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Scientists Propose One-Way Trips To Mars
vortex2.71 writes "Invoking the spirit of Star Trek in a scholarly article entitled 'To Boldly Go,' two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return. 'The main point is to get Mars exploration moving,' said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest Journal of Cosmology with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth."
At least they could breathe and had water when the colonized America.
This is blinging
try to serve someone with a lawsuit there
Well, seems like, not only cloning scientists lose their sense for moral after all.
Immediately think of the "First Hundred" from the Red Mars trilogy by Kim Robinson?
Why send two at a time when you can send what amounts to a generation ship ready to seed a whole populace?
Us geeks volunteering in droves.
Not me though. I don't want to die cold and alone millions of miles from home. Unless of course they find Prothean artifacts.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be unemployed, they could get him for recruitment ads for one-way astronauts.
"Get your ass to Mars! Then stay there and form a colony."
Overall the idea of sending pioneers seems like a good one to me, although it also seems like we have a long way to go yet in the terraforming science to make it work?
There's a bunch of people that I wouldn't mind sending one way to mars! Or the Sun.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
OK boys, I need someone to take one for the team. The world will celebrate your sacrifice long after you perish on this journey. We'll even see if David Bowie will do a new version of "Major Tom" for you.
Sign me up. I'll go.
---
You're Winner!
More time to read books than here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Three years ago I would have happily signed up for such an adventure, even if it was one-way. To be part of that, oh wow. These days, with a wife and a child, I guess I'll envy those who go, but wont be amongst them.
So I dont thinnk there be volunteers lacking, Even though I dont know wether they ft the general requirements of mental stability to be locked up in a can for a year. Even the early colonists of the Americas expected to make some money and then return. And even in the Americas it was a three month voyage on a ship, not a year in space.
But hell, what a ride.
Invita Invidia
Yeah, but people living in Sixteenth Century Europe left for reasons other than adventure. The socio-economic situation is slightly different now.
"Non-Survivor: Mars!" "Suicide Settlers" "Reds: All Out!"
...by sending Wall Street and some of the Lehman Bros. folks over.
(yes, modbombers, that includes Kasich)
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
*Weiner
Just give criminals sentenced to death or life without parole the option to get shot to Mars to help with exploration and initial infrastructure construction. I mean hell, can't be much more expensive than keeping them in prison for 40-50 years, and we actually see a benefit out of it.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
For most of human history, colonists went and stayed. It is only recently that travel has become so easy that you can go back to the old country for visits.
That is the premise of Pioneer One.
the USSR sent up a one way mars team in the 80's and have been living on mars for 20 years.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... the chinese most certainly will.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
... misses the point of colonization?
Without "space gold" being identified as existing on Mars, no one is going to put up the funds to go there. Also there is no more slavery to do all the dirty work (like taking one way trips to friggin mars) and our current generation of robots are great but not able to colonize anything more than a crater
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
A little difference between the conquer of the West and Mars, it I may. In Western America, at least at those times, there was an ATMOSPHERE, some slight chance to find water and eventually some not-alien cattle
Just pass a law that says if you're on mars the government will pay off your sub-prime mortgage and you'll have a plethora of volunteers in minutes.
The Arizona State University seems to have a whole lot of volunteers.
My guess is that the Chinese will do this while the US frets about ethical issues. They have over 1.3 billion people and a different attitude toward ethics and human rights (not that that is a good thing). What better way for them to one-up the West than to lay claim to Mars. It will really be a Red mars.
If it's such a grand idea, I think Mr. Scientist should go first. Let us know how it goes.
And George Soros since it will require a billionaire to fund it.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Hot Dog, we have a...
*Wiener
The first piece of logic on a one way trip is make it work or die. Survival is a strong motivator both for those being sent and for those who are gambling with the lives of others. If the odds of success are good, then I don't have a problem with it. This level of decision making happens daily with medical issues of "operator or die in xx months."
The second piece of logic is that every-thing that goes stays. Modular tech design and repurposing could provide additional resources that would take longer/multiple trips.
Last piece of logic to a one way trip. If planned with a minimum survival date (meaning if all guesses were wrong, it all fails, you are stuck with no way back) that does not exceed the time for a second trip, then it is not a complete do-or-die. It becomes a do-or-pray that the next trip does not have any delays. (Ok, that weakens the first motivator)
In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
A good start!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
H. G. Wells has taught us that it can't work the other way around, and those were super intelligent martians that were all brain! What makes us to arrogant to think we can do better? Wait..... that wasn't real was it.
Remember SimEarth, where you had to make Mars habitable by sending over CO2 generators to create enough greenhouse gases to warm up the atmosphere enough to support liquid water and eventually life? Let's do that! Nevermind that it took a couple hundred years...
Well, maybe if we could do it in a bunch of greenhouses, we'd get there a bit faster. Except, aw hell, we have enough trouble just trying to do that here on Earth.
OK, maybe it's more fun to just hurl ice comets at it. Lets commandeer some!
All right, no more Spore for me :/
I read about the idea of one-way missions in space books when I was a kid, and these books were at least 10 years old at the time. This isn't worth reading, it's an old idea and it's not even his. The movie 'Mission to Mars' even came out with the idea before this.
It's not going to happen. At least not in the western world. The US space program is highly political. NASA requires the good will of the congress. Since it would not be politically favourable to send people on a one way mission, NASA would never get funding for it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Because we did such a good job with level 1?
On Mars, we need to build up and sustain entire ecosystems. Most of us can't figure out how to live sustainably here on Earth.
