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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?
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
So every system except the human will be doubly or triply redundant? What's wrong with this picture?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I don't like it, and not for the reasons you'd think.
Living alone:
- Biosphere 2 was huge, and *on earth.* It failed. The guy would need a *lot* of support from earth. If it doesn't come during the launch window, fatal results. Come to think of it, almost every adverse scenario results in certain death.
- We have not even done this on the moon yet. Shouldn't this be tried first? Almost all of the mars mission proposals I've seen require a moon base.
Waste: Lots of it. This guy is not going to live in a self-sufficient environment (Biosphere argument) and thus will leave a lot of mars-debris all around. I guess this is minor and some would argue inevitable, but he is going to colonize the whole planet with his own waste products of all sorts.
A thought question: Will a mars mission not irreversibly contaminate Mars? I have often thought about the moon - it used to be sterile, but now there is human / earth bacteria everywhere around the landing sites. NASA does not sterilize probes it sends. What's that? Bacteria can't survive? Actually, they probably can - many species are capable of withstanding cosmic rays and zero atmosphere, etc.
Cue the "I nominate Mitch Bainwol" comments...
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Shouldn't we send at least two? Or better yet four in total at least? Men and women preferably? Seriously, if it's a one way trip people are going to go nuts without sex, and if it's one way... well at least start colonizing!
Tibbon
tibbon.com
you go to mars. Oddly enough it sounds like a decent idea if you're an uber-smart hermit. I'm still for the colonization idea though cause this almost makes me feel like the ones that go will either kill themselves or develop an elitist attitude towards Earth saying "I left it. Why should I care what happens".
To berate NASA for not wanting to send a multi million (billion?) dollar mission to mars with a pilot that is, after all, suicidal is just asinine.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
I can think of at least two guys I'd like to volunteer for this duty. They'd be perfect, and they'll be available as early as January 21, 2009.
I say Mars is an ideal Junket for Congressmen. They love to travel I say give them the trip of their lifetimes. They spend so much money here it's gotta be cheaper just to send them to Mars where they can do some good and a lot less harm.
Just what we want: A jizz covered ambassador to Mars.
And that man should be genetically engineered to live on Mars all by himself! And have a backpack computer that talks to another computer in Mars orbit!
Hmmmn, where have I heard that before...
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I can't see this getting off the ground, because there is no way any administrator or supporter with political backing could say "Yes we are going to send a man to Mars, but we'll leave him there". Even if the plan goes on to include autonomously dropping facilities to build himself a way off the planet, it won't matter, because the media and public reaction won't get past the abandonment part.
No man left behind!
By the time a human trip is possible we will have much more capable robots, and they're less likely to get ill during the flight there. It would be an amazing experience for that one person if they did make it though.
Could we send someone depressed or with little will to live? Suicidal people can become very distraught if they are suddenly faced with terminal cancer. It could be disasterous if weeks into the trip they realize that they want to live after all. We would have to send someone stable and yet willing to face inevitable death. How many of you would sign up for a one way trip and not have buyer's remorse?
The absolutely best book out there IMHO, is "Voyage" by Stephen Baxter. It hypothesizes a "what if" the US used Apollo as an enabling technology to get to Mars in the 1980's. Not too far fetched considering the next generation of space vehicles are going to be very apollo-like in appearance and use.
Get your ass to Mars.
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?
such an event would unify the world as never before
Sure, as long as you're talking about Mars, and that's just because there'd only be one guy there. Back here on Earth, everyone would go on fucking and fighting the way they always have, though a few might pause to watch some of the news coverage.
Unifying this world would take an alien invasion, and that would last just long enough for us to start losing badly against their superior technology, after which there would be an awe-inspiring race to stab each other in the back to curry favor with our new alien overlords. Face it, there's only so much you can do with a bunch of aggressive, paranoid primates no matter how smart they are.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Personally, I'd be honored for the chance to be the first person on Mars, even if it meant I'd only be there for a short while, and then die. I mean, as it now is, I really don't do much. I go to work, I go home. Eventually I'll die, and a few days after that, I'll be pretty much forgotten. It'll be like I was never here. But if I went to Mars, even if I died, well then at least what I did and where I ended up would be remembered, and that's as close to immortality as a human can get. I mean, some day I have to die. Why not die for some purpose?
