Scientists Propose One-Way Trips To Mars 839
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."
Little difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Just ship corpses, which will save a lot of money and time trying to figure out how to keep the humans alive on the way there.
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I've got a LOT of politicians in mind that I'd happily vote off the planet!!
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.
I figure some of them might take the choice, and we'd be solving a few problems at once that way...
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
hey I am not in a death row, and I would volunteer. I am already well trained for that mission.
If they provide enough resources for a lifetime, I would not feel more alone on Mars than right now here among billions of people who do not give a shit about me.
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
If they provide enough resources for a lifetime, I would not feel more alone on Mars than right now here among billions of people who do not give a shit about me.
I would miss you. Posting AC so I won't ruin your despair.
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Funny)
I thought about volunteering, but the thought of having a 20 minute ping time while playing Modern Warfare kinda turned me off the whole thing. As soon as they figure out a way to send FTL signals, though, I'm all over it!
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Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure there would still be many volunteers even if they would die the moment they arrive.
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
But why even need volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I think you've missed the point. This is intended as a colonization effort. Yes, we need to know more to have a reasonable chance of success, but waiting until the robots have built a fuel extraction and processing plant, and a rocket engine rebuilding plant is just silly. And it's considerably cheaper to only freight enough cargo for a one-way transit. I can't quote exact numbers, but it's considerably less than 1/4 the cost to plan a one-way trip.
The problem is, we haven't even got the biosphere-n isol
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Robots are pretty much incapable of doing shit, with such a huge radio lag as it is found between Earth and Mars. Just look at the rovers: 50 meters in 2 weeks, during which a team of a dozen scientists and engineers constantly monitor images and telemetry, sadly NOT in real time, and pray to the flying spaghetti monster that their rover doesn't get stuck. Because if it does, it can't even do that very basic thing - going straight forward.
Robots capable of more than this, with functional AI, are still a few
Re:But why even need volunteers? (Score:4, Interesting)
The solution is simple.
Send equipment and infrastructre their in long slow ships, perhaps using spent rocket boosters to hold it all. Aero brake into the atmosphere and park it at a landing site.
Send canned primates there fast in a very small minimal ship. Perhaps even no bigger than an Apollo capsule, just punch it up to high speed with technology in reach like a plasma rocket. 14-25 days to Mars anyone?
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
Incidentally, many of the early settlers were criminals of some sort
In Australia, maybe. In North America it was mostly people fleeing poverty and persecution.
Hey, there's an idea: offer Mars to Israel or Palestine! Want land of your own, with no chance of persecution? Get on that rocket-ship!
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Israelis just want to live on the land they were born on, just like Americans and everyone else.
The Zionists who settled Israel actually seriously considered getting a piece of land in Africa or America instead. Most of the land they settled on was uninhabited and purchased from the previous owners.
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That is entirely incorrect. Palestinians just don't want to be treated like second-class citizens in their own country. I imagine if the UN decided to give Washington DC back to the Indians, and the Indians then took over large swathes of the country around DC and treated all non-Indian people like criminals, frequently attacking them and denying them basic human rights (like access to hospitals, safety of possessions, etc.), most non-Indians might be a bit pissed off too.
How you got modded informative is
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Correct. It appears as if the Moon is actually far better to colonize in this fashion. Actually better for several reasons:
1 - Distance - this is obvious. Less everything and less time to mount a rescue.
2 - The recent probing of the lunar sub-surface pretty much confirmed what most people though would be true. That the soil there is nearly identical to that found on our planet if you dig beneath the the surface. It appears as if there's a radiation and micrometeorite blasted exterior (egg)"shell" but s
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Ah see you've made my point. A trip to the new world (once they knew it was there) could be easily funded by a small group of investors. I see no small groups of investors with the technology and material to produce a colony ship to Mars. Do you?
In spirit, they are similar. The technical challenges to overcome are substantially greater. And once they are done with the technical problems, the financial costs are also relatively more significant.
Having said all of that, it is a matter of WILL alone that
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I think you just insulted the entire continent of Europe...
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i'm sure sending a bunch of violent, possibly psychopatic murderers, is a great idea...
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
But seriously, if nothing else, why not take volunteers from people on death row, that were sufficiently intelligent?
I already see the ad. "NASA looking for experienced geologists and planetologists. Requirements: at least 2 PhDs, at least 1 capital offense. Must be willing to relocate. Huge travel bonuses!"