Or maybe that's the point? We're sending people to Mars so they can, by necessity, learn how to live within their means and then to teach the rest of us?
Can you hear me now?
Oh sure, taxpayers like me are just dying to spend hundreds of billions of dollars so that a handful of deranged dipshits can star in some perverse terminal reality show. Think of the ratings! Think of the money that will be earned from the ads (although not even remotely enough to pay for the thing)!
This sort of thing needs to be privately funded. I do not want to increase the national debt and therefore my tax burden on moronic bullshit like this.
"that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth"
I wonder what fraction of the populace cares about the continuation of the human race. Do you? If a rogue planet were to one day pass through our solar system and smash earth on its way by, would you care about colonists on Mars continuing our culture and genetics? If you do care, why? If not, why not?
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
People left to colonize North America because they were trying to get away from something, usually tyrannical rule. These are scientists who would be voluntarily accepting a death sentence that might happen in 5 years, or maybe 2, or maybe right after launch. Either way, they would be leaving for the purpose of scientific advancement whereas colonists were leaving to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Also, what happens when they get there, or are enroute, and decide they want to come home? What a public relations nightmare.
Everyone seems to think this is so ridiculous it is worth only ridicule. I honestly don't think it would be hard to find 4 people who want to be part of the first manned trip to another world, even if it would mean they never get to return home.
Lets try a comparison: N years of a daily grind, followed by another decade or two of balancing your withering finances against your eventual death? OR you could be instantaneously famous, have a permanent spot in the history books, and be a key part of the expansion of humanity to other worlds.
To boldly go where no man has gone before! Wouldn't really mind dying if this is the way I go.
If Mars has high-speed broadband internet access and the science chicks look/act more like Bernadette and less like Amy Farrah Fowler then sign me up.
~Syberz
An even better start
The world is how you make it
Idgarad's Martian Clause
"If at any point a scientist professes the colonization of Mars, and in the course of that profession, cites early settlers on Earth, has in fact declaired himself a moron."
A: When settler's got to the new land, they was an abundance of natural resources to sustain life.
B: The gravity, radiation, and climate was similar.
C: The general rules of survival remained the same.
D: The air was breathable
E: The water, drinkable
F: The atmosphere was the same and thick enough to stop micro-meteors
G: The natural resources that were available for building were easily accessable in the form of lumber allowing simple expansion.
H: They didn't have to contend with 100 mile wide volcanoes and lethal radiation
I: The journey to the "New World" was measured in months, not years.
J: The trip was relatively low cost per lbs compared to space travel
NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLIES TO A TRIP TO MARS.
I am all for heading to Mars but any comparison to early Earth settlers is about as productive as comparing, just about anything, to Nazis. Thus the IMC is the Martian equavalent to Godwin's Law.
Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
The Godwin Observation: The validity and quality of a discussion can be measured by the length of time it takes to compare something in the conversation to Nazis. Alternatively: The duration of a conversion prior to a reference to Nazis implies it's general quality with the exception of conversations actually pertaining to Nazis.
Gabriel's Law: Internet + Anonimty = Total and complete Fuckwad. Alternatively: Given a forum and anonymity most people act like assholes.
Idgarad's Martian Clause: "If at any point a scientist professes the colonization of Mars, and in the course of that profession, cites early settlers on Earth, has in fact declaired himself a moron." Alternatively: The comparison of space colonization to early american settlers by a scientist invalidates all credibility said scientist once had by ignoring the overwhelming differences between the two.
The Godwin Disclaimer
"I do openly declaire that the conversation at hand does indeed involve Nazis and as such Godwin's Law and The Godwin Observation do not apply."
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Hell-loooooo!
Anyone thinking in there?
Mars is already post-apocalyptic, times a factor of a million!
And it's tens of millions of miles away, on a good day.
If we're worried about catastrophe, we should be looking for ways to prevent it for everyone's sake, not just helping the super-wealthy and astronautically psychotic avoid it.
obligatory
695
"...humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth."
Funny, Martians said they must exterminate all humans on Earth as a hedge against a catastrophe on Mars.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... nor are there any economically exploitable resources. Geez, I get so tired of this - otherwise intelligent people spouting nonsense about colonizing other planets. What, for example, are these colonists going to do for a living? Bear in mind that Mars is effectively made of rust and silica, that shipping stuff to Mars is ludicrously expensive, and that even the most basic needs for life (air, water, food, shelter) are not available on Mars without a lot of equipment to process them. Also bear in mind that there is no market for any product on Mars, so whatever you make would have to be shipped back to Earth to be sold - and what imaginable product could you sell at a profit? This project would have a gigantic up-front cost with no realistic hope of any payoff. Who's going to invest in something like this?
And the "we need a colony to preserve the human race in the event of disaster" doesn't hold either, due at least in part to tragedy of the commons issues. At most, very, very few people would be able to be transported to Mars - meaning that neither I nor any of my direct descendants are very likely to personally benefit. So why would I be interested in expending enormous amounts of tax dollars on this? Additionally, it would be a lot cheaper to safeguard the earth (which is a lot more hospitable to life than Mars will ever be) against looming disasters, than to try to establish colonies on other planets.
Sure, colonization of the solar system is a cool idea - so why haven't plans gotten off the ground? There's no money in it.
And for better or worse, it's impossible to imagine a privately funded mission of this type either... because it's impossible to imagine how you could profit from it.
