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NASA Can't Ethically Send Astronauts On One-Way Missions To Deep Space
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "If NASA is serious about deep space missions, it's going to have to change its safety guidelines, because there's no conceivable way that, within the next few years, our engineering capabilities or understanding of things like radiation exposure in space are going to advance far enough for a mission to Mars to be acceptably "safe" for NASA. So, instead, the agency commissioned the National Academies Institute of Medicine to take a look at how it can ethically go about changing those standards. The answer? It likely can't.
In a report released today, the National Academies said that there are essentially three ways NASA can go about doing this, besides completely abandoning deep space forever: It can completely liberalize its health standards, it can establish more permissive "long duration and exploration health standards," or it can create a process by which certain missions are exempt from its safety standards. The team, led by Johns Hopkins University professor Jeffrey Kahn, concluded that only the third option is remotely acceptable."
In a report released today, the National Academies said that there are essentially three ways NASA can go about doing this, besides completely abandoning deep space forever: It can completely liberalize its health standards, it can establish more permissive "long duration and exploration health standards," or it can create a process by which certain missions are exempt from its safety standards. The team, led by Johns Hopkins University professor Jeffrey Kahn, concluded that only the third option is remotely acceptable."
The only danger is if they send [them] to that terrible Planet of the Apes.
Wait a minute....
THL phish sticks
If they can't send them ethically, then send them unethically. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure THAT out.
rewriting history since 2109
Let China go first.
We've lost all tolerance for risk or voluntary harm in the pursuit of a larger objective.
But no worries. China is picking up where the USA left off on a lot of fronts.
Whether sending a willing astronaut, who understands and chose to do this of his own free will, on a dangerous or even one-way mission is ethical is not a question for anyone except the astronaut. It's like trying to decide if gay marriage is "ethical". Unless you're one of the ones involved, nonya business trying to define ethics.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
I apologize for not having mod points.
There's no conceivable way that, within the next few years, our engineering capabilities or understanding of things will be able to do a manned deep space mission to Mars, safe or not. We could try to just put a bunch of guys in a box and send it that way. I doubt we could design, build, orbit, and then get the box on it's way in the "next few years". Let's be serious. Nobody with space capability is looking at a Mars mission any time soon (next few decades*). The level of complexity needed will take time, research, and money. We didn't go to the moon till Apollo 11. Once you start seeing your Mars missions planned, let alone counting up, then we can start being serious about going to Mars. Seriously, we need to test deep space habitats. Long term independent space habitats. Long range movement of large structural objects in space. I bet we will have a deep space station and have sent something similar in a long trip around the moon long before we attempt Mars.
*Elon Musk said it's possible in the next 10-12 years. I think he is just being overly optimistic, and that is overly optimistic, to get in the papers.
"I understand and agree that taking part in this mission will result my death"
Surely, given the activity level of many seniors, they could take on the really dangerous missions. Same goes for terminally ill people. If they're more concerned with science and discovery than with coming home, we'd all be better off. I'd guess that there are many seniors/terminally ill folks who be willing to take on a dangerous mission with little or no chance of returning. I'm not either of those and I would jump at such a chance. Why should we waste all that human potential?
Just sayin'.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
The hell you can't. What that's saying is "we refuse to honor the wishes of educated, rational adults to make decisions we wouldn't". I guarantee that all of the Mercury astronauts knew there was a good chance they were going to die during each mission. They knew the failure modes, the risks, the potential ways they might get splattered across our planet in fiery ashes. And they still wanted to go! I cannot understand how it could possibly be unethical to explain the dangers and still give candidates the right to say, "yeah, I know I'm not coming back. For personal pride, for adventure, for my country, and for humanity I choose to go anyway. Now step aside and light this candle."
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...otherwise it is guaranteed that thousands will die. I like this line of reasoning.
Stick to robotic missions, which are better value for money anyway. Humans are tied to Earth more strongly than science fiction would have you believe.
Only money is important. Tax money cannot be extracted from people who leave the Earth on on-way missions. Tax money cannot be extracted from deceased people who are not alive to pay taxes. Government authority has a directly selfish financial motivation to keep people Earthbound and alive. Ethics is a fabricated fiction of government greed.
In this case, microwaved spam.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
They can be the first settlers on Mars. Did most early voyagers to the New World worry about how they'll get back? They were going to live there. We can do the same for Mars.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You send astronaughts who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Particularly, those with a number of years left of health, but for which eventually, will die anyways.