Why should it be just one person? I can think of hundreds, nay, thousands of people who I think would be worthy of being sent to Mars, never to return!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Charles Lindbergh is supposed be the inspiration for this, but the guy knows jack about him. Lindbergh didn't set out to do a risky stunt. He was contending for the Orteig prize for the first aircraft to fly New York/Paris (either way) non-stop. Several previous attempts had ended tragically, and Lindbergh was convinced they failed because previous designers had not paid enough attention to various safety margins, especially those relating to weight and fuel. Thus he designed a plane that put fuel tanks in every conceivable space (including the place where any other aircraft would have had a windshield!) and did everything he could think of to minimize weight.
That's why he flew alone: it's not that hard to stay awake for 36 hours, and so he saw a co-pilot as unnecessary extra weight.
Ironically, he got lucky and didn't drift off course as much as he assumed he would, arriving at Paris with enough leftover fuel to continue to Rome. But he designed his plane on the assumption that he would not be lucky. He was a safety-first guy, that's why he succeeded where others failed. It ridiculous to associate him with this insane proposal.
"He came in peace."
(fyi: link
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Kim Stanley Robinson suggested something like this in Red Mars. First bunch of people sent are highly motivated types who know they have no way to return. They are on their own, having only the supplies and equipment dropped ahead of time, and have to rely on their own abilities to survive.
- Nukes is about our best bet. Sadly, ppl fight that. But the Japaneses system that is designed to support 10-100 MW would be ideal (20 MW, for 30+ years).
- Solar being beamed. A simple power sat above that beams down the energy. Probably not a bad way to disribute power around the planet, but I would not want to depend on it.
- Geo-thermal. There is some very good indication that there is heat close to the surface in several areas. That could change everything. Provide clean power and heat. I would still prefer the above as well.
Once we have energy there, it is easy to have robots build. Even a remote control arm can work at burying several Bigelow systems. Once buried AND a garden is started for food, then we are good to go. There is no doubt that many ppl would volunteer. I know that If I were younger, I would.BTW, one weird idea would be to send a bunch of women and have them serve as incubators. In particular, if we send several missions of women AND zygotes, then we can grow a colony there. It may be a lot cheap approach to guarantee bio-diversity. In fact, I would think that once we have several small groups there, that we should send not just human zygotes, but also seeds and a number of animal zygotes. it would be useful for just in case.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Why are we so fascinated by the idea of someone physically being somewhere?
But I'd volunteer if the one-way mission is a reality. I don't find it necessary to live among other humans in close distance. And once on Mars, I won't do shit. What, are they gonna fire me?
Houston to Mars mission. Do you read, over?
BILLY MAYS HERE!!!
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
I wasn't going to get involved in this but ... the upside is that your name would be etched into the annuls of history possibly to an even greater extent than Neil Armstrong's. On that note, even though it would contaminate the planet, I think the objective should be survival, even if there's no return trip planned. Landing, walking around, radioing back a few one liners, and downing a couple of cyanide pills doesn't do a whole lot for science. Who knows, with solar panels, a distiller, some farming equipment, plantings/seeds, and inflatable greenhouses, the first "Martian" may last a few years on an admittedly boring vegan diet. The trick would be finding extractable water and containing it. Even then, "restocking" drops could be sent every other year. Combating boredom would be another toughie ... is that Earth-Mars internet pipe up yet? :)
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Werner von Braun's plan for going to Mars was published in the 1950s. It's worth reviewing it.
Ah, the good old days of industrial production. If China does a Mars program, it might look like that.
Because sending a corpse to Mars would be a huge waste of payload on an un-manned mission. Outside of science fiction, we can't freeze people and revive them.
>>NASA does not sterilize probes it sends.
> Yes, they do.
No, they don't. Please read up on what "sterilize" means and stop spreading misinformation.
Oh, heck, you probably would have done it by now if you were going to.
Sterilize = kill ALL bacteria. You can put something that has been sterilized in your bloodstream and not get direct infection or exposure to bacteria.
