Those of us who are into classic rockets prefer the old muscle rockets - Saturn V, baby! The new rockets just have too much electronic junk.

That's right! Put some mag chrome nozzles at those old babies and nothing beats the classics!

Fry: Back in the 20th century we had no idea there was a university on Mars.
Professor Farnsworth: Well, in those days Mars was a dreary uninhabitable wasteland much like Utah; but unlike Utah, Mars was eventually made livable.

From TFA:

Plants would be grown onboard to feed the crew and contribute to the "psychological health" of the astronauts.

Well, looks like the NASA PR machine no longer is worried about whether its crews appear to be "flying high," so to speak.

That will be interesting to see how they take a CNC machine [wikipedia.org] into orbit.

It wasn't deserved. It just means that one of our resident neocons got mod points today.

They never had Mormons migrate to Mars?

*ducks*

I'm scheduled to be alive for this, Awesome !

If you thought that female astronaut who drove across country in a diaper was crazy, just wait untill you see what happens when you send a fat man into space with no food.

Maybe this is what really happened to Steve Fossett?

Because no private organisations have $250-400 billion in spare cash lying around to fritter on a quixotic dream for no better reason than neo-imperialist flag waving?

Not for nothing, but a one-way trip would not be nearly so expensive. If the passenger anticipates dying anyway, the planners could easily forego such luxuries as plants in the passenger area, sufficient food (what's a little undernourishment to a condemnee), fuel to escape Mars' gravity, etc.

The only concern, other than survival of the "volunteer", would be minimizing the impact of space madness. I suggest not having a red button labeled "Do not push", and not sending any soap along with the passenger.

But when you look at it, we spend 200 times as much money killing people as we spend putting anybody in space.

    That's because all the people who need killing are here on earth.
If they were in space, then we would be spending a lot more money on killing them ... in space. But since they aren't in space, then there isn't any sense in spending all that money on space when we have so... many... people who need killing right here on earth.

    It's all a matter of priorities.