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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 first set of explorers are to seed the planet with their corpses so that the next wave will have something to eat.
Well, they certainly aren't going to decompose.
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Just because there is no provision for returning to the Earth doesn't mean we cannot send as much help for survival as we can. Equipment and supplies to build structures, process waste water and grow food, generate power (nuclear, fusion, etc). Plus, if they could survive for a year or two, unmanned resupply missions could be sent out at regular periods until self-sustainability of the population on mars is established.
Really people, if you want to have a human colony on mars, these are the kinds of tough choices that MUST be made. If they asked, I'd go in an instant.
Its easier and safer to resupply them for life than to try to bring them back. But I wonder what would happen when they get very old.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I don't see why we don't shoot a couple of modules to Mars right now...
1 that makes propellant from Martian atmosphere
1 habitat module with some plants inside, some cameras, and an airlock.
If we get good at landing the modules closely enough together, we could send a robot tractor to try and drag the first two together, and if that works send a power plant that could use the fuel from the first one.
Not one person needs to be sent, and we could check if we're capable of putting down the basics of a Martian base for future use. We'd learn if we can really generate the fuel we think we could, if we can keep a habitat module in good shape for a few years at a time, etc. The power plant could just burn off the fuel just to show it works... or we could send some more power-hungry rovers and have them return to the power plant for refueling once in a while.
After learning what we can, you repeat with the next generation of modules, and eventually you have a ready-made camp waiting for the first human arrivals...
Are you a professional pessimist or do you just play one on /.?
Who knows what profitable product there might be on mars? Nobody knew what profitable products existed in the New World until they came here. Are you really going to claim that in the entire solar system there isn't one single resource that could be profitably exploited by mankind?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
One big problem with that is that after a couple of years in zero G and 1/3 G the crew may not be able to move around on Earth without medical help. Aerobraking on return to Earth would expose them to 10G of acceleration and that could even be immediately fatal.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
We could land on Mercury, I guess, but it's pretty far and quite hot.
I read somewhere once upon a time that it takes more fuel to get to Mercury than it does to leave the solar system entirely. You gain too much speed falling into the gravity well of the sun and Mercury has no atmosphere to help you slow down.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
From wikipedia... StarCraft has even been taken into space, as Daniel Barry took a copy of the game with him on the Space Shuttle mission STS-96 in 1999.
Already happened.
One big problem with that is that after a couple of years in zero G and 1/3 G the crew may not be able to move around on Earth without medical help.
One non-problem, actually. A few quotes from WP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars:
ESA plans: Another proposal for a joint mission with ESA is based on two spacecraft being sent to Mars, one carrying a six-person crew and the other the expedition's supplies. The mission would take about 440 days to complete with three astronauts visiting the surface of the planet for a period of two months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records
Longest human single flight
Valeri Polyakov, launched 8 January 1994 (Soyuz TM-18), stayed at Mir LD-4 for 437.7 days
Sure he was only going round and round and round Earth, but he was just as weightless as you'd be on the trip to Mars. So we already have had people in space for that long, and they didn't have two months at 1/3rd G in the middle to break up the zero-G stretch.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Been there done that.
We haven't, though. We've landed there. We've brought a few rocks home. We've had some catastrophes and near-catastrophes. But no one has actually lived there.
It seems like it'd make more sense to colonize the moon - perhaps to the extent that we can launch from there, where we don't have to fight gravity nearly as much - before taking on another planet. We'd get a bunch of data on living (and coping with living) in near-zero G, they'd have a chance to work out any kinks in their theories on survival in a hostile climate, and still not be 9 months from home. It'd be a great way to prepare for the rest of the planets, I should think. I mean, if we can make a rock with no atmosphere habitable, that'd be a big freaking breakthrough.
I don't work for NASA, however; nor have I memorized every mission they've publicized. So maybe I'm missing something. If that's the case, by all means, enlighten me.
Also, about the muscles degenerating in a (far) lower gravity situation, as long as it's not zero G, couldn't they wear weights (i.e., like weighted vests, pants, whatever) to offset the lower gravity? We do that now, on Earth, for resistance training. It would seem like they would just need to add more weight - again, so long as it's not zero gravity.
The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
You know what I say? Screw safety.
America, in part I believe due to the sobbing heads on television anytime anything bad happens, has become so risk-adverse as to make it impossible to consider doing anything risky.