We would colonise Mars as a hedge against a catastrophe on earth... Imagine being on Mars with just a handful of fellow astronauts, and the big catastrophe hits earth, with no survivors. No way for you to restart an entire civilisation, so you know it will all end there, with the last colony dying out some day when supplies run out. Must be a really, really strange feeling...
because that's where the mastodons ran to. Yeah, we waaaaaaay back. Anyway, not much chance in people volunteering for this unless a) they get some chance to pass along their awesome gene and b)they get rich. Yep, that means we gotta send ourselves another rover to look for gold.
"They found gold on Mars!" People will line up for a shot at it when that is announced. Also hookers, but that can wait until after the first wave of prospectors arrive. Hey, that's the way you white folks settled Alaska, isn't it? It so explains Palin.
Arizona? I would have thought that folks from Utah would be the first ones to volunteer for a Mars trip. After all, you *can* make Mars livable.
Ezekiel 23:20
The idea of being the first to explore another world and die doing it sounds pretty romantic, but honestly it would suck. Not only do you have to endure several months of travel to get there, but when you arrive the place is a cold lifeless (probably) dusty rock with nothing going on except for some gentle windstorms. There's virtually nothing to do, and you're going to die when something goes wrong. It's not like going to the moon where the astronauts had to pound out a bunch of experiments on a tight schedule before going back home, you're going to be bored in a hurry, unless the repair work keeps you too busy.
It would be sort of like manning one of those arctic research stations, except that summer never arrives.
I read the internet for the articles.
"We are on a vulnerable planet," Schulze-Makuch said. "Asteroid impact can threaten us, or a supernova explosion. If we want to survive as a species, we have to expand into the solar system and likely beyond."
I'm pretty sure any nearby supernova that threatened Earth would be pretty efficient at ending life on Mars, too.
"What do you care what other people think?" -Richard Feynman
If humans screw up the earth to the point where it becomes unlivable, our species deserves to just become extinct.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Step 1: Plan a way for people to be self-sustaining on Mars.
Step 2: Send people on 1-way trip to mars.
Step 3: Keep sending people on 1-way trip to mars.
Step 4: Decide whether staying on Earth or going to Mars is more profitable to you.
Step 5: If: "stay", wait a couple years and repeat Steps 3 and 4. Else: go to Mars.
Step 6: Profit
Send the telephone sanitisers, middle managers, hairdressers, and advertising account executives. They'll probably need legal representation when they get there, so better send some lawyers and congress critters too.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
If only to unlock the Mars Colonist badge on Foursquare.
sudo eat my shorts
"humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth" For the love of G-d and all that is holy, why must we? If we have the technology to make Mars habitable, then we have the technology to fix Earth. If the Earth goes to hell in a handbasket, would humans living on Mars save your life? Why not spend 1/10th that same energy to fixing this place? If we can't straighten out our own house, what the hell makes us think we could make Mars work out? Such a trip would be nothing more than billions upon billions of dollars, pulled from the taxes of hundreds of millions of people, just to pander to the selfish dreams of a very small number of people. Spend that money on making a light rail system spanning the US, clean energy sources (solar, wind, etc), and you'll have lots left over; and then it helps save this planet, for the benefit of billions of current earthlings, plus all generations to come. Or...spend the money to send a couple dozen people to Mars, so they can...do jack for the rest of us. One key thing to keep in mind - most of the people who went from Europe to the US back in the day either paid their own way, or were sent specifically so they could gather resources to send back. The idea that it was a one-way trip is true only for the people who paid their own way. So if a few billionaires want to get together and send themselves to Mars, I'm not going to stop them. But why the hell should I pay for someone else to go?
The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth."
I do not agree at all with this statement. This is pure bullshit nobody seems to revisit this argument. Why must we begin colonizing rather than solving our current problems? How many peoples and which ones will be granted a ticket when first settlements will exists on Mars, if ever? Why should more than 6 billion humans should pay this ticket to a bunch of cowards trying to escape our problems? Why should we put that huge amount of money it will requires to try to establish colonies on Mars rather than taking the same amount of money to solve problems here that can save much more peoples than colonies on Mars may save, if ever. Why should we send a monthly check to someone in Washington D.C. thinking they need to save humans at the expense of everyone else on this globe? Someone is having a Star Trek overdose out there.
Achille Talon
Hop!
It is technically possible to launch a one-way trip to Mars...costly for certain...but not technically difficult. What would be impossible would be for humans to sustain life on Mars for more than perhaps a few months. The problems are that the atmosphere on Mars is too thin to be useful for life and, more importantly, contains no oxygen. There is also no source of food on Mars, nor source of energy, although some sort of nuclear fission device could generate a limited amount of power which could be used to generate oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (the martian atmosphere is 95% CO2) but a source of hydrogen would be needed to produce water needed to sustain life...and there is none to be found on Mars. Given these severe limitations, a 'colony' on Mars which could sustain life independent of support from Earth would not be possible and any mars-nauts sent there would be sacrificing their lives for the opportunity to spend a short amount time 'living' on the martian surface. That would not be 'colonization' but 'suicide scientific exploration' and the question to ask is 'would the scientific gains expected from such a mission justify the sacrifice of the lives involved?'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
>that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth
Unless of course the problem comes from the sun dying out, or exploding, in which it will not matter if we colonize mars or not.
http://xkcd.com/695/ But this time it will be people...
Total Recall - Get Your Ass to Mars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trya1ETd9Hs
"Get your ass to Mars"
Side note, /. verification word for this AC post: immature
I recently went to a talk on travelling to Mars by Dr. Alexander Martynov, the former director of ballistics for the Russian mission control. He said there was a proposal floating around in the late 60s in the Russian space community for a one way mission to Mars, and there were actually quite a number of cosmonauts who said they'd volunteer for it.
Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin wasn't so hot on the idea for political reasons.
We should colonize the moon first. It's doable, there are resources there that have immense value for space exploration, so, at some point, the colony will have become economically self-sustaining. We can forget about all this one-way nonsense. Once the colony is entrenched, tourism could help fund it. Future launches will be less expensive from the moon.
There's just one little problem: "Don't drink the water. Don't even touch it. Not one drop."
But seriously, if there is a calculated, viable way to survive on Mars once dropped there, I support this idea. But we really shouldn't go in blind. The colonists need some idea of what they're going to do when they get there.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
In the 17th Century, if you told people there was an entire continent out there and they could have it for the price of a steerage ticket, they would look at its environment based on the scientific expeditions sent there, and they would take it, knowing that they could make something of it and probably end up filthy rich, even if there were risks associated with leaving civilization.
In the 21st Century, you can tell people there's an entire planet out there, and they'll look at what we know its environment based on the scientific expeditions sent there, and they would tell you to go fuck yourself.
That horrible Val Kilmer movie is on right now.
Mars is a very bleak and lonely place and all those anti-depressant pills aren't going to take themselves. It's a market colony.
I would love to do this. To forge ahead a new chapter for mankind would be well worth leaving this place behind and risking a death sentence.
Would I go? You bet I would. I'm quite serious. I'd far rather do something incredible and useful with the little time I have left than sit around gardening or playing golf.
I'd still go if I knew there were only enough resources to last me 6 months on Mars, and then I had to quietly pop the little red pill. Trading 6 months doing something completely amazing for 20 (expected) rather boring years going slowly senile seems a pretty good trade to me. I'll bet there are quite a few people like me out there.
Any mistake at this point will doom you, and your colonists, to certain death. Have a nice day.
I would like to volunteer my brother. He's incredibly useless but it would serve the human race if he were farther away from it. If there’s room for more I have more family members that could be volunteered.
Mars Base First: A Program-level Optimization for Human Mars Exploration, Douglas W. Gage, Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 12, 3904-3911.
Send me, a half dozen inflatable greenhouses, enough plants to eat/breathe from, and some quonset-type buriable shelters. I'll be standing by for any other stuff you'd like done, can get a lot more science done than a rover, and will be happy to have my paycheck handed over to my wife and kids here. Of course, if you end up sending along my wife and kids, and some other folks, I'll plant a flag, declare independence, and do my best to sieze the planet as soon as I'm self-sufficient.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
Would it make more sense to go to the Moon first? There would be no need for a one way trip with the moon. It's so close that it could act more like the space station does now. It takes 3 days to get to the moon? So even shorts stays of a month aren't too unreasonable.
I don't know all the other differences of a Mars vs the Moon debate. I don't know what the night day cycle on Mars is, the Moon I think it's 28 days. (14 days of light 14 days of dark). There are no dust storms to worry about on the Moon.
In addition to there being shorter stays on the moon and quick travel, there is the added psychological benefit of always being able to see the Earth.
from the all-mighty Hollywood? When the aliens invade Earth, they'll make a pit stop off on Mars first and whack the colonists there first. Sheesh.
Humans can't live on mars for any extended length of time without being resupplied from massive infustructures of earth. Sure you can make food, air, water...but you need factories and mining to make the stuff that makes these things. Machines don't last forever. So the idea that mankind is doomed if ... is quite pointless. Additionally it is many order of magnitudes easier to burrow holes into the earth and live inside the planet if the surface ever went to hell. The long run outcome is likely not to be much different in either event. The idea that mankind can survive without the earth is totally bullshit into the foreseeable future.
It seems to me if you could construct a self sufficient mars colony with the power to expand itself by producing everything the colony needs with no inputs of any kind from earth then fueling a rocket capable of making it back to earth should in realitive terms not be all that difficult.
If you really want to live on mars my advice is to focus on self-sustaining factories/mining where a future mars colony can be built entirely by machines orcistrated from earth. Once the infustructure to build things is in place (mining, meta factories..etc) the first order of business should be the construction superconducting rings circling the planet at various altitudes to give the planet an artifical magnetic field. This over time will reverse atmosphere loss and provide some protection against ingress of charged particles and later normal radiation as the atmosphere thickens.
Send robots up first with shelter and farming kits that they can set up beforehand and the terraforming machines.
Technoli
then just rename mars Australia 2!
A hedge against a self-inflicted species extinction-event is not a catastrophe.
Diaspora of Irish, Scots, Jews, Europeans, Asians, Africans to the Americas probably preserved (more than) numerous significant human genetic lines.
Extinction events are assured for species of limited environments (humans on earth). Human colonies in two or more planets, or within two or more solar systems,/galaxies greatly increases species survival.
During a diaspora human cultures and individuals have a significant preservation and evolution nature, some die, others survive, but most thrive. Also, the aristocratic and plutocratic old-guard of the status-quo would eventually be forced to evolve as species, culture, and economic relationships, stewardship and sources of production, protection, and public cause (with time) changed vastly. The aristocratic and plutocratic are seldom risk-takers, their genome is primitive and violent, but European public governance changed. New World Explorers, Pioneers, and Adventurers proved it possible to survive all human hardships, which provided the settlers with communal experience and assistance to build in the Americas (NEWS), Australia... better cultures for humanity. You take the good with the bad, because life ain't ever fair, unless you make it so, or drop-dead (death is always fair) trying.