Sanitize = kill bacterial to a certain threshold or standard, or kill harmful bacteria. You can lick something that has been sanitized and probably not get sick. However, if you cultured that hospital toilet seat, you can be sure you'd get bacteria.
Bioload reduction = "We're pretty much sure that it is not covered in stool or loads of harmful bacteria, but beyond that can't say."
It is almost impossible to build something the size of Mars rovers and have it be STERILE. Anything exposed to general atmosphere for over 20 seconds or so is no longer sterile. Even in the O.R. (which has special filters and a non-recirculating atmosphere) things exposed to the air for prolonged period are considered unsterile. If any of you guys worked in a bio lab, open up a can of L.B. broth, and walk away. After 20 minutes, recap it. What happens?
I really appreciate whoever sent me the planetary protection link, and it confirmed what I thought. We are *very* concerned about bringing foreign / alien bacteria here, but it is just about impossible to keep us from spreading our own throughout the universe.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Sending one person on a one-way trip to Mars isn't exploration, it's a publicity stunt.
And a morbid one at that.
so lesse: we get to follow the preparations on earth, the endless documentaries about this heroic figure venturing into space never to return, months of enroute radio commentary from said hero, ...and his last words immortalized for decades on T-Shirts the world over...
the endless sad goodbyes of friends and family...transmissions of our hero's last gasps as the oxygen runs out...the melancholy music tracks that will be played when they announce his death...
Why does he need to stay alive once he gets there? Can't he just walk around Mars and record what he sees and send it back to earth until he runs out of supplies and dies? I mean I would probably go to Mars and look around a place no one has ever been to if it meant I would be remembered as "that guy who went to Mars and just walked around until he died," and I'm only slightly insane. I bet you could find someone crazy enough to do it and still smart enough to keep the spaceship running.
Spacex is building a craft that by 2011 will launch the same amount as the shuttle. But he is working on his BFR, which is expected after that, though the time frame is not known. Less than saturn, more than the largest today. Several launches of that, and build up a bigelow system. That system is capable of carrying 4-6 ppl to mars. Once there, they descend to mars in a seperate capsule while the bigelow system comes down seperately. In the next launch window, Goods are sent. Preferably via several bigelow systems. There should be a safety factor on this, that before anybody is sent to mars, that there is already goods for at least 1 window AND they are sent with supplies for a window. The idea being that everybody has at least 2 windows worth of supplies, but separated out (not all at one time or put together).
But Yeah, we need to get back our industrial production.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
(I assume that you are typing about medicine; if you are typing about sex, have you not heard of celibacy?
Most people on this forum are, uh, "intimately" familiar with that term.)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
You all are looking at this in completely the wrong way. The cost of getting stuff up into space doesn't have to be significant. We can send tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of crap up there relatively inexpensively, and the vehicle to do it would be reusable and have a significant lifetime. Just build an Orion spaceship. Piece of cake. We can send thousands of people up, tonnes of supplies.. heck we could launch an entire colony in one shot, and not really have to worry much about carefully conserving every gram of fuel.
What's an Orion?
Glad you asked: Orion Spacecraft Rule
Nuclear pulse propulsion behind giant push-plates on springs, man! With a payload measured by the tonne rather than the kilo!
No, seriously. I now have 2 children, and could not volunteer. But prior to that, I would done it quickly. In fact, on /., I have pushed for 1 way missions to mars for a long time, and before 4 years ago, I suggested that I would volunteer.
This will not be a suicide mission. The ppl that go first, will be thought of like Leif Erickson, or Christopher Columbus (ignoring all the down sides on him). Even if my life were cut down to another 10 years, it makes the life worth living. I am amazed at the complete lack of balls on these postings. Our society has become WAY too soft. We no longer seem to put pride on our accomplishment, only on what we accumulate. That is a real sad state of affairs for the west and shows me a lot about us.
I am truly glad that you have the balls and the foresight to see this for what it is; a chance to change the future. Hell, you would do more for earth than bill gates has.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Our glorious ancestors went on one-way trips when the alternative was certain death or hopeless oppression. I will concede that was 'a matter of course' in our past, it is not our current reality. More contemporary explorers (Columbus, Lewis & Clark, Amundson, Armstrong, etc.) had every expectation of returning and have taken every possible precaution. Did they accept the fact that they might not return? Yes. But never did they have this suicidal death wish you seem to think is some kind of virtue.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
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.