Magellan didn't survive Magellan's expedition. Scott died trying to get to the South Pole. Mallory died climbing Mt Everest.
How many still die climbing everest even though its been climbed thousands of times? How many people die in bat-suits?
We are not talking about forcing people to take risks, but rather of looking for people who are willing to risk death to become immortalized in history. Have we become such collective cowards that we will not accept risks that daredevils accept daily for fun?
Take volunteers. Make sure that they understand the risk and are not in any way coerced. Send them out. If they die, build a grand monument to their heroism, and look for more volunteers. If they succeed build grand monuments, and bury them there when they die later - as they inevitably will.
In a hundred years everyone reading this will be dead. Give a few of them a chance to do die doing something magnificent.
I have a chronic disease that can be controlled through medication that already limits my lifespan.
Because of this I deliberately have no children or spouse and I avoid developing long term relationships.
My Parents are old and are unlikely to outlive me anyway.
I am aware of the implications of a one way trip to Mars and realise I wont be coming back and wont have any new companions for at least 10 years... if ever.
Send me.
Fusion Rocket Could Take Us To Mars
NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30-90 days
Get this working and the proposition isn't so bad anymore.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If we had done anything ethically on this planet we wouldn't have to be looking for a new one to move to in the first place...
If I decide I want to die and I hand you a gun and ask you to shoot me, is it ethical for you to do so?
Yes. Of course. Wouldn't it be ethical for me to inject your life-ending serum were you in terrible pain and wanted to die? OK, what if the pain is mental? What if there is no pain and you're sacrificing yourself for science? Look, just because some folks have a problem with killing people that want to die doesn't mean it's unethical to end people's lives when they really do want to die. That's their life, it's their choice.
You had better wise up quick. Our technological progress may eventually render us immortal. We already have stem-cell brain injections and neuroplasticity drugs to help repair and improve brain function. We'll probably have lab grown 3D printed replacement organs in a decade or so (12 years was the time-line I last saw). Our machine complexity is increasing at an exponential rate. Machines have gained capabilities in a few short decades that took us organic lifeforms billions of years to achieve. So, what happen when you're an immortal? Everyone lives forever whether they want to or not? Fuck. That. Hard.
I've got a game plot I'm working on where we deal with some of these ethical issues. Perhaps in a post-death world old timers will be the ones doing the really risky jobs that machines still can't do because they've been everywhere, done everything, and they aren't all geniuses constantly contributing to science. The ones who want to benefit their society best may decide to do so by taking really dangerous jobs or even suicide missions, boldly going where no man has gone before instead of just wasting resources thinking the same old thoughts and seeing the same old things. Whereas others explore the limits of understanding, they may choose to become daredevils exploring the limits of reality and life itself. In death they can become heroes and die knowing they have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of all.
We don't have to wait for immortality to realize these are noble causes. It's not like we have a shortage of humans that it would cripple us if a few decided to give their lives in the name of science.
If you don't have the freedom to peacefully sacrifice yourself for your species, planet, country, family, etc... then you don't have free will. No one is obliged to help you off yourself, but if they do it's not unethical. Are you even aware of the history of space exploration, or exploration in general? You sound like one of those brain-washed fools who advocate against free will of the terminally ill just to make the medical establishment a huge fortune, profiting via human suffering; Meanwhile staving kids fight wars over diamonds, electronics scraps, or food, with AK47s in Africa and you're not lobbying congress to do jack shit about it. I sure hope I'm wrong about you. Someday you might be one who's begging for death. If you keep that bullshit opinion of yours now, I hope that happens and your kids say, "Sorry gramps, looks like another 8-10 years of excruciating pain. You're not in control of your own life anymore because Pfizer has to make a buck somehow!"
Seriously. How the fuck did this moron get rated so highly is beyond me. Dying for piddling oil wars is somehow acceptable, but to advance the human space frontier is questionably not ethical?! Fuck all those mods, apparently you're not the same species as me after all.
It wouldn't be the first time the government sends voluntary men and women into harm's way.
The only difference is that no one else gets killed in the process and humankind benefits from it.
NASA can do alot of things but they suffer from "paralysis by analysis"
It comes from the assumption that "safety" as a concept can be quantified. And that's just the beginning...sure we can use data to examine possible avenues of mission failure but we put too much of our decision making process into raw numbers.
"risk assessment" as applied by NASA is a reductive concept.
Success or failure of a mission is a question of identifying & mitigating all the factors that may cause the conditions we define as "failure"
Identify & mitigate...that's all we ever do with "risk"...NASA is playing a shell game here
Thank you Dave Raggett
Someone said the following in regards to any "forget the USA, China's all over X b/c the USA has Y failing"
Thank you Dave Raggett
Seriously. How the fuck did this moron get rated so highly is beyond me.
Perhaps because instead of being a self righteous prick he expressed a valid point very clearly and simply. You on the other hand....
We sent people up into space when we thought there was a 50/50 chance they'd die in the process.
It's called "being an astronaut".
Don't like, don't sign up.
Wimps.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
WAT? Somehow you managed to turn a rational discussion about the ethics of space travel into a strawman argument about euthanasia. There are plenty of ways to make a name for yourself and go out with a bang here on Earth. We don't need (or want) astronauts that just want to be the first ones to die outside the solar system.
Humans will travel into deep space when it's "safe". By safe we don't mean "0% chance the trip will end in a fireball," and not even "not a one way trip / eventual lonely death in cold space mission." By safe, we mean that the crew will have the ability to sustain themselves for the remainder of a "natural" life expectancy. In order for that to happen, it means we'll hvae to send them packing with enough enough oxygen, food and water + recycling of all waste products, decades worth of various types of medication, radiation and particle shielding, and a reactor powerful enough to sustain "comforable" living conditions for decades.
Or, we could come back to our senses and do basic animal tests for long term deep space exposure. Like, start from a small rotating artificial gravity satellite with lab rats, and if you really have balls, send a couple of chimps to loop around the mars and come back.
We did that in early days no problem, and it retired a lot of early risks for humans.
Hey, we even had a grassroots program : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... - got no real support or funding by NASA.
In fact its super lame that we only have data points for humans spending time in microgravity and 1g, but nothing in between. So we have no curve to fit to partial or reduced gravity effects on health. After decades of multibillion dollar manned spaceflight investments, thats pathetic. The fact that we dont have a biological lab sitting outside of van Allen belts right now testing different radiation shielding approaches on rats is also pathetic.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
There is a difference between a risky endeavour and certain death.
Instinctively, we accept risk of death when the reward justifies it. Being a successful astronaut is rewarding - in terms of prestige if nothing else.
A compelling scientific mission that will add to human knowledge is arguably more rewarding for civilization, but not for the individual who dies, and the reward is too abstract for our instinctive response.
Plus it's not obvious that there is a lot that live astronauts can do that do that robots can't. Simply 'being first' will not be a compelling reason for others to enable suicide, or be left to watch it helplessly from a distance.
Hell yeah. It's OK to send 18 year old barely-not-children-anymore to the hell hole Middle East with a pretty decent chance of dying - and usually for something shitty like a roadside bomb on top of it - not even in direct combat defending something - just in hopes that if they survive their education will be paid for - yet it's not ethical for someone to go to freaking Mars voluntarily if they want?
To quote you - Fuck. That. Hard.
Our priorities here are beyond fucked - but you only have to look at the war budget vs the NASA budget to know that. I'm sure someone has the statistics, but I'm pretty sure that what we spend on NASA in a year is equivalent to what - hours, days in war funding for the Middle East?
Have you missed the project where an independent entity is doing just that? They were taking applications last year. www.mars-one.com
The justification for sending 18 year olds to hell holes has always been that the consequences of not doing so would be much much worse. I won't comment on how often that justification was valid (cause it would get depressing) but in this case we don't even have that justification/rationalization. The only reason is the chance of a "Hey look! I'm on Mars!" tweet/selfie, and the research that could have been done cheaper by robots.
Dangerous does not equal suicide. Are the pilot and parachute manufacturer in the business of guaranteeing that healthy adults purposefully fall to their deaths?
Thnx for the comment...I think we're likeminded on this topic
So here's where TFA makes the error:
then this **isn't** a question of "risk" at all...it's about limitations of engineering and materials science
the assumption/error is when TFA says "there's no conceivable way"...that's B.S.
hundreds...***hundreds*** of studies have been done on radiation exposure and shielding by NASA, JAXA, ESA, Soviets/Russians
there is certainlya conceivable way we could engineer proper radiation shielding
Thank you Dave Raggett
I agree with you, in part. I disagree also, in part.
While I think it's actually noble of people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, I think his argument comparing it to him asking to be killed is not the same thing. One has potential large tangible benefits for humanity (pushing science's boundaries), the other doesn't (he dies, doesn't use the resources he would have, and that's it).
The thing is, is that a large portion of the time, a person committing suicide is usually caused by temporary circumstance. Don't get me wrong. Depression sucks, but more often than not, it's temporary. I'll just use the old adage "a permanent solution to a temporary problem". There are obviously exceptions, such as terminal illness, chronic depression, and other things that we can't really fix (though medication can sometimes help), but since that isn't always how it is, I think you can't just go "It's their life." and pull the trigger without considering these things to define if it's ethical for you. It should be a last choice, because there is no going back (yet).
There is absolutely no comparison.
First, all major cities in human history have had homeless people living in them...this isn't about that at all
***population density*** in Detroit/Chicago is much less by several orders of magnitude.
America doesn't have slums like this: http://image.architonic.com/im...
China has **slum cities** with no city sewage services...with >10,000 people living in it
**that** is shitting in the streets
Thank you Dave Raggett
Manned space programs are significantly more expensive and the benefits are dubious.
No, it is not that you can't ever send a person on a mission with a high risk of premature death - it is that you need a compelling reason to do so.
What is the compelling reason here? Is the compelling reason that the astronaut can collect scientific data that a robot cannot? This is a ridiculous proposition, if you give it any serious thought at all. Any instrument the astronaut can operate, a robot can operate with remote human guidance. Cameras can see anything the astronaut can see through his helmet or window, and much, much better too. Mechanical tactile sensors can be vastly more sensitive than hands reaching through thick pressurized gloves.
Or do you imagine that this lone astronaut will perform science that cannot be matched by, oh, 100,000 scientists back on Earth not tasked with life-and-death survival problems every second of every day?
And sample return missions are far more productive when you don't need to return a scientist and all of his/her life support equipment, before you get your first gram of actual sample.
Bottom line - sending a person to Mars has vastly less scientific value than spending the same amount on robotic missions, collecting data for the world's scientists.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
worker health issues need not be a priority over profits.
Nobody ever discovered new lands by sitting at home and playing it safe. Every time a boat went out to sea in the Ancient world, there was a risk of death from numerous sources but that didn't stop them. The shipped out as fast boats were built.
NASA: grow some balls, you gutless bastards. People are going to die in space. Its going to happen and there is no way around that. Now get off you asses and put some people on Mars. Every person who goes on that trip knows that it is going to be a one way journey and the only person fretting over it is you.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
They'll be doing better than on the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Mars One is planning a colony drop, not a suicide mission. Colonies have a history of failing, but they also have a history of succeeding.
If we're talking about a mission with no hope of surviving to go on speaking tours, or build the foundation for a society elsewhere, I can't really see any good reason for it.
On the other hand, throw a NERVA, Orion, or a (FSM help you!) NSWR at the problem, and suddenly it's a shorter trip than most jaunts to the space station. If Bussard was 1/10th right, deep space missions won't be suicide missions.
Danger implies risk. Risk implies different possible outcomes.
If we send a meatbag to mars, they're not coming back before they spoil. There's only one possible outcome. It's not risky OR dangerous. It's guaranteed lethal. So now that we've gotten that out of the way, lets continue with the booking please? (and I wouldn't mind signing up myself, but I rather doubt they'd take me)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Why not just call it a 5-year mission and cancel it after the third season?
Our planet is in serious danger. We didn't know this in the 60's. Now we do.
We need our planet, our nature to survive. Not the space. Please turn the space agency into a earth agency. There are too many good engineers there.
Our children will be thankful.
Robots are slow. They can't dig. They can't carry out the most sophisticated tests. All they can do is take pictures and run basic chemical analysis. A small crew on mars could accomplish so much more. They could run drills to see beneath the surface for a start - all robots can do is scrape a few centimeters down.
A robot that costs and has the mass budget of a human mission could easily do all those things and more. Current robotic missions have mass/energy budgets that are a small fraction of anything a manned mission could be.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Dying for piddling oil wars is somehow acceptable, but to advance the human space frontier is questionably not ethical?!
A one way mission to mars with not advance the human space frontier one iota. It will however cost a lot and have good odds to fail to even get them to mars.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Instead of sending death row inmates to execution why not send them to deep space and collect data?
Heck, if they make it back alive give them their freedom.
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Yes, in the long run we will all have to commit suicide. When technology makes our bodies eternal the only think left is to see how long the "software" can survive. If you live for say 5000 years, would you remember anything from, say, the first 1000? And if not then you are by all means another person. Then it is not "you" that survives for 5000 years. Or maybe we will never loose sense of who we are and it will be still "you".