We should avoid planets and solar systems with other indigenous species, diseases a/o enemies could return to Earth-source for a self-inflicted species extinction-event.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
... they've been sending astronauts on one-way trips to space for years now. (rimshot)
How about volunteers with incurable tumors etc. - would they be functional enough for long enough to be useful? Another old SF staple - paraplegic with excess leg weight amputated is more functional in zero-g or low gravity. Yes, someone could live a long and useful life with disabilities here on Earth, but there are undoubtedly those either adventurous enough, or unhappy enough with their situation, to seek a shorter blaze of glory.
There are folks out there willing to blow themselves up for purely metaphysical benefit to themselves. I'm betting there are folks equally willing to accept being expendable in exchange for a place in history, for lots of different reasons of their own. A million dollars each survivor benefits would be pocket change in the cost of the program, especially if structured as an annuity; though for moral reasons we might give preference to people without attachments (but if a scientist with cancer wants to take a job that will set his family up for life, why not?)
When the asteroid spray hits our solar system again, Mars will be spared the bombardment no more or less than Earth.
Colonization, Orbital power generation, Mining asteroids and all other space endeavors are pretty much a pipe dream until we can find a reasonably affordable way to leave this sucking rock. So why don't all the geniuses get together and figure that one out first. Safe and affordable launch, Space elevator or Anti-gravity, whatever the means. Make it easy to get of the planet first, then we can get down to the business of exploration and exploitation.
Still in my pyro...still in the mines! {POF}LrdDragoon
> as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth. ...or as a redoubt from which to safely coerce catastrophe on Earth.
Earth has many millions of square miles just on the land surface that are essentially empty (Antarctica alone has some 5 million square miles that are completely uninhabited). And every one of those square miles is about a million times more hospitable than any part of Mars - for starters, you don't need a space suit to continue breathing, and you can get to anywhere on earth for a tiny fraction of what it costs to get to anywhere on Mars.
Maybe there are arguments for colonizing Mars, but "we're running out of physical space" is not one of them.
Actuality Check: We would all be better off, if we always left the politicians at home.
"a LOT of politicians in mind that I'd happily vote off the planet!!"
PLEASE! Leave the politicians at home where they can do the least damage to the human species.
Politicians prove (to me) there are merciful and malevolent gods, and Darwin may be wrong.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
You haven't engaged my argument in the slightest. Why do you think this is any more economical for China to do than anyone else?
Cold war style "we've got to get there before the Commies!" arguments may have flown during the 60's. They're probably not going to get the job done today.
1) Buy bare land, on Earth
2) Create self-sufficient, airtight biodome from scratch, no external inputs and outputs except for solar power and heat loss. Any tech has to be made from materials found on your bare land. (Sure a minimum of stuff would be sent along, but tech breaks, and what if you want more?) Metal forging and working is a must.
3) Kill all microorganisms in the soil, then build up a soil ecology and subsequent ecologies
4) Maintain against the ravages of weather and time for at least a year, with provable containment (no breaches in your biodome)
If you get this far, you'll at least be able to take care of your small corner on Earth, AND you'll be ideally placed as a candidate for colonizing Mars.
Considering that even if we could provide Mars settlers a completely self-sufficient and regenerating biosphere, there's still the issue of our bodies being very poorly adapted for Mars's low gravity. IMNAEB (I Am Not An Evolutionary Biologist), but I really doubt we could live for many years (and reproduce) will such an abrupt change in gravity. Considering the harsh effects micro-gravity has on human physiology (see http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/ ), I don't think we'd make it.
I'm betting with the Singularitians; wait another 3-4 decades and it'll be easy to go there "in silico."
Ask me about my sig!
mars can't hold its atmosphere, or at least an atmosphere usable to humans. this is a permanent insurmountable deficiency
and in no way am i suggesting "reducing" venus' atmosphere to something livable is easy. but very hard (reduce venus' atmosphere) is certainly easier than impossible (build an atmosphere mars can't hold on to)
however, both venus and mars don't have magnetospheres. venus has an "induced" magnetosphere (a heavy duty ionosphere) so you won't get skin cancer, but this does not prevent hydrogen/ water from blowing away. venus' birth of mankind on her surface would have to be induced (rimshot)
but basically, without the magnetosphere, both venus and mars pretty much suck as attractive longterm homes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Please send more fertilizer."
For this to even remotely reflect Star Trek they must all be wearing Red Shirts.
They never come home either.
But seriously, if nothing else, why not take volunteers from people on death row, that were sufficiently intelligent? Go through training, go to Mars, stay there and you get to live
Wasn't that how Australia was colonized? I know, we should just send Australians to Mars!
The idea of keeping colonist alive requires them either being self-sufficient or having access to sufficient food/water/shelter.
If they can't get things working in a self-sufficient manor, then they become a 50 year investment. Some politician at some point will consider them expendable and cut funding.
Aside from that sounds like a great plan!
-CF
If we could just send our criminals there... or maybe not.
(On a more serious note, I still think it makes more sense to colonize the Moon, where we can actually learn from our mistakes, rather than shoot off one-shot trips to Mars where we may end up with a black screen and wonder what went wrong. Colonize the moon, then harvest minerals from asteroids, then, once we can do most everything in space that we need to do to settle somewhere, head off to Mars.)
Early exploration of North American by Europeans did not begin with people "boldly going" across the ocean with no expectation of returning. The early explorers always came back. Though we have no record of it, I imagine the early aboriginal people who crossed the land bridge from Asia (or sailed, or kayaked, or whatever) probably did the same thing. There are going to have to be at least a couple of manned round-trip missions to Mars.