Think of the possibilities!
For immunity contests you could have:
A Mt. Olympus climb,
Resource prospecting activities,
Water ice collection trips,
Locking down solar panels, antennas, and other breakables before dust storms,
Environment leak repair due to a puncture from a sandstorm.
The winner gets *$10 million*!
If there are hidden hostile intelligent martians, then you just keep the contestants around for a second season called "Lost: Mars"
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
You almost have to question whether someone who would be willing to go on what's basicly a suicide mission is mentally stable enough to actually complete the mission.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
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.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
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.
...then put all the hair dressers and telephone cleaners in it...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You are welcome on my lawn.
See, that's the great thing about space. In space, there's no gravity. So if we have a dude on Mars, he can throw samples back to Earth. It doesn't matter how much they weigh, or how far away the Earth is -- without gravity, such things don't matter. Much cheaper than building a robot to do that -- additionally, a human will be less likely to get his wheels stuck in the mud when crossing slightly uneven terrain. Also, there's the matter of what kind of samples he throws -- a robot would just pick up rocks willy-nilly and throw them back to Earth. A human could look for pretty ones to throw.
Actually several slashdotters have already volunteered. And let this make one more. I would be willing to train for such a mission. Do the best I could. And then die. Do you have any idea how many human beings on this planet kill themselves each year, and for no purpose whatsoever? NASA would get thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of applicants for a one way suicide mission if they asked for volunteers. They could still give the suicidal volunteer the proper training, and select only physically fit candidates who are judged emotionally/mentally 'stable' despite being willing to die for a great cause. This isn't really so different from getting teenagers with their whole life ahead of them to sign up for fighting in a war where they will have to kill and maybe die. The only difference here is that death may be 100% certain within a certain time frame due to limitations of our current life support tech. I do agree with some others however that this is pure fantasy land. It's a moot point. The American public does not have the stomach for it. The only chance might be for a pedophile. The hatred for pedophiles is universal. Or if you really want to get nearly unanimous support choose a child rapist and pedophile. But one who is physically fit and highly intelligent and deeply believes in the mission.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Parent's link is to "Countdown," an interesting James Caan movie which was based on a novel, "The Pilgrim Project." Imagine the Apollo project fell so far behind the Russians that the US decided to roll all the dice. The Pilgrim Project would have sent up an unmanned "chuckwagon" with a year's worth of food and air, and used a refitted Mercury capsule to land ONE man on the moon... stranding him there until Apollo could come pick him up.
Y'know, that sort of "stunt" approach doesn't seem all that far removed from what we actually got. I get depressed every time I think about where we could have been by now... and we're still eating our seed corn.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Listening to lectures from and having discussions with Dyson Freeman, I am more and more convinced that sending probes is the only really useful and financially responsible thing to do for the forseeable future. What is the point of actually sending someone who is going to perish? Yes, it is the fodder of my beloved sci-fi, but let's get the best bang for the buck and wait for FTL, eh?
"Nothing that you will ever do in your life could ever equal being the first human to walk on another planet." I could feed someone who's hungry. Or maybe just smile at someone. You're right, they don't equal being the first to walk on another planet... they're much better. The second doesn't even cost any money, let alone billions of dollars. Courage and vision are not the qualities of the man who launches himself into a suicide rocket to Mars, they are the qualities of men and women who do simple, good things on a daily basis. People who try to contribute positively to the world around them, and work to be better people every day. These kinds of people are very, very rare. In my opinion, we need do a seriously reappraisal of our ideals. I don't think the drive for conquest is a natural thing as some believe. I think it's simply a quality that man is capable of, that our culture, and cultures before us have worshipped. I understand the desire to GO there. I, like any other person, would love to stand on Mars and look up at the red, or possibly blue, sky, and think, I am standing on Mars! But for god's sake, let's do it when we are ready!! What's the rush? Being on Mars isn't going to solve any of the millions of problems that exist in our world today - not only simple things like hunger, disease, and war, but much trickier problems, like, how do we overcome the shortcomings of our own humanity? Take a glance at the psychological research cited by some of the commentary on the article, for instance.