One way or another it will become boring to be immortal. IMHO, immortality that cannot be ended is a severe punishment, not a blessing. In that respect I find it a bit hilarious that the believers have sentenced their gods to worst possible existence - immortal and all-knowing. What a drag....
Robots are slow. They can't dig. All robots can do is scrape a few centimeters down.
Just put an Arduino in an excavator. Job done.
Oh, the real problem with sending earth-moving machinery to Mars is the weight.
Humans would add waaaaay more weight to a mars mission than a bigger spade on a Mars rover ever would.
No sig today...
Isn't a one way trip just something you don't plan to come back from? Is it unethical to build planes that help people take a one way trip to France? Kidding aside, what's the difference when letting a grown adult decide where to spend the next decade of their life? We all die some day, and if the technology is there to support you, who cares where you want to do it?
How can you have colonization if the colonists build a mostly self-sufficient village in a new location and then everyone returns "home" instead of making the new location their home? Therefore it is a logical conclusion that NASA is against colonization and therefore we will have to look at other entities to pursue interplanetary colonization.
The projected risk of astronaut survival might have been 50/50 at the initial assessment of the Mercury program but because NACA (later NASA) didn't have a crystal ball and could predict the engineering changes and a little luck that made Mercury program astronaut's survival rate 100%.
Just don't tell the astronauts and build a super-computer to sort out the messy ethical questions.
Going to Mars to die advances nothing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Very bad analogy since those colonies were clearly capable of sustaining life and people went nearly that far and back to catch cod every year back then. I think your "never expected to come back" may be correct in some cases but in general it is very unlikely.
Also this would be a suicide mission for reasons of the very harsh environment so that makes things very different.
Robots could do that was well. We just need to design them and send them.
When you are talking about comparing costs. Right now we send robots for dist cheapo. If we sent robots with the same budget we would need to send people, then drilling and digging can be done.
I wan't people to go to Mars. I think the is a lot of value there. I don't want them to go there knowing they will be dead in a month.
Send some support infrastructure, send some automated system get it set up, then send people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Humans will travel into deep space when it's "safe".
So, in other words, never.
FC Closer
Well it's a good thing that a space program doesn't require suicide missions. You can even have astronauts with no suicide missions! You just have to send them on non-suicide missions.
(Other threads have gone into the difference between a one-way mission and a suicide mission; I think a non-suicide one-way mission has way fewer detractors)
I don't actually believe that "no astronauts means no space program".
WhooOOOP! WhooOOOp! Loony alert, loony alert! All personnel prepare for loony situation!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Send a 3D printer and tell it to make a new robot. You just need to be sure it can access the intertotrrents to get the plans. Because ST:TNG and that.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Club Tycoon Sends Man to the Moon" (http://tinyurl.com/q9vd2qh)
I keep seeing people saying that it is cheaper and safer to send automated missions and that they can do everything a human can do and more in the way of research - that a human would add nothing to knowledge that can't be gathered by machine.
This isn't true. An automaton cannot tell us what it is like to be a human on Mars. Admittedly, some might find that insufficient - but I do not.
(Also, the science and technology we will develop HERE to make a human *able* to stand THERE and tell us that is nothing to sneeze at, either.)
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
If I was in NASA I'd say - correct me if I'm wrong, but you want us to spend a lot of money that we don't have on a mission that a lot of people would vehemently hate and our funding is at the whim of people in politics? Given THAT do you think we are even going to listen?
I hear that Iran is working on a space program. Maybe you should talk to them.
The test flights show your premise is utter bullshit. If they were willing to accept such losses there would have been no point doing the tests.
Who fed you this 50% line or did you just make it up?
Yep. And sending the first robot out, running into difficulties, sending out the improved robot, having it fail to deploy, sending out the replacement, realizing there are new problems you want to address, and sending out a new type of robot would still be faster than planning and sending a manned mission. It would also be cheaper, so you could send some robots to Europa and Enceladus too. Why wait til a ~2035 manned mission to learn stuff we could be learning about via robot this decade?
My thoughts are more along the lines of: selling a good lie doesn't make the goal worth the costs. I'd also say there's a big difference between high risk and planned death. A mission without plans for supplies continuing indefinitely or a way back is a suicide mission; a plan that exposes astronauts to a sievert of radiation and engineering mishaps is a high risk one. It's the difference between Kamikazes and the Doolittle (Tokyo bombing) raid.