Proverbs 21:19
Anyone can commit a capital offense and be qualified for construction labor and the military.
So, I guess, the PhDs are smart enough, to obtain commitment experience and finally get a good job, off planet.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
And another thing. I don't want to have to pay taxes again. Ever.
We will then have to change the name from Mars to Australia II.
Please thank the KDE guys who came up with KHTML which then was forked by Apple and others into WebKit.
It's not like Apple all by itself created the WebKit, so give credit to the KDE guys every time you use a browser in your phone.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
It should be MUCH cheaper and easier to send a few people to Mars with enough equipment to build some place to live, then ship them supplies regularly for the rest of their lives.
The alternative being shipping a bit of fuel out to Martian orbit for a return mission.
Just put people in an abandoned mine deep inside a mountain and detonate the entry.
Of course, you will have to spend a few millions to set up a geothermal power plant, so they have energy for light and can grow plants for food and oxygen.
But what you get are all the benefits you would get through colonizing Mars: A colony that can survive if something bad should happen to us. A freaky place for freaky scientists, the possible start of a new civilization, some odd relationships, ...
Plus, you will save billions in transportation cost.
my suitcase is packed; but as usual, i forgot stuff.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Of those three, the only thing you can recycle easily is the water. Recycling the air and producing food pretty much requires plants (you can scrub CO2 from the air using filters, but the filters are consumable. Also you'd need an oxygen source from somewhere). So in addition to the daunting power requirements you list, you'd need tons of greenhouse space, plus an assortment of minerals to do hydroponics, plus a big initial amount of water. Mars almost certainly doesn't have any source of fixed nitrogen, and while you can recycle some of it from waste products, some becomes "unfixed" and is lost as N2, so you'll need to fix more. Potassium is probably available from rock sources on Mars, but would need to be extracted. I doubt there are any sources of rock phosphate (or other phosphorus sources usable by earth plants), so you'd have to figure out where to get that. Plus you need to figure out all the micronutrients - where are you getting stuff like iron (easy on Mars), calcium (?), iodine (?), etc?
Things like power and food are representative of the issues involved - even easy things are difficult on Mars.
..I think it didn't work out quite well for us here! We could have planned 2-way trips, and America would still be part of England/France/Spain/Portugal and not some stupid nations-wannabe! ;)
... this new generation of pioneering explorers will possess the technology to MAKE their own air and water from raw materials at hand (and some things brought along). Pioneers even a century ago could not do this. The concept is hardly new, though, because even the pioneers of old brought along not only simpler tools but also livestock and plants to help them colonize the new territory. It's been a LONG time since humans colonized a new area truly empty-handed.
... more of the Slashdot we've come to know and love: people focusing on the exact distance involved, rather than engaging with your actual argument. Dudes - regardless of the exact number of light-minutes involved, it costs really huge dollars to get to Mars. Consider that getting to low earth orbit costs like $10k/kg. You could house prisoners for a really, really long time at those prices.
Why would these people care about what some lily-livered groundhog, who's afraid of their own shadow, have to say?!!!
I'm sure they'll be building a liberterrarian paradise, unfettered by out-of-control government meddling into the people's affairs.
And who cares about latency when beaming out video proof of just how awesome they are to the rest of the cosmos?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
To survive on Mars for an extended period, far more stuff would have to be sent than was required for a round trip. It's worth remembering the Biosphere II debacle. They couldn't make a closed environment work even with huge domes, no mass limit, extensive preparation, and a sizable team inside.
Colonizing Mars is a fantasy. The atmosphere has well under 1% of Earth's pressure, and it's mostly CO2. The worst places on the surface of the earth are more livable than any part of Mars. Face it - all the off-Earth real estate in the solar system is awful. Some kind of base is possible, but it would be heavily supported from Earth, much like arctic bases now.
The universe does not need humanity. I'm all for protecting life here on earth, but I can't see the point of expending the resources to colonize another planet solely to ensure the survival of the species.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I guarantee you that the colonization efforts of the Americas didn't "only" need to achieve self-sufficiency. These efforts were business ventures that required financing, and the financing was undertaken by people who expected a return on their investment. In fact, I challenge you to identify ANY colonization effort daunting enough to require monetary investment that wasn't expected to provide a return. Not all of them did, of course - colonization, like other business ventures, can fail. But the investors thought they had some chance of getting a good return on the deal. It's hard to see how that would be the case for a Mars colonization mission - what would a Mars colony be able to sell at a profit?
Just make sure everyone starts out with a full set of weapons and ammo. Forcing everyone to fight over who gets the first BFG found would just cause a faster loss of personnel than just supplying them with the necessary equipment to survive the environment. Having to fight leageons of zombies with nothing but a chainsaw is not an easy situation to survive.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If that's true it's game over. No H20 without H, and no life as we know it without abundant H20. Wish I had mod points.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
If you send people who ate terminally ill, you don't have to worry about the return trip, and you don't have to worry about feeding them for an extended period of time. Just add one robot undertaker.
Formerly "Mars", I dub thee "New Australia"!
Imagination is more important than knowledge -Einstien
Its heartwarming to see there are people with sufficient IQ that are willing to shorten their lifespan to 10 years or (much) less, help setup habitation for future strangers, live a desperate, spartan existence in utter isolation and intellectual privation for the rest of their short life, only to die quickly and in agony from either radiation sickness or cancer, if they succeed to generate their own oxygen and water.
