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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. "
Just make sure my wife's on board.
The added bonus is that they don't have broadband at home, so they'll accept an 8 minute ping from Mars.
'Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip.'
Colonists heading to the new world were heading from a place of high resource (to live) contention to a place of low resource contention. A smart move if you wish to succeed--the resources were there for the taking. The astronauts, however, are not just heading to a place of higher resource contention they are heading to a place of no resources. None for living anyway. You might find platinum ore on Mars but you aren't going to find fur trapping, fishing and logging. This isn't little house on the prairie, this is the cold deadness of space.
You're sending them there on a one trip for one reason and one reason only: saving money. You're not sending them to a new world with more people there and more people coming and food everywhere ripe for the picking. They will eke out a miserable existence and remember earth fondly and try to be live off of what they are doing for humanity.
My work here is dung.
'Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip.' Indeed, they often did back in the old days, however, I am fairly confident that at the very least, they expected a breatheable atmosphere at their destination.
Shit happens and it's usually caused by assholes
Just make sure my wife isn't on board.
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.
Tell them that there are 72 unspoiled virgins waiting for them.
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.
spending any more tax payer money to send humans into space, to the moon or mars, is a ridiculous waste considering the catastrophic infrastructure breakdowns we are now facing in real time.
In the short term, meaning next 20 years, this money would be much better spent repairing antiquated and unsafe bridges, damns, levies and sewage systems than it would be sending anyone to the moon or mars.
Significantly more people will benefit through lives saved and catastrophes averted by wisely spending money instead of wasting it in a time when what we have to gain from space exploration by humans is very little in comparison
Let's fix the continental infrastructure!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
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...
And those going to Mars will also have a breathable atmosphere. It is just that it will be a limited confinement.
Look, just because you are afraid of the unknown, does not mean that others are. Many would willing give their life to help build an establishment for their country or just for science. When my children are adults and able to take care fo themselves, I would volunteer (though my wife is likely to nix that). Why? BECAUSE IT IS A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL. We NEED to take RISKS. Without those, you do not have the opportunity to make huge discoveries.
Personally, I am tired of those that want to conqueror others on this planet for their resources (read murder), but then get upset about out taking risks that MIGHT kill a person. The west use to be heroic and be willing to get it done. Now, we act like our individual life is all that. Give me a break.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Indeed, they often did back in the old days, however, I am fairly confident that at the very least, they expected a breatheable atmosphere at their destination.
Not true! It's a little known fact that one of the reasons the Pilgrims were dependent on the natives for food that first Thanksgiving was because they'd wasted so much space in their ship's hold on canisters of compressed O2. You don't hear about this much, because the Pilgrims were so embarrassed when they first met the American Indians and wanted to know how they could survive without oxygen masks!
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm 53, and I'd go on a one way trip to Mars in a heartbeat. Where can I sign up?
There are things in life more important than personal safety. I think too many have forgotten that.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I suspect the first person to set foot on mars will be remembered for at least a thousand years beyond anyone who is currently living.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet, by Robert Zubrin, Three Rivers Press (2008), Paperback, 224 pages, ISBN: 978-0307407184.
Once again, Zubrin delights and informs like no other. This concise, easy-reading, laugh-out-loud, little volume is packed with more solid scientific and engineering information about Mars, Mars exploration and settlement than even "The Case for Mars." Whereas the latter was informative and interesting, but fairly straight-laced, Zubrin here takes a decidedly more lighthearted approach, creating a fictional, early 22nd century guide to surviving and thriving on the new frontier.
As usual, Zubrin's strongest suit is his ability to turn his caustic wit against the foolish, timid, bureaucratic, cowardly, thoughtless paralysis which presently cripples the aerospace establishment, and indeed, Zubrin suggests, the entirety of terrestrial "civilization" (if what we have down here still merits the term.) Perhaps my favorite example is the following passage detailing water reclamation from the exhaust of a space suit's methanol/oxygen fuel-cell (used to provide electric power) in order to extend the endurance of Martians on EVA.
"The water you obtain will include a significant quantity of carbon dioxide in solution, which is why NASA has banned systems that plumb fuel-cell wastewater directly back to the suit canteen. However, despite the claimed medical problem, it is a fact that in the twentieth century, many people chose to drink carbonated water as a matter of preference."
I do not hold with those who regard Zubrin's political asides as an interruption of an otherwise interesting presentation of scientific or engineering information. Zubrin's ability to decisively skewer folly of all sorts, technical, medical, political, social, is the primary reason that he has always impressed me, and in my opinion, constitutes the single best feature of this particular book.