When the Apollo program was in full swing, monkey bars of rusty steel stood on fields of asphalt.
Cars had lap belts but nobody used them. Babies rode on their parent's lap, bigger children rode on the parcel shelf, and nobody wore a helmet on a bicycle or knee pads while skating.
Life was risky, and people understood that and made decisions and the country was run by adults.
We need to grow up again and understand that cost benefit analysis can include human lives, and that making that calculation doesn't make you evil.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Massive quantities of supplies (and the equipment to build hydroponic or other renewable food supplies) from numerous care-packages sent from Earth.
I see no problem with the idea of sending several tons of stuff every month over the course of 10 years in cheap (slow) trajectories before sending a team to Mars. When they got there they'd have quite a bit of material to be able to use to build shelters & set up hydroponic farms, & basically have a spartan but survivable place. Even if hydroponics or other farming methods weren't possible, they could survive on tons of freeze-dried rations sent by dumb couriers.
Water is a problem, but again - tons of water sent (or, eventually, if it turns out to be feasible, scavenged from the planet itself) ahead of time. It could also double as a radiation barrier with some clever design. And water will need to be brought along anyway with the colonists - LOTS of water - to act as a radiation shield for the ship.
Though, to be honest, the real problem here is that we just won't try to develop real propulsion systems for use in space - Orion (not the new Orion, but the one from the 60's using nukes for propulsion) would be fantastic out in space...
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
And 100x more efficient to grow hemp seed. Soy is not a complete protein, it contains only the proteins needed for the body to synthesize the rest. Aside from meat, hemp is the only complete protein. Soy also has to be prepared specially in order to unlock the protein, hemp seed does not.
Hemp seed is actually one of the few food stuffs that you can live off without having to eat anything else (aside from meat of course). Not that you would want but at least it tastes better than soy.
Nutritionists recently rediscovered hemp seed as a super food. The bird seed industry knew it a long time ago. Back when certain industries slipped in legislation to outlaw hemp (almost entirely unopposed since nobody at the time knew that marijuana was the same stuff growing in their fields) the birdseed industry caught on and convinced congress to make an exception for them by claiming songbirds wouldn't sing without hemp seed in the mix. That is where a lot of the pot seed in the 60's and 70's came from.
But as humans, we'd be better off funneling the money into space. Problem is, we'd rather fight.
Or rather you mean we'd rather live instead of being the target of whoever thinks their life would be better if they had someone else's stuff. The self hatred is strong within you. Is it just my impression or do people actually think that animals never fight each-other?
How do you kill that which has no life?
Aerobraking on return to Earth would expose them to 10G of acceleration and that could even be immediately fatal.
by the time they get back they surely could take the space elevator down, right? right.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
The "cost" for returning the astronauts back into orbit from a Mars landing is often quoted as the limiting factor in going to Mars. The return trip from the moon landings was practical because of the low gravity of the moon relative to Earth (or Mars). This made it easy to carry enough fuel to enable a rocket boosted departure from the moon.
The mass of Mars is much greater than the moon and therefor the amount of fuel required to launch astronauts back into Martian orbit is prohibitive. But this thinking is inside the box; using the same method as we did for the moon as though it were the only possibility.
But once you can build an orbital elevator... You just need to build a second. Send the second up into orbit using the first and then place it on a trajectory into Marian geosynchronous orbit. Now the cost is negligible to return to Martian orbit.
The Orbital Elevator is essential to the evolution of space science. Yet we do practically nothing to develop it even though we have already discovered all the basic technologies that will be required. They just need significant refinement.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
- "What was the overall success rate for getting a mission to mars? 50%? It'd suck to wait a year for a supply launch to be readied and launched, just to miss, and continue to drift off into space. There are other errors too. They could miss the landing zone by 1,000 miles."-
Of course you are right, it could burn up. But having people there waiting might actually increase the likelihood of a supply ship successfully landing. The colonists could set up a homing beacon that the supply ship might lock on to, eliminating many navigation problems over the long journey.
I think it's funny that this is a serious for a Mars mission but the "Mars Direct" guy was labeled as an extreme kook. Mars direct planned to launch a return vehicle and fuel processing station (unmanned) to refine fuel from the Hydrogen in the Mars atmosphere. This way, the first astronauts would not even leave Earth until the return ship were safely there and fully fueled.
Combining the two ideas, the ready fueled return vehicle could itself be the homing beacon that the manned ship locks onto.