And to think the only thing stopping them is that they don't have the exorbitant wealth needed to design and build a delivery system and a survival infrastructure for Mars. I wonder if it could be accomplished with a charitable organization.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I'd go to Mars, not many people these days can say they lived and died on another planet.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
How about we first sending automated equipment to start harvesting water and air, for the future missions. We once we know that the sent systems can collect enough air and water for people, send test green houses that we can use with Mar's own soil to test growing food. I think we have the robotic/automation systems now that could do these functions or at least test out system first on Mar's.
Your reasonableness is getting in the way of my fantasies.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America,
o_O
Yeah, I once visited the museum reproduction of the enclosed habitat that they shipped over on the Mayflower. The Pilgrims lived in it until they were able to terraform North America.
Remember, kids, a science degree is *not* an inoculation against idiocy.
and i vote sarah palin ...off the ...planet
How does one find candidates that won't suddenly flake? You have to spend a ton to train them, and suddenly at the last minute, "nah, I actually want to live."
My proposal is to build a secret death row training facility. All volunteers are only promised that if the program proceeds, they'll get sent to Mars. If the program is canceled, they are all immediately put to death via lethal injection. There would be no public exposure until post-launch, so any appeal to the public to save them would be impossible. The program would be hidden under defense spending, and would be canceled at the whim of some high level director, who does not know the exact details of the arrangement. The volunteer would be made to understand that.
Anyone actually volunteering would understand they are being subject to certain death. So, anyone making it all the way through training would deserve both the reward or success and the punishment of failure.
That's the only way I could see this being viable, as silly as it sounds.
there are definitely a few people I'd like see take a one way trip to mars. ha
3 boob hotties here I come
Yes you could find people willing to go on a one-way trip. Even people who are qualified. Sure.
But I don't see the point in sending anyone until we've done enough robotic exploration, excavation, processing, manufacturing, and assembly where there would already be pre-constructed habitats and stores of fuel.
And once you've got a pre-established mechanized facility for people to arrive at, I see no reason not to just wait a little longer until the fuel stores are larger, and a return trip is feasible.
I'm 100% for manned exploration. But I think the time when the only possible human exploration is of the one-way-trip variety and the time when we are far better served by robotic exploration are largely the same.
I mean we aren't talking visiting other solar systems here which may necessarily be one-way. If we can't bring people back from Mars then it's due to a serious lack of technical capability and resources. So, let's use robots until we've fixed the capability issue, and use the robots themselves to fix the resource issue.
The enemies of Democracy are
the solar wind would then start removing the increased volume caused by the increased pressure. There's no magnetosphere, so no protection against this
Did anyone else think of those three old dudes from Cowboy Bebop when the article mentions sending mostly old people first? LOL
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
What are you talking about? Aliens left the reactor that they activated at the end to make the atmosphere breathable, but no actual aliens were in the movie. There were mutants, but no aliens.
And while we're at it, the whole thing was implanted into his brain, so technically he never went to Mars and no one was trying to kill him.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
I find it incredibly sad that you think that your boring years will start at 60, especially since you're reasonably fit and seem to be fairly intelligent. Trading a year or two of life for six months on Mars might be a good trade-off. Trading 20+ (expected) years just to do it seems like a waste.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Colonize mars = Go to War with Mars
So I wouldn't consider this any sort of a hedge on the human race's survival. Quite the opposite.
We could come up with a bioweapon carried by a variety of lifeforms which was lethal to humans.
...to protect mil-spec IP on the weapons-grade dysentery, it was ruled that you in-fact died in a fire to control the disease rather than the disease itself.
if the hope is to keep the mars guy alive for the rest of there lives. we would need to send ships to drop supply's alot. in a large scale it would be bad for earth it doesn't make more water but constantly recycles it. yes we have lots but if we started sending it off in mass it would become a problem later on.
I think air conditioners use more power.
Now this one we can fake entirely so as not to cost NASA anything. It actually opens out to the Arizona or Nevada desert after the faked launch and spaceflight. The last transmission would be fading fast...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
the best way to get Mars explored is to announce the discovery of oil on Mars.
Here's an idea for all those braniacs at NASA (y'all can thank me later...):
Quit trying to put all that crap in a single vehicle. When I travel more than the ~400 miles that my car's capable of on a single tank of gas, I just pull into a station and fuel up. I can also grab a burrito and a slushie, to boot.
THIS is what NASA should be designing. Come up with "depot modules", launch 'em from a Delta-##, and park them at various points along the way, AHEAD of the actual manned ship. I'm guessing a couple in Mars' orbit, and a few, maybe four, parked at mid-points between Earth and Mars, in case an in-flight emergency comes up. Running low on fuel/oxygen/water/food/porn? Dock with the module and fill 'er up!
Seriously, folks - it's not rocket scien... er... sorry.
AC but seriously I'll fly if they send supplies and we figure out the daily necessities of water and air.
sign me up, though at 60+ i'm probably too old. it would be great to escape the madness that's earth; from the wars, the religions, the greed, the inequality, the indifference, etc. so you die in space, alone. not a lot of difference to what happens here on earth.
The people that are targeted are unwanted hairdressers, management consultants and 'telephone sanitizers'. Just tell them they are the advance guard for a new civilization.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Seems to me, the point of exploring anything is to make discoveries and bring that knowledge back to enrich society. To "live to tell the tale," in a sense... not to mention bringing stuff back (rocks?)
