Meet a Group of Aspiring Mars Colonists

Velcroman1 writes "The group was down to Earth — but not for long, they hope. These folks want to go to Mars. 'I want off the planet – I want humanity off the planet,' declared Leila Zucker, 45, also known as 'Dr. Leila,' because she is, in fact, a doctor who works nearby in the emergency room at Howard University Hospital. She has yearned to be an astronaut — and a doctor — since the age of 3, she told FoxNews.com. 'One dream fulfilled, one to go,' she said happily. Zucker joined not a million, but 100 or so 'aspiring Martians' from across the country, one with green hair and costume antennae, for a 'Million Martian Meeting' held Saturday in Washington, D.C., which was sponsored by the Facebook page of the same name. The group came together as applicants of the Mars One project, an ambitious 10-year plan for a one-way trip to colonize the Red Planet."

Re:A common misconception

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"This planet is not, in fact, disposable."

Strictly speaking, the fact that it cannot be evacuated does not make it indispensable, except to the people who are going to be left behind.

Re:Let's let them.

[i kan reed]

And who will pay for this rocket? Just putting a person in space is extraordinarily expensive, shooting them all to Mars is mind-blowingly expensive, and even if they're crazy people with absurd dreams(are they?) you'd want to get something for doing it.

More Power (and Money) To Them!

[instagib]

I don't agree with the negativity of the first comments. Personally, I would gladly redirect a significant part of my taxes to an endeavour like this, instead of sinking money into less forward thinking bottomless pits the politicians created.

A one-way trip to Mars means sacrifice, and I applaud them - if they really mean it and won't chicken out the day of lauch. It would be an incredible exciting exploration and proof of concept.

Re:Let's let them.

[CastrTroy]

I would probably think that it would end quite quickly. With no way to send additional supplies, I don't think they'd last long on the martian surface. Even small problems could turn potentially deadly really fast. Also, shows like "Big Brother" work well for TV by the precise fact that they are very cheap to produce. The "Winner" gets half a million dollars. Most actors on popular sit-coms get paid more than that per episode. This is why you see so much reality TV. I wonder if they even have the bandwidth to send back TV quality signals from Mars. What happens when it's on the far side of the sun? They will need to set up relay satellites to ensure they can always get a good signal. Even then I've seen lots of pictures from the Mars but I don't think I've seen too many videos.

Re:A common misconception

[CastrTroy]

We don't really need to move the entire population off the earth, we just need to move enough people to sustain the species once we find a suitable new home. There haven't always been 7 billion people on the planet You could probably quite easily rebuild the population of earth on another suitable planet in a few hundred years if you started with 100,000 people. Just take a look at this chart [truthmove.org] to show how fast you can actually increase the human population.

Re:More Power (and Money) To Them!

[amicusNYCL]

I think it is hilarious that they (and you, apparently) really think that the technology will be available within 10 years to survive more than a couple days on Mars if they even got there.

What technology is missing? They do not have to develop new technology for this mission. We've constructed spacecraft in Earth orbit and launched people to them, we've landed spacecraft on both the moon and Mars, we can communicate through space, we have systems for producing oxygen, water, and food. What else is missing? You realize that the entire initial base will already be built by the time they even launch the people, right? By the time they lift off from Earth they will already know if the oxygen generators are producing oxygen, if the food generators are producing food, if the solar panels are producing power, etc.