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
But seriously, if nothing else, why not take volunteers from people on death row, that were sufficiently intelligent?
I already see the ad. "NASA looking for experienced geologists and planetologists. Requirements: at least 2 PhDs, at least 1 capital offense. Must be willing to relocate. Huge travel bonuses!"
Hans Reiser?
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
In other future news,
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
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That's trivially solved with a mirror orbiting the sun in counter-ecliptic orbit, though.
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Funny)
And the settlers marsupials?
*ducks*
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I can't very well imagine too terribly many sane people on earth...at least in the US, would like to give up the good life, family, friends, the comforts of life here on earth (lots of women to chase, good variety of good food, aged single malt scotch, sports cars, guns, vacationing to the beach or for snow skiing, etc)...to leave it all behind while in the prime of life, to get a one way ticket to uncertainty, lower life quality till death.
Your lack of imagination really isn't germaine. The reality is there are many people who would leap at the chance to be the first settlers on Mars - certainly thousands, and possibly many more. It would be a huge honor, an event that can take place only once in the course of all human history. I'm not convinced I'd be one of those people, but I would give it serious thought - if I were qualified, of course.
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That's fine, but how many of those "certainly thousands" are *actually qualified* - physically, mentally, and psychologically, to be a Mars settler?
I get a strong impression that most people saying "I'd do it" are (choose one or more):
1) Ridiculously naive about the hardships and privations it would involve, and the physical and psychological stress that would p
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
You have died of dysentery.
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Funny)
Probably the chinese at some time in the future.
Leela: Hang on. Amy Wong? Of the Mars Wongs?
Amy: Look, we're not as rich as everybody says.
Leela: Uh-huh! What sorority do you belong to?
Amy: Kappa Kappa Wong.
Farnsworth: This is quite a large ranch you have.
Mr. Wong: 17.9 billion acres. We own entire western hemisphere. (whispering) That the best hemisphere!
Farnsworth: It's the same on Earth.
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Yep. At least back when the US colonization was occurring, there were no expectations of support from "back home".
Any settlers to Mars would need certain things provided to them, regularly, for the foreseeable future (at least a year or two):
* air
* food
* water
Nobody capable of handling the low-G environment and able to improve the living situation there is going to mess around with that when the agency funding the trips says, "we're only sending you there, for financial reasons". That does not invoke a feel
Re:Little difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no technical reason not to launch all the equipment the settlers would need to be self sufficient in those areas all at once in a Project Orion [wikipedia.org] vehicle.
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I bet we could do it. End the drug war, there you go billions to get started with. Tax and sell them, there you go billions more. Increase tax on the rich back to 1960s levels, again billions more.
Re:Little difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we're much bigger pussies than we were 70 years ago. It's not that we lack the volunteers who would happily take on all these risks. We don't have a public that would allow people to volunteer in the first place. I think that's the first problem: A miserable hero suffering and dying on Mars is just too depressing for the collective consciousness.
The second problem is that we don't really know much about self-sustaining sealed-off human habitats. We only did one experiment on this in the 90's, learned amazing stuff, but inexplicably we designated the experiment a "failure" and decided to learn nothing from it. All similar research was abandoned. To me, continuing with this research is the obvious and right way to ramp up for a useful Martian trip. The other obvious research we need to do: Autonomous (robotic) mining and mineral processing. Both of these paths of research would have important spinoffs useful here on Earth, and both could be done independently of NASA because the research doesn't need to have anything to do with space.
We don't need big breakthroughs to make Martian station work. But the things that we do need, we're making no effort to acquire.
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"but think what we could do with two planets!"
Not too much, I guess. You need at least one more to play billiards, not to mention pool.
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The martian atmosphere is already 95% CO2. It's as warm as it's going to get. Furthermore, the martian atmosphereic pressure (at its lowest elevation) is only 3% of Earth's atmostphere (at sea level). Mars simply is not terraformable. It lacks the gravity and a magnetosphere requried to support an adequate atmosphere. You might be able to establish a colony of photosynthesizing bacteria or even some very rugged desert plants and let that run for a few millenia and see what happens. Anyone who thinks i
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Here's a question. Why haven't we already sent large pods of photosynthesizing/oxygen producing bacteria or rugged desert plants to at least see if it's feasible.
Who's it going to hurt?
do you still have to pay child support? (Score:3, Funny)
try to serve someone with a lawsuit there
Re:do you still have to pay child support? (Score:5, Funny)
She wouldn't speak to him for a week.