Do you think we would be as proud of the Moon landings if we had only managed to send Neil and Buzz up there to hang around and take pictures for a few years until they croaked?
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
Can we send Tony Blair?
There's a better way.
Send a robotic mission to check out Phobos, including digging into it to make sure it isn't dangerously radioactive beneath the surface.
Send a nuclear powered robotic fuel factory to Mars surface, with the ability to launch enough rocket fuel and oxygen to orbit for a return mission.
Send supplies to Mars surface and to Mars orbit. Include tele-operated robots and a relay sat network.
Once you're sure they've arrived and deployed safely, launch the fuel factory back to orbit with enough fuel for a human return mission.
If that works ok, send a human crew to Phobos, where they land and dig in for radiation protection.
Dispatch a new fuel factory ship to Mars at the same time as the crew.
The crew's first task will be to secure the first fuel ship, for their eventual return mission.
From Phobos, the crew controls the robots on the surface to explore, prospect, set up infrastructure.
Each human should have at least 3 robots on the surface - most of the time the robots will be moving from point A to point B on their own, while the human controls the remaining robot.
Instead of a human that can only tolerate an hour or two in a suit on the surface each day, you get humans working in comfort at least 8 hours a day - making up for any loss in productivity from tele-robotics over being there in an awkward spacesuit. The crew works in shifts to make full use of the robots.
A relief mission arrives 2 years later, allowing anyone who wants to, to go home.
But it also brings more equipment for use on Mars, to start building a base for humans in some convenient location.
Two or three such missions later, with lots of experience landing and launching fuel factory rockets, the first human colonists land.
They find a well established base, already stocked with and producing fresh food and air and fuel.
They've got lots of smart tele-robotic helpers controlled from up above to keep them safe and make the mission a success.
The colonists mostly work via robots themselves - only going out in suits and rovers for special tasks and missions.
Most of their work is science or making stuff - in a shirt-sleeves environment - for the robots to deploy.
They don't plan to return to Earth, at least not for many years. They're colonists, not adventurers.
But very likely, some years later, a modified fuel factory ship will lift off to take the first Mars ambassador back to the old world.
The overall aim is to totally AVOID a flags and foot-prints model, that would lose support after 2 or 3 missions as happened with Apollo, dooming us to another 50 year gap.
It takes advantage of 35-50 years rapid progress in computers, software, robotics/AI, chemistry, manufacturing technologies, instead of blindly trying to repeat Apollo for Mars to show how wonderful and powerful and bold a nation we are. This time, it should be an international effort, even if one nation could do it.
What we need to explore the solar system are generation ships and manufacturing stations. Let's forget about going somewhere for the moment and concentrate on living in closed fault tolerant environments. Coping with the health consequences of living ones entire life in space. Develop the equivalent of street sweepers for planetary orbit to make living in orbit a lot safer. Let's forget about landing on a planet and instead build a manufacturing infrastructure to build exploratory stations and satellites. Perfect deflecting asteroids and comets to mars or one of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter to be used for raw materials. Build monumental sun orbiting hydroponic farms and solar and nuclear power plants to beam clean energy across the solar system. Planetary colonization can wait. We need infrastructure.
Let's build stations people and then once the stations are built we can move them where we like and take our time getting there. We need to concentrate on permanency, building stuff that will be up there a thousand years and reusing the materials we put in orbit.
"To Boldly Go" isn't an article. It's a verb. Infinitive. Split infinitive, even.
According to studies, it would have been feasible in 1958, so I don't see why it would not be feasible by now, considering the huge technological progress from that time.
The ship could be big enough to host a small city (the Super-Orion project speaks of an 8 million ton ship, which is extremely massive and not necessary; a 500,000 tone ship would do). It would have manned shuttle craft, that would allow personnel to land on and take off low-gravity planetary bodies. It would have all the required equipment for scientific studies.
Such a ship would make space travel between Earth, the Moon and Mars a commodity. The initial cost may be big, but it will pay off later, and most importantly, there would be no need to senseless deaths of people as in the one-way trip.
So it is cheaper to send someone on a one-way trip than to send them on a two-way trip. Who would have thought... !
Damn skippy, I fully agree and would be happy to be a shipmate of sick soul, and I wouldn't even expect a lifetime of resources. I'd settle for far less, and the opportunity to search for my own water and minerals etc.
Send genetically engineered plants or seeds. They could even be sprayed over the surface using ARES, have the seeds/plants pre-conditioned to live off Martian rocks for minerals and inhale the Marsian atmosphere and exhale O2. Also, have them pre-programmed to pollinate like crazy and grow quickly and multiply exponentially so they could spread. Send astronauts later, to eat them and live off the O2 they produce. Turn Mars or at least part of it into a jungle in other words. Maybe we'd need to send some kind of genetically modified bees to spread the pollen easier etc. We should be doing this stuff ASAP imo
I think we need to learn how to colonize Space, not planets with atmospheres.
Dig some tunnels on the moon and learn how to live inside them to start.
True, I did whoops all over the EU folks. I apologize, but it should be obvious that no culture can ever completely export the best of everything.
Some folks always stay to rebuild the crap left behind into some better shit.
Some shits are rebuild-pioneers, like politicians, crapping on the folks that believed they were headed to a new (possibly better) life.
EU and US have plenty of crap politicians, and why folks elect worthless for-shits, only gods know why.
Politicians come to oppress and exploit the pioneers, and explorers try to stay one step ahead of the politicians. When space travel opens-up some folks will keep going as fast as they can. Many others will wait for their masters to arrive.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?