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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).
"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?
Send paypal donations to DarlMcBrideMarsTicket@yahoo.com.
I doubt that Darl would go for it. Where would SCO be without his leadership?
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)
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
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
The entire United States.
Then the rest of us can get back to living again.
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.
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
Blaze a trail to the New World
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.
These guys seem to have that problem solved already.
do not read this line twice.
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
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.]
http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/faculty/dportree/ rtr/ma26.html
-Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
The ice caps are water. It was believed for a while that the south cap was pure CO2 but this is currently not believed. Every winter part of the C)2 atmosphere freezes down on the surface of whatever cap is going through a winter. So it's just a coating 6 martian months of the year.
I'm too lazy to dig up the links but do a google, look at the NASA mars site and search the slashdot archives for info on the Martial polar caps.
Blaze a trail to the New World
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
Not www.goatse.cx.
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
Since kinetic energy goes like the square of the velocity you would need a quarter of the energy on Mars to reach escape velocity (since it's approximately 1/2 of earth's escape velocity). This still doesn't tell you much about the level of technical difficulty needed to achieve even that on Mars.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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
Just to clarify, this is not a homophobic statement. The problem that would be solved is the need for women. I am not implying that we send all homosexual men to Mars.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
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.
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
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
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?
The fact that "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" is completely irrelevant. The chances for civilization to be killed both places is less. Even if there were only a 50% chance over some period of time of the Mars colony surviving, that significantly reduces the chance that all civilization will be destroyed.
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"
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 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
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."
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.
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.
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!"
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
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.
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
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.
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...
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.
- 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
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.
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
Very noble of you. You could however not go to Mars to die in a year and contribute to society to the extent that you are capable (whatever that may be, I don't know you) and then maybe live to see one of your grandchildren go to Mars and actually return when we have actually figured out how to do that.
I fail to see how this is less worthy a plan than your noble sacrifice. Mankind has been around for a pretty long time and I expect will be around for some time to come. This isn't something that can't wait to happen for 30-40 more years and I personally believe that in that time frame you can expect a "There and Back Again" plan appear that's got a reasonable chance of working.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
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.
Though a freeze-dried desert today, it was once warm and wet
*sigh* Sounds like my wife.
Sony ha
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.
Like what, exactly? I love science -- I ought to, I'm a scientist at a genomics center. But the whole trend of even Earth-bound science is to do as much as possible by machine, and just have the humans look at the *data*. People don't sequence by hand any more -- there are automated sequencing machines. So the whole idea of manned spaceflight just looks anachronistic to me -- something out of the 19th century age of gentlemen explorers. As far as science is concerned, robots in space are far more useful than people. They just make less exciting TV.
WHAT RESEARCH!!!!
... ooops, did that and it was a waste of time too.
If you do research, you need control subjects. How would you perform a controlled research experiment on the effects of Mars. That would be like sending some seventy something year old guy up on a single shuttle mision and
Beyond this, exactly what would the benefit of people on Mars be to civilization???? Every time space missions our brought up, advocates are very quick to point to the few scurrilous benefits to "society". What they rarely point out is that they really don't care about any benefits to society. They just think space travel is cool and want to do it.
I might as rob someone of gold and claim that I saved them orthopedic problems because they no longer have to carry it.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
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.
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.
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?
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 can't believe you are even making this argument. One good (or even decent) geologist on Mars could learn more than 10000 rovers could.
For starters, consider where we even land rovers. There is only a narrow band where they can even go because we have to keep them at low elevations, and on top of that we can't put them in any kind of terrain too difficult to navigate. By contrast, a human could go 1000x farther and faster than a rover (because they could drive a rover with actual human skills at driving, not a hazcam worse than a 90 year old grandmother in Florida) and then wander on down a ravine if they feel like and not shy away from a hillside because a camera yields uncertain data about soil composition. A human can literally just poke a stick at the hill and figure out if it can be climbed - and probably get upright again if he/she falls.
But let's get away from being able to see 90% of Mars that rovers cannot or will not see. Let's just fall back on sheer analytic ability. A geologists can look at a whole skyline, see something a bit funny, and wander over to check it out. A camera sends back images which them people scratch heads over for a few days and decide perhaps instead to spend a while looking at *one* rock, not even seeing the rock to the left because it was obscured or whatever. I'm saying a human could do what they do best, use intuition, to bring forward a million more interesting observations than a rover had.
Finally of course there is a selfish desire - to see what art could come from mars. I myself really love photography, and cannot think of anything more exciting than photographing a planet we have hardly seen!
So despite the huge advantage in data to be returned, the incredibly wider range of exploration, and the artistic merit I guess there's no reason at all to send one of us to Mars.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley