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One-Way Ticket to Mars?
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jan 16, 2004 11:19 AM
from the all-aboard dept.
from the all-aboard dept.
ahogue writes "Paul Davies, who has written several very accessible books on physics and cosmology, proposes an interesting way to get a manned mission to Mars - leave them there. [NYTimes, free reg. req.] While it may sounds shocking at first, the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives. Any volunteers?" Reader docanime writes with some sober news: "All this recent talk about Mars rovers and orbiters has made one space fan checking out how well Mars has been deflecting and destroying the space probes. The Mars Scorecard lists all the known fly-by, orbital, and landing attempts/failures made by humans. In case you're curious, Mars is winning 20 to 16."
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Parts (Score:5, Funny)
Registration Free Link (Score:5, Informative)
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Freeze them! (Score:5, Interesting)
The astronauts freeze themselves "before they die".
It works like this: we send them with no ability to return but with the (mythical) cryogenic equipment to freeze themselves pre "death".
The poles are pretty cold it would take less energy there.
They and their families can at least cling to the hope that one day we'll return with the technology to bring them home and revive them.
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Re:Parts (Score:5, Funny)
"This is one small step for man..."
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Re:Parts (Score:5, Funny)
Oh sure, and play right into the Martians hands!? Lazy Martians, can't even come to Earth and collect body parts, now we've got people volunteering to send them up to Mars for them! Sheesh!
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Re:Parts (Score:5, Funny)
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Registration Free Link (Score:5, Informative)
"Mars needs men!" (Score:5, Funny)
A few days after landing...
"Mars needs women!"
Re:"Mars needs men!" (Score:5, Funny)
"Mars needs diapers!"
Parent
Re:"Mars needs men!" (Score:5, Funny)
If you didn't think of this until after arriving on Mars, you've been sitting in the basement reading
Parent
I'm starting a collection. (Score:5, Funny)
Mars is NOT winning (Score:5, Informative)
Mars may be up against the world as a whole, but by my count, the US has been kicking some Martian tail.
The US leads Mars 10-5.
The USSR is trailing Mars 5-16
Japan trails Mars 0-1
And the ESA is up on Mars 1-0
Emotional Horror (Score:5, Insightful)
I've thought about this (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I doubt that the desire to have someone walk on Mars is going to be the magical trick that makes fusion a viable energy source. We need more general science, not just a space program.
Ryan Fenton
Procreation! (Score:5, Funny)
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
Oh for crying out loud (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a new idea (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/faculty/dportree/ rtr/ma26.html [marsinstitute.info]
-Josh
not NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Would NASA entertain a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies in Europe or Asia might.
Most of asia has a culture where the individual is seen as part of the whole society, and measured by its contribution to same.
China would certainly have no shortage of volunteers, and no PR problems with such a mission. Neither would Japan.
Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
It also eliminates the long periods in zero G which seems to be NASA's misguided obsession (evidenced by the fact the 100 billion dollars wasted on the ISS which is now dedicated to zero G physiology research). Not sure after a long trip in zero G and a long period in 1/3 G on Mars a crew will be real happy coming back to earth's 1 G either. You also reduce the risk of radiation exposure in deep space.
Start lobbing cargo containers, habitats, hydroponics, a nuclear reactor etc at Mars ASAP using unmanned ships. Preceed this with a bunch more robotic missions to search for criticial resource on planet like water.
When cargo ships start arriving reliably and you have enough there to sustain colonists send one or two manned flights with a bunch of astronauts, with enough skills, to start a somewhat self sufficient colony or two. Once there there you dont NEED any more manned missions, just some more cargo flights until they learn to tap Mars resources and be self sufficient. When they are self sufficient the huge expense ends but you still have a bold expedition on Mars, in perpetuity, and we have expended our biosphere which is a priceless thing in the event man, or natural events, destroys earth's.
Re:one way ticket to mars (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:one way ticket to mars (Score:5, Funny)
Or at least just make him *think* he had went.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we can?
We should go to Mars just because we can. Not because it might make economic sense or serve some social/exploratory benefits.
We (not just the USA but the world) should do it just because we can.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. First of all, why do you think we went to the moon? Just because we could? Wrong. We went because space was the next frontier of the Cold War.
We went into orbit because we didn't want the Russians to be the only ones up there, free to put up orbiting nuclear launch platforms. We went to the moon because we didn't want to lose prestige if the Russians got there first. (And possibly there was some worry about the Russians setting up a base with nuclear missiles up there too. Except they never got a man on the moon anyhow.)
Once we had gotten there, nobody cared. Apollo 13 would have been the third landing, and the media had already lost interest in space launches by then.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, why did the Russians go? Why did it even occur to us to go in the first place. For all the intelligent people here, I'm amazes at the complete lack of understanding of the scientific progress.
We (as in scientests) went to space, as we do ALL science, because we can. To get funding we might give other reasons, but what drives the scientests and engineers is the challenge, and possibility of understanding more about the universe and ourselves. Who cares it's usefull right now? Who cares if it might not work? Who cares what the politicians think?
From the scientest's point of view, the rest of the world is here to support me. We have all this government and industry so that the equipment I need is available, and the conditions are amenable to research.
The question of why to go to mars is the same as why we are here as a race. Do we have a purpose, and what might it be? If our future is to sit around in this little rock and argue with eachother for the next few million years, that's fine, but I sure as hell am going to do everything I can to change that.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question of why to go to mars is the same as why we are here as a race. Do we have a purpose, and what might it be? If our future is to sit around in this little rock and argue with eachother for the next few million years, that's fine, but I sure as hell am going to do everything I can to change that.
Wish I had points to mod you up.
I think many people also fail to realize that many social problems are incrementally improved by advances in how we, as a society and race, view and understand our role in the universe.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
And we should, of course, base all of our decisions on what the media considers interesting.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Interesting)
As we do not know how long it will take, today is not too early to begin.
Benefits are for the future.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus all humanity is stuck on one planet. That's bad! There are numerous things which could wipe out the entire race. But put humans on other worlds, and you begin to ensure the race has a future.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Funny)
What would we call it? I dunno...the acronym for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Planets" probably won't go over very well.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Interesting)
What does this have to do with money? Humans are naturally curious. We're explorers. That's what we do. I'll tell you something else, it wouldn't take a man a week to move off the lander. A guy in a suit would have already picked up half those rocks, drilled 30 feet into the crust, and sifted for gold. No robot yet built can outdo a dude in a suit.
Parent
New World wasn't found due to curiousity (Score:5, Interesting)
Some might say robots can do it for less. They would be partially right. Robots have a ways to go before they can move over and observe unfamiliar terrain as well as a trained human. One of the painful lessons JPL learned when they sent a prototype rover out to look for life was it missed a plant because the plant was just outside the rover's field of view.
One technique we used back in the 1800's was to give away land to whomever would go West. 160 acres to anyone who would build a house and occupy it. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific were driven by greed to build the transcontinental railroad. They not only got government backed financing, they also got land and anything on it. So while the Union is fighting the Civil War, it's also driving the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Union could do both because the railroad didn't cost the Union anything. The land had zero value because no one was there and the bonds got paid off by the railroads. California gold and free land were a huge incentive to risk your life crossing the Humboldt sink or Death Valley to look for that perfect piece of land to call home. Seems to me that if a nation made a similar offer of lunar soil and financing, we'd see a lot more activity than we have to date. We won't know what's of value on the Moon and on Mars until people have poked it all over.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Funny)
Just a guess
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Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, at one point in our world's history, there were a lot of people who simply couldn't comprehend why anybody would want to throw their life away by sailing off the edge of the planet. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with Europe that necessitated grand exploration, and most of the people leading these expeditions could have enjoyed a very comfortable life had they desired to do so. In short, the biggest thing driving the exploration was sheer curiosity (paired with the hope that these explorers might be able to find easier routes to places like the East Indies and cash in on them--a sort of Renaissance explorer's lottery.)
Looking back, I'm quite glad they went ahead and did it, anyways. Without said exploration, me and several billion of my closest friends wouldn't have the life we have today. Say whatever you will about the ills American society has introduced to this planet, say whatever you will about how royally we're fucking things up in our adolescent pursuit of global hegemony--fact is, America has done a lot to advance global prosperity, human rights, and quality of life. Had the explorers and pioneers of old not taken the (sometimes overwhelming) risks they took, we would be far less advanced, as a planet, than we are today.