Do what any good geek would do: Make an AI.
I mean, I guess Phobos has the "fear" covered...
That's because corporates have bought over america completely and now think of next-quarter results rather than strategic thought.
Next, NASA would be privatized and disbanded to fund social security. Americans by and large don't want progress. Wrong. Americans want progress. Corporates dont. Changes involves uncertainity, risks, etc., which bean-counters do not like. So companies stifle change and make sure innovation comes at a slower pace.
Why do you think it took Apple to bring in Visual VoiceMail?
Why can't i have a video call facility from my LG Viewty (my carrier does not)?
If we could put a man on the moon, it was because of government initiative. Not because some corporate thought so.
The past 8 years, corporate fungii has overgrown most government by atleast 75%.
Bush and Cheney surely made sure corporates are in a position to sell US to highest bidder.
Next we would see Statue of Liberty sold to France as a Derivative, while the Alaskan oil sands are already sold to BP and Exxon.
I can see China placing a man on Mars before US does.
And even after such a humiliation our corporates would rather start a profitable war with Chavez rather than respond to China.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The problem is, how do you find and train an individual that will die on schedule?
Take a page out of the McDonald's business plan, and design your technology so that there is a bare minimum of training necessary. The First Martian will have 200 days to study up once they are in the sky. It gives them something to do while they wait, and the more they study the longer they will likely live when they get there. Hella motivation, and an opportunity for someone to truly maximize the last days of their life. But cancer or not, I'm sure there will be volunteers.
We are all just people.
Most people on Slashdot are about as likely to live in celibacy as anyone else of similar age. The joke stopped being funny aproximately 5 years ago, did you notice the trend in participation in discussions about stuff like "protecting your children online", "internet in primary schools", "ideal laptops for kids" and so on ?
If you didn't, well, that's your loss.
Actually, a fair part of the population on Slashdot these days live in stable relationships and have kids. Me, i've got 3, but I think that's somewhat over-average.
You must be new here.
rewriting history since 2109
Psh, sex is overrated. We're nerds right? So long as he doesn't mind internet pages taking 10 minutes to load he's set, am I right? ;)
Weaksauce as they say...
Nah what we should have is a reality TV show, with nominees being taken from preliminary rounds and then in the finals viewers vote to "vote them off the planet".
;).
If voters vote for a very disliked person, "such an event would unify the world as never before".
It's a bit like Survivor
I suggested this a few years ago, around that time my country (Malaysia) had a stupid astronaut program - which is basically we pay for some silly chap to transfer public money to Russia (and probably some local crony pockets). I proposed that instead we should be allowed to vote a few politicians for one way trip to space. Even if they decline the trip, it would be worth it.
Actually, a fair part of the population on Slashdot these days live in stable relationships and have kids. Me, i've got 3, but I think that's somewhat over-average.
I think it's safe to say that three relationships is a bit above average.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Said the one with UID 667.959 to the one with UID 15.695 ....
There is a very real difference when it comes to risk. I remember a formula 1 racing driver from just after the war saying that it was quite acceptable to have a driver killed in every couple of races, after all they had beaten worse odds in the war and you have to die sometime. Imagine a sport with such odds of death today - nobody would allow it.
Then there are wars where "hundreds" of casualties are seen as terrible. Of course for the individuals they are, but in previous conflicts you could lose thousands in a single battle, and if you made ground it was seen as a success.
In fact, forget the interplanetary mission. And the blackjack. ...Somebody had to finish the joke.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
I'll make my own interplanetary mission...with hookers, and blackjack.
What happens on Mars, stays on Mars.
That's sort of the point with one-way missions.
/. ID's don't have to be integers anymore? When did this happen? Do the numbers have to be rational?
If they don't I call dibs on 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679...
FGD 135
"Some jokes never get old" should be "Some jokes never get old, except in Soviet Russia, where the old never get some jokes".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Hmm. Spin this right, and it'll make a billion. Something like the Truman Show: Big Space Brother. Find some charismatic, talkative convict, and it'll be TV for years.
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/. ID's don't have to be integers anymore? When did this happen? Do the numbers have to be rational? Not to ruin the joke.Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
bah, doesn't mean he's not an Ebayer, could have just bought that character, some lamer who couldn't be arsed with grinding for XP.
