running red sand through your hands, sure they do not need food/water/supplies and there is little chance of loss of life save a rocket exploding on the pad, but who here hasn't dreamed of going to Mars? It is hard coded in the human spirit to explore. From taking our first steps as a child, we have always wanted to go there (no, not Mars, a generic there), there which we have not set foot before, there into the unknown. In short, we do not need to colonize Mars as much as we want to colonize Mars.
Well actually, only the last person to die will die utterly alone. The other 3 will have someone to hold their hand. RTFA the trip will be one way but resupply will be a regular event. As will be the addition of extra crew as the surface is prepared for their arrival. This is the way to go about it. This is probably going to be the only way to go beyond our solar system.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
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
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.]
That said, the word "genesis" did not come from the Bible, nor did the word "heaven". "Genesis" is a beginning or creation, "the heavens" describes the sky, and "reading too much into stuff" describes both of us, I think.
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.
Tha article memtions a few good reasons: 1) pandemic disease and 2) global war 3) some other extintion-level event (asteroid, ect). Eventually the colony would be self-sustaining by sending more people there. If it went well, within 20-40 years potentially. At least humanity wouldn't be wiped out. That is assuming, of course, that one of the acts of #2 didn't include some nuke being launched at the colony.
Also, humans can do many more experients and studies than robots. If our rover gets stuck, that's all folks. A colony there with the proper manufactoring facilities could potentially do many interesting things, many which couldn't even be conceived at this point.
IMHO, that's the main reason. Sending such a mission would enhance our technology in ways most of us can't even contemplate at the moment. We would have to come up with novel solutions to new problems, and those solutions would undoubtably have applications here on Earth. For example, say the colonists devised a new way to grow crops, or NASA had to design an ultra-safe reactor for the colony. Both of these could have major impact on our civilization. The myrid technologies that would be needed for this to be a reality could greatly enhance the worldwide standard of living.
Finally, I personally feel we should go because we are, at least in America, by tradition frontiersmen without a frontier. Many of us feel a restlessness because there are few places left to go...no more western frontier where we can "make our own". Now, this still wouldn't probably happen in my lifetime (nor probably even in my grandchildrens)...but I would be content with the knowledge that someday one of my decendents could leave this overcrowded place and begin anew in the Martian Colonies.
It's called hope for the future. It's something many of us have lost due to the Patriot Act I & II, our "jobless recovery", our world's biggest prision population, and so on. It's the potential to someday be able to leave if we feel the need. Not me, of course, but someday.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
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
Let's assume that the first inhabitants carry with them property rights to a 100KM radius area from their landing spot. Who owns those rights? The explorers? Not likely, they're living soley on the charity of the country that supports them. The country? Sounds a lot like colonialism--a politically risky choice for the US. The private companies that help underwrite the mission (assuming they exist)? Unless Boeing (to take a company at random) paid for the entire launch and support, there's no way the government would let them own part of Mars. The voters would hate that.
I agree that nothing would spur settlement like property rights. Once a US mission landed on Mars, China, Russia and the EU would be falling over themselves to get their own stake. But, I don't know how it would work in the beginning.
The colonial model is the most logical: the US owns whatever part of Mars it's settlers are living on. But, how long does the US own the land? At what point does it revert to the settlers? At what point does the Mars-US relationship become like the American Colonies vs. the British Empire?
It probably shouldn't be based on a strict timeline, but rather a series of developement steps. Once the Mars colony is reasonably self-sufficent (and the US has made a return on it's investment?) the land would become privately held.
Just thinking out loud. There's probably an essay somewhere on the internet that works out these details...
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