Look forward. Know that you, your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren will never, ever, ever live to see the day when there is a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else. Know, too, that the sooner we start accepting the risks inherent with exploration, the sooner we'll be able to achieve the advances that come with such momentous human achievements.
Parent
Re:Why do a manned mission? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, humans can do many more experients and studies than robots. If our rover gets stuck, that's all folks. A colony there with the proper manufactoring facilities could potentially do many interesting things, many which couldn't even be conceived at this point.
IMHO, that's the main reason. Sending such a mission would enhance our technology in ways most of us can't even contemplate at the moment. We would have to come up with novel solutions to new problems, and those solutions would undoubtably have applications here on Earth. For example, say the colonists devised a new way to grow crops, or NASA had to design an ultra-safe reactor for the colony. Both of these could have major impact on our civilization. The myrid technologies that would be needed for this to be a reality could greatly enhance the worldwide standard of living.
Finally, I personally feel we should go because we are, at least in America, by tradition frontiersmen without a frontier. Many of us feel a restlessness because there are few places left to go...no more western frontier where we can "make our own". Now, this still wouldn't probably happen in my lifetime (nor probably even in my grandchildrens)...but I would be content with the knowledge that someday one of my decendents could leave this overcrowded place and begin anew in the Martian Colonies.
It's called hope for the future. It's something many of us have lost due to the Patriot Act I & II, our "jobless recovery", our world's biggest prision population, and so on. It's the potential to someday be able to leave if we feel the need. Not me, of course, but someday.
Parent
Re:Politics (Score:5, Funny)
Which most likely can't cook or do dishes either... maybe not such a bad idea after all.
Parent
Re:Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Keep religion out of it. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The coming into being of something; the origin.
heaven-sent (hvn-snt)
Occurring at an opportune time; providential.
Parent
Re:Keep religion out of it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Keep religion out of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, the word "genesis" did not come from the Bible, nor did the word "heaven". "Genesis" is a beginning or creation, "the heavens" describes the sky, and "reading too much into stuff" describes both of us, I think.
Parent
Re:Keep religion out of it. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Would you want such a volunteer? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Would you want such a volunteer? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Would you want such a volunteer? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it would be wise to bet such a multi-ten-billion mission on a whacko like that.
Hmm. soldiers? Vietnam? WWII? Iraq?
What do you think these WWI guys thought when they heard about machine guns?
Parent
Re:Sending water (Score:5, Informative)
Mars has two ice polls and probably underground water. No need to send anything and in fact, you can make a lot of stuff just from the air water and dirt that you find there.
And I've been bothered by politicians who claim launching from the moon is cheaper. While the moon might be a decent staging area, stuff to launch still has to get there from Earth's gravity well before it goes.
me too. I've read that even if there were spaceships fully built and fuled waiting on the moon, it would still be cheaper in every way to just launch straignt to Mars. I think you should read up on Mars Direct [nw.net]
Parent
I, Volunteer (Score:5, Interesting)
I fully understand motivation. Take a ship over an ocean and then break the ship up for building material. You'll find a way to survive. Just make sure you brought enough stuff on that ship.
NASA never had any lack of volunteers. What it has lacked since Apollo is the will to get things done. And what needs to be done now, is starting up Human civilization in space.
There are better choices than Mars, but it's not so bad. Humans can even live on the surface while is is being kinetically terraformed. If an actual impactor is required, then settlements should avoid the latitudes where those will be aimed.
The good thing about a one-way trip is you don't waste fuel and structure for a return. You can then stock with solar panels, tools, fuel cells, emergency rations, and oxygen extractors. And people. More people. People to get things done.
Send me. I volunteer. My bones may end up moldering early in some sandy grave, a casualty of circumstance, but no one could say that I didn't try.
Parent
Re:A good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that nothing would spur settlement like property rights. Once a US mission landed on Mars, China, Russia and the EU would be falling over themselves to get their own stake. But, I don't know how it would work in the beginning.
The colonial model is the most logical: the US owns whatever part of Mars it's settlers are living on. But, how long does the US own the land? At what point does it revert to the settlers? At what point does the Mars-US relationship become like the American Colonies vs. the British Empire?
It probably shouldn't be based on a strict timeline, but rather a series of developement steps. Once the Mars colony is reasonably self-sufficent (and the US has made a return on it's investment?) the land would become privately held.
Just thinking out loud. There's probably an essay somewhere on the internet that works out these details...
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