Probably pays a chinese kid to karma whore for him during the night too.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
If there was a human on mars right now the rovers would have had their solar collectors wiped clean and that broken wheel either repaired or removed.
What people obsessed with robotics forget is how limited a robot is compared to a human. Robots are fine when everything runs as expected, but when things fail, humans can adapt.
We are getting to obsessed with safety, I wonder were the real men are, the men who stormed normandy in a hail of machine gun fire, who build wooden rafts and colonized the world.
There are people who got what it takes, the same people that pushed the limits in other areas can do this. We as a society just need to give them the space to do it and stop forcing our own fears onto them. If there is someone willing to go and he/she isn't obviously unfit, then let them. I don't got what it takes, it isn't the no return part, it is the closed space I am sorry to say.
The mission doesn't have to be a pure suicide run after all, sending enough supplies for one man to live years on mars is only a matter of cost. Just send a long string of simple supply runs so that enough will land close by and in tact to survive.
It is a better deal then we many a person has faced in the past.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It is tempting to scale up the Apollo program when looking at Mars. However, the concept of a single multistage rocket is perhaps not the way to go.
If Mars goes around the sun in about 2 earth years, then there is an elliptical orbit that is tangential to mars and earth that will represent the minimum energy routes to Mars. The trip would take somewhere between half an earth year and half a Martian year - let's say about 8-10 months. You could get to Mars faster if you kept your foot to the floor, but that would waste a lot of fuel. So - this route is not far from the optimum route you might take even if you had ion engines, provided our two planets were in the right place.
The craft has got to be big. It has to have room enough to live in for a year or so, with backup. You could strap some enormous chemical rocket that was shipped into space. However, suppose you launched the thing without anyone inside. It can sit in space for years. It could be slowly be raised in orbit using earth-moon tidal forces with ion engine pumping, and a final slinghot. Having escaped the earth-moon system it could slowly accelerate using ion engines or solar sails to get towards Mars. It would take a quick slingshot or aerobrake around Mars and head back towards Earth. If it is in the right orbit, it could get back to Earth without any propulsion, and have enough velocity to get back to Mars' orbit again. Now it is going nice and fast, our passengeers can get on. This time, we are not accelerating the whole living environment, but just the people and their hand luggage to get them to the rendevous, and a conventional rocket might do for that.
Once we have got this far, we then have a big, habitable volume going between Earth's orbit and Mars' orbit. With a bit of fine tuning, we can probably arrange for it to pas Mars and Earth again. This means if we can generate fuel on Mars for a lifting body to get people to rendevous with the big craft, then going back is not only possible, it is almost free, particularly if you are taking a relief crew out.
Do you remember the bit in "The Right Stuff" where someone proposed and volunteered to go to the moon in the hope that they could be resupplied until a vehicle for the return journey could be built? They didn't do it then. I guess we won't do it now. It is interesting to wonder why we would go through huge expense to return one person when we have so many, and the same money would save more lives in other ways. However, we won't do it if we don't have to, and I don't think we do.
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.
paintball
Dude, what about if you went there and your internet connection BROKE? That means NO MORE INTERNET EVER!
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It'd be just like the Mayflower... Only without the natives and smallpox...
I'd rather do the Greek Colonies one way trip. Send excess population out into space to found colonies that will eventually trade with Mother Earth.
Colonies might be easier on Earth, but the principle is the same. We just have higher start up costs and planning for space.
I could easily see China doing this. The red planet might be Red.
Firefly will probably turn out right...Mandarin and English will be the spoken languages in space.
Also, I'm all for doing The Moon is a Harsh Mistress i.e. sending prisoners out into space. Prisoners are usually are risk takers. I can think of nothing more rewarding and risky than founding new colonies in the long term.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Reminds me of a friend from college with a 10.000 maniacs t-shirt. He didn't appreciate my joke telling him that "Wow, that is a VERY precise quantity of maniacs you have there..."
I laughed tho.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Something more to think about:
Skylab had nearly as much room, in terms of m^3 of usable volume, as the ISS had until very recently with only the latest module additions. It would be hard to say just where we would be right now if some rather lousy decisions weren't made at NASA in terms of spending money wisely, but in hindsight there has been considerable waste.
