Slashdot Mirror
Sending Astronauts On a One-Way Trip To Mars
The Narrative Fallacy writes "Cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss, director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, writes in the NY Times that with the investment needed to return to the moon likely to run in excess of $150 billion and the cost of a round trip to Mars easily two to four times that, there is a way to reduce the cost and technical requirements of a manned mission to Mars: send the astronauts on a one way trip. 'While the idea of sending astronauts aloft never to return is jarring upon first hearing, the rationale for one-way trips into space has both historical and practical roots,' writes Krauss. 'Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip.' There are more immediate and pragmatic reasons to consider one-way human space exploration missions including money. 'If the fuel for the return is carried on the ship, this greatly increases the mass of the ship, which in turn requires even more fuel.' But would anyone volunteer to go on such a trip? Krauss says that informal surveys show that many scientists would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space and that we might want to restrict the voyage to older astronauts, whose longevity is limited in any case. "
The cost savings of a one-way trip are minuscule now as everyone has accepted that ISRU of propellant on Mars is an essential part of any mission plan. You don't take with you all the fuel you need to get back.. you make it there.. and most of the plans call for a fully fueled return-to-earth vehicle to be sitting ready on the surface before you send astronauts from Earth to it.
The real problem is radiation exposure. 6 months there, 500 days on the surface, 6 months back. Any astronauts you send will never fly in space again and may have trouble getting x-rays for medical problems in the future. The only known solution to this is to make the habitat module more massive.. which of course requires more fuel...
How we know is more important than what we know.
Actual US 2007 Outlays [1]:
NASA: 15.9 Billion USD
DOT: 61.7 Billion USD
DOD: 529.9 Billion USD (excluding War on Terror)
We could cut 10% of DOD's budget, and increase NASA's budget by over 400%. Or DOT's budget by 85%.
Clearly, we need to give space exploration a military spin (like we did in the 60's).
[1]: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/USbudget/fy09/browse.html
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
How the heck are those astro/cosmo/taikonauts going to find food and drinking water to subsist, let alone colonize?
I did a calculation one time about how much food we would have to stock for it to last the rest of our lives. It was entirely doable. If memory serves the cost for 20 years of food was something like $175,000 per person. Certainly within NASA's budget. You'd basically be packing enough consumables for a lifetime, which I'm guessing would be about the weight of the return fuel. Some rocket scientist here could give you a better estimate. They might be able to find ice on Mars for water, otherwise it's just another consumable. One that can be recycled to conserve.
Some kind of underground dwelling, nuclear power source. Excavating equipment to site it. Back up power source, maybe two back ups with an optional resupply in 10 years in case something bad happens. I know the Russians have small scale reactors that have been in service almost that long. Some satellites are still transmitting after 30+ years. An underground greenhouse with nuclear heat and solar power might even be able to produce plants and some spare oxygen. Martian atmosphere has plenty of CO2. If it was built right they might even have some natural light coming in through the roof.
With a resupply that consisted of manufacturing equipment, they might be able to make a go of it. Discovery of natural fibers probably isn't going to save them, but you take the good with the bad.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
While animals do taste great, meat is very inefficient in terms of how much energy goes into first growing the plants then growing the animal. It would be 10x more efficient to just grow soy beans and other high protein meat substitutes.
I thought this was interesting so just went to wikipedia's hemp page, which tells me hemp nut is around 30% protein by mass.
This information is cited in Wikipedia as sourced from http://www.wcranchohemp.com/info.php, which states the information is sourced from http://www.thehempnut.com/, which is a site that sells hemp foods. The data no longer appears to be there though, so I am not sure exactly how it was gathered. A quick Google indicates that data has been spread all over the Internet as seems to form the basis of most nutritional assumptions, so YMMV with the data. This and this have slightly different numbers that seem to agree.
Not sure if there's some sort of official authority for this sort of data that is reliable though !