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Will Mars be a One-way Trip?
alexj33 writes "Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task is huge. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite possible, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person."
... shouldn't you at least PLAN on a round-trip ticket, assuming all the obstacles can be overcome, even if it's a long shot?
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The human will be redundant in and of himself. He's symbolic, not operational!
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Bullshit. If the mars mission is actually doing useful work, then having people physically there will make the work much more efficient. Humans on mars can make decisions in real time. The latency of radio signals makes trying to do anything significant remotely really obnoxious.
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See, instead of everyone looking at their navel, people will start raising their head and will start looking at the stars. Instead of having most people working for their own goals, people will start to share a dream. Instead of fighting each other, people will start to work as a team.
I'm currently working in the field of psychology and even though I'm not high on the ladder, the calls I receive are about couples breaking up and people complaining of surviving instead of living. A lot of people are living without knowing what to do with their life and this is the kind of goal that might bring people together and give them something to do with their life even if in the grand scheme of things it is useless.
Also, about the benefits, you can't go wrong with studying how to negate the effects of loneliness which apparently affects tons of people that live in cities. Also you get to fight back bone problems that are not that different from the problems aging people have. Of course, you also get the technologies for space travel but you don't care for that that much.
So is it worth it ? I say sure, why not?
Biosphere 2 was an experiment to simulate earth's natural environment and be self-sustainable.
The colony on Mars, on the other hand, needs only to be self-sustainable. This means that they can skip all the "pollinate with bees" crap and concentrate on producing O2 and food via artificial means.
As for moon base, given the nature of the moon- ie radiation, micro meteor, lack of atmosphere, etc. I would say that while a moon base is easier to do in the short run, a Mars base has a much better chance of being sustainable.
As for contamination- don't be silly, of course we have contaminated Mars. The question is, in what ways?
Then it would be a one-way trip for two (or more) wouldn't it?
see also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062827/
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
It'd be just like the Mayflower... Only without the natives and smallpox...
Yeah, only problem is, without help from the natives, everyone on the Mayflower would have died within a few years.
I'll make my own interplanetary mission...with hookers, and blackjack.
1. Parent is dead on; wish I had mod points.
Mars could already be a shorter trip (each way) - that we know MUCH more about, and have more ability to deploy resources for - than Magellan's was, just as an example.
But, I have two opposing points:
2. Think of the robots. Basically, we have robots now, which simply are better for this kind of exploring. So we don't need a human there to EXPLORE Mars (or the moon.) Obviously the current rovers are massively, massively cheaper than a manned mission... and I think we could get more done with hundreds of rovers than some dude. a) For any given cost, the robots will probably do the exploring better. In other words, I think we should send a person to Mars when it's economically profitable to send a _person_ there compared to the robots. We just don't NEED some guy to go there anymore.
b) I think the cost involved in a human mission would be tremendous if the gain is largely symbolic. You don't go there just to touch it, you go there to find out a lot more about all sorts of things you didn't know.
c) So the other reason to go there is to _colonize_ to really expand the scope of human life to a new place.
c) in my opinion involves either: i) generate resources FROM Mars instead of spending a ton to be there or to ii) have a sufficient breeding population of humanity off earth that we'll survive a colossal extinction event. I believe i) will come before ii) AND I think i) is more likely to be done by remote control, too... or at least most of it. So wait for a NEED for a person - which personally I feel like will be a long time coming; the robots will get better faster than our ability to cheaply get a person there So maybe the first person will be a paying tourist.
3. While I think Mars is close enough to be within reach, there are things we've skipped. I think all of the above applies to the moon, but I think it's so significantly cheaper to send stuff to the moon than to Mars. We're just finally going to put a telescope on the moon... For that matter, I think we should have orbiting solar power pretty soon.
We only have like 3 people living outside our atmosphere. I think that's shameful in some ways... but there's no reason we need to "touch" Mars with a real person before we have commercial occupation of something closer / cheaper* - the technology we need for that to be sustainable - longer term, more sustainable, cheaper inhabiting of harsh environments - is something we can demonstrate much closer.
*unless it turns out a person on Mars would help us mine something ridiculously expensive, or something. But a cluster of robots could have a higher chance of finding that for less money.
I'd certainly accept that having the nice thin unbreathable atmosphere there might involve some cost savings in radiation damage/shielding, pressurization, etc. But that's only a justification if those costs are going to outweigh the much-higher lift costs and the much-lower chance of a bail-out.
The good news is we're getting there - commercial boost to space is becoming practical, commercial space tourism is growing, and that means soonish a space hotel could be a reality - and as costs drop, hopefully attendance will increase. And by all means explore Mars extensively before we're ready to go there... just don't waste a ton of money on symbolism; spend that money wisely.
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I don't think analogies apply here, this is nothing like Lindburg, this is so far beyond that.
Even without resupply and a likely limited lifespan (say two years) I would do it.
Face it, most of us will lead mundane 9 to 5 insignificant lives and will likely die a forgotten death lingering in a hospital bed. Why wouldn't you trade that for a chance to blaze a completely new trail for humanity, to truly go, where no one has gone before.
I am sure there are a lot of scientist who trade the rest of their life for 2 years studying Mars in person.
Besides that, he is talking about sending company, resupply etc.
On top of that, this would be a volunteer mission. I don't quite get the nervous nellies who have a problem with someone else making this choice. It might not be for them, but they should at least be able to realize that for some this is an inspirational idea.
I just can't believe the amount hand wringing over this.
Though I think it is immediately clear that this will never be done because of the tender sensibilities of the public. If even the slashdot crowd are getting bent out of shape, the general public would frothing at the mouth.
We seem to be becoming a world of spineless weepy nannies.
I think Kennedy said it best, so I'll let his words speak for me:
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard... we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun... and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold." http://www.quotesandsayings.com/sjfk.htmUnless I'm misreading those words, sending a man to the moon in the sixties wasn't easy either, but we still managed to do it and bring everyone back safely. Sending a man or woman on a one-way mission to Mars in this century strikes me as a failure compared to Project Apollo's goals. I can't imagine any politician seriously supporting the plan. The mere idea of televising the journey seems barbaric to me. A one-way trip to Mars is clearly a death sentence to any astronaut willing to make the trip -- televising it feels like a particularly horrid version of reality TV, with a murder/suicide as the gruesome series finale. If that's our bold plan for the conquest of space in 2008, I'd feel better if we just stayed on Earth.
The wars you're talking about are not like the wars back then. Let's face it: most don't care about wars like the ones in Rwanda where American or at least Western soldiers are not killed. There a genocide is seen as terrible, but only until Paris Hilton decides to expose her genitals on the very same news show. Those wars are being talked about by the 'intellectuals', but not by everyone.
The other kind of wars, like the recent ones in Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo, where Western soldiers could die are where the public interest would actually last longer than one news show. That's because this kind of war is also fought for entirely different motives than those before: it's not about crushing your opponent, it's not about gaining territory. Sometimes nobody really knows what it's all about (like the last Iraq war). And that's where people at home actually care for the soldiers over there - and not for any other soldiers, but for their own. How many Iraqi soldiers left their life during the invasion? Do you know? Do you care? IIRC it was about a thousand more than lost their lives on September 11th 2001 in the Twin Towers. But somehow - even here in Europe - it seems that the only body count that's getting mentioned on mainstream news is the American one (I may be a bit wrong on that since I generally don't follow mainstream media...)
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The problem is the ethics of sending the volunteer. Too much of the public would find something inherently 'wrong' with sending a person on a known, one-way mission with no chance of coming back, and that lack of support would pretty much doom the effort.
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