I'm just glad that finally some people are serious about getting back into space in a serious manner, and willing to end some of the more wasteful approaches. The problem to think about now is what to do with the ISS now that we have it.
OK, in the long run, for purposes of exploration, yes perhaps a manned mission is reasonable. But in the short to mid term, it just seems pointless. There is still PLENTY of work for robots to do on Mars. Why not spend another 20 to 50 years on unmanned missions, which will naturally become ever more capable?
In the mean time the Moon is a far better target for manned operations. It has a significantly LESS hostile environment (no atmosphere makes things a lot easier, 1/100th bar of CO2 is not doing anyone any good). The risks and costs are very much smaller, and there is a huge amount of science we can do. Not only that but much of the knowledge gained in manned operations on the Moon will be generally applicable to manned operations anywhere in the Solar System, including Mars. It may actually be CHEAPER in the long run to go back to the Moon first. Not only that but there are geopolitical reasons for establishing a presence on the Moon which may well virtually mandate going to the Moon anyway, so why not do it first?
Furthermore there are, albeit tenuous, arguments for significant economic returns from Manned operations on the Moon. There are no such arguments re Mars and never will be. All a manned Mars expedition will accomplish is burning 100's of billions of $ on a program which will generate a PR event that, judging from our experiences with Apollo, will last 6 months, then the public will get bored with it, and the program will wither. No doubt some interesting science and engineering will come out of it, but it won't be worth the cost (100 billion $ easily represents 20-50 unmanned missions). Most of the same benefits in the mid to long term will also result from Lunar operations. There will be plenty of scientific benefits and the engineering knowledge gained will be essentially the same. On the other hand the risks and costs will be MUCH lower, maybe by an order of magnitude. Naturally we'll probably actually spend similar amounts on either program, but we'll get a lot more for those bucks on the Moon.
Plus, as some NASA commentators have pointed out, the hardware required to go back to the Moon will be sufficient in general for accomplishing other valuable Manned missions, such as a near-Earth asteroid mission, or any other mission we can think of involving human spaceflight in the vicinity of Earth.
Finally there is at least one direct argument for NOT setting foot on Mars. It will complicate the search for life there. No manned mission can ever be guaranteed not to result in some biological contamination of the Martian environment. Realistically it may not be much of a problem, but ANY signs of life discovered on Mars from that point forward will have to be evaluated in order to determine whether or not they resulted from contamination, however remote the possibility. Which just complicates that whole equation considerably. So it may even be inadvisable at this time to set foot on Mars.
Forget Mars. It is a 'bridge too far' at this point. Give it 50 years. Maybe by then we'll have the type of spacecraft that are required for serious manned exploration of deep space, like say nuclear fusion powered VASIMER type rockets which can ferry back and forth multiple times with very large payloads and follow fast transfer orbits when carrying human crews. At that point the costs will be reduced vastly and it will make a lot more sense to go there. In 50 years it may be cheaper to go to Mars than it is to go to the Moon now, and in the mean time we can direct our limited funds to more sensible projects.
Mars certainly is an emotionally compelling target, but it simply isn't a logical goal for manned spaceflight at this time, and logic trumps emotion. A logically sound space program is a good space program. One based on ill advised emotional arguments is not.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
"The current American astronauts are picked for things such as their speaking ability and social skills" I'd like to see some attribution but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Many of the reasons others in this thread are giving for going are primarily social goals eg. "to be in the history books". I'd go to do the work.
Do what any good geek would do: Make an AI.
How does geek would do: make an AI make you feel?
Yeah, but Clinton can speak in sentences.
If I still had mod points today, they would be yours.
http://www.mhall119.com
I doubt anyone will be willing pay that much to hear what the current president has to say.
All his speeches are written for him and even then he has trouble with them thar multi-syllable words.
If anyone want to hear what bush had to say they would be better off hiring dick cheney.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Prisoners are risk-takers whose risks weren't well-chosen and didn't pan out so well (hence the whole "prison" thing). You really think they're the ideal population to found colonies in space?
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Err... don't take offense, but viagra is a lot cheaper.
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