Zubrin's brutal and sustained critique of bureaucracy toward the end of "How to Live on Mars" is positively brilliant. If it doesn't make you yearn to give up the soul-destroying stagnation and conformity of Earth to live on a planet full of misfits, outcasts and rugged individualists, then there's just simply no trace of idealism, romance, nobility or heroism left in your black, flabby, little heart.
I'm pleased to see Zubrin take such a radical turn, or maybe simply to more openly embrace the radicalism which he has never been able to entirely prevent from seeping into his work. This one is not going to win Zubrin any friends in high places, but I suspect it will contribute to the immortality he achieves when the Martians (descended from pioneers who will make the first crossings in Mars-Direct inspired spacecraft) finally throw off their tyrannical Earthling overlords and establish a truly civilized branch of humanity for the first time in far too long.
Review by Eli J. Harman, stolen with impunity.
Shoulda put it in the previous post.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The only point of sending men to Mars is to prove the point that we can send men to Mars.
If we were only going to send men then you'd be correct. However the real, long term goal is to send women as well as men and establish a permanent colony. The reason for this is to hugely increase the survivability of our species and probably other species as well. Once we have a self-sustaining colony on Mars it becomes a lot harder for nature to wipe us out. Obviously you cannot just land a self-sustaining colony there all at once - or at least we cannot yet - so this is just the first of hopefully several steps along the path.
Just make sure choice politicians are on board.
;).
Or hold a reality show called "Voted Off The Planet!".
I'm too lazy at the moment so I'll let you all imagine/figure out the details - e.g. 1-way or return.
Lastly if the "right" people get voted off the planet that might actually save a lot more than 150 paltry billions in the long run
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.
2. We evolved to survive on an unguided mudball, third rock out from a slightly variable star; we haven't found the thermostat yet. Sooner or later, our luck will run out, one natural extinction level event and it's game over.
3. It's worth boldly going somewhere that will probably kill you, if and only if, there is a damn good reason to be bold.
4. Our current space drive technology consists of throwing stuff as hard as we can in one direction so we get a bit of usable thrust in another. It's a losing game, a pathetically inadequate method, compared to our needs and dreams.
5. Mars has a deep gravity well, with an unbreathable, and (worse) unflyable atmosphere. We have no known scientific or commercial reason to go there, or means of survival if we did.
6. Robots are expendable, cheap to make, specialized, and inexpensive to remotely control, even in space. Humans, are expendable, cheap to make, generally useful, but ridiculously expensive to operate, especially in space.
7. Robot probes in space, historically have produced vastly more science per dollar expended, than humans. We should boldly go somewhere when we intend to colonize, not to send back wish you were here postcards... 8. To colonize, there must exist usable resources, in vast and accessible quantities, easy pickings. At minimum we will need Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen (CHON), plus metals, trace elements and usable energy. There must be shielding from radiation and the other obvious space hazards. Such resources do in fact exist in limitless abundance, in open space, as the larger comets and asteroids. The orbital vectors and masses (that we know about) are currently a little inconvenient.
IMHO:
a. We (Humans) need to invest heavily in science and engineering that may lead to much better space propulsion, techniques for mining and commercial and civic use of such open space accessible resources.
b. We need to develop much better remote probe and manipulation technology, so the robots can investigate anywhere we want, and possibly alter the orbits of low mass, high value objects, as cheaply as possible.
c. We need to develop space habitats, on comets and asteroids, to exploit their resources as a long term (effectively infinite) space habitat.
d. Our most likely cause of extinction as a species is our non-existent space colonization strategy. We are led by a clueless collection of dumbass politicians who cannot see beyond Buck Rogers pointy spaceship sci-fi and (much more importantly) their own short term military and pork barrel political aims. There is no coherent, international, long term, human survival and colonization oriented strategy.
e. When some damn big rock arrives at 5 miles per second, we are all going to look equally stupid and just as extinct; fossilized human politicians will look almost identical, as the "intelligent" humans remains.
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
Food, drinking water, and oxygen will be the major limiting factors. That's assuming you can take along a habitat to mitigate the temperatures and dust storms. If the team lasts say 10 years, you'll run into other problems, like clothing and maintaining the shelter.
Presumably, there would be a mechanism for extracting a tolerable atmosphere for breathing and for growing food, and equipment for turning Martian dirt into agrochemicals. Essentially, Martian raw materials will be processed into food for plants, which will convert it into food for humans, who will convert it into shit. Only some of the shit can be recycled back into the soil (human shit is not as good for plants as horse shit is). After 10 years of dumping the surplus shit outside, you'll have made a good start on terraforming the local surroundings...
After sufficient time, Mars would be knee-deep in shit, and look just like Earth.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
- "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.