Governator! (Score:2)
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?
Good idea! (Score:2)
There's a bunch of people that I wouldn't mind sending one way to mars! Or the Sun.
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There's a bunch of people that I wouldn't mind sending one way to mars! Or the Sun.
You mean like Ross Perot, Tom Arnold, Andy Dick & Rosie O'Donnell? [wikipedia.org]
OK Boys (Score:5, Funny)
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I'll volunteer if he promises NEVER to do that.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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The Arizona State University seems to have a whole lot of volunteers [slashdot.org].
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Sign me up! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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These days, with a wife and a child, I guess I'll envy those who go, but wont be amongst them.
I had a similar thought, and it made me wonder in turn if this could be a big opportunity for China and their generation of surplus men. If your prospects for a wife are limited, being a Mars pioneer has to look a lot more attractive.
Re:Sign me up! (Score:4, Funny)
Taking the notion of the RED planet a bit far aren't you?
I'd go. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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But I also believe that it matters less how many years you live than what you do with the time you have, however long that may be. My family may not agree of course.
Don't get me wrong; I fully expec
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I'm seeing a reality hit! (Score:2)
We could start with a few people... (Score:2)
...by sending Wall Street and some of the Lehman Bros. folks over.
(yes, modbombers, that includes Kasich)
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if the us doesn't do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:if the us doesn't do it... (Score:4, Informative)
Ding, ding, ding! We have a new meme!
hrmm (Score:2)
Steven Hawking & George Soros (Score:2)
And George Soros since it will require a billionaire to fund it.
Logic of one way (Score:2)
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/mu
What do you call the first 2 lawyers we send? (Score:2)
A good start!
Not going to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we care about Mars as a hedge? (Score:3, Insightful)
"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?
What? (Score:4, Funny)
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."
Forget about colonization (Score:5, Insightful)
If humans screw up the earth to the point where it becomes unlivable, our species deserves to just become extinct.
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Re:Forget about colonization (Score:4, Interesting)
And what if an asteroid does it?
save the humans! (Score:3, Insightful)
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If we don't build a sustainable population off this planet in the next few decades, we die.
Be it political insanity, DNA-engineered disease, some eco-weenie dropping an asteroid on us to save Gaia from the evil humans or a natural disaster, we don't have long left. Humans already have the power to destroy most life on Earth in a very expensive manner, and pretty soon they'll have the power to do so in a fairly cheap manner. Once that power exists, it will be used by someone, somewhere.
Mars is a dumb place t
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Terraforming Mars over hundreds of years and several generations is a lot different than fixing Earth after it has been slammed my a large chunk of rock like those that have hit in the past and nearly wiped out everything, or those in the past that did things like ... you know ... turning the planet into one giant ball of molten rock.
When your data center burns down, its not really hard to rebuild it and start over, h
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Nice, but missing the point. The problem of a "catastrophic event" is not that global warming will kill us all. We can fix that. Well, maybe we can. What we can't fix is a piece of rock the size of Greater London falling on our heads and wiping out 90% of the life forms on the planet once more.
Re:save the humans! (Score:4, Insightful)
I sympathize. It also shows incredible naivety to think we can "fix all out problems at home first!"
Well, I guess we'll be going into space somewhere around the year 400 billion A.D.
I'll go. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Send me, a half dozen inflatable greenhouses, enough plants to eat/breathe from, and some quonset-type buriable shelters.
If this is a real interest, you could buy a square mile of desert for a few dollars and do pretty much the same thing on earth. Just hold your breath anytime you're outside of your hut. No need for NASA's help.
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Until you find that your kindle does not work in space......NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!
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First of all, "one way" doesn't necessarily mean they die. We could send a hell of a lot of unmanned supply dumps for the cost of upgrading from one-way to a round trip ticket.
Second, we would have no shortage of volunteers for such a mission even if it did mean certain death - Hell, I'd jump at the chance in a heartbeat.
Most people, I think, would like to believe their lives have meaning; you, and I, and 99.999% of a
Re:unethical (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just what I was thinking.
But that's probably the first step towards making Mars an entirely separate society from Earth.
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Re:Mars the new Australia? (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, yes, the slashdot we all know and love. Some bozo claiming that it costs about the same to keep a person locked up in federal prison as it does to send him 45 light-minutes away to a place with no water and practically no atmosphere where absolutely everything will have to be sent up there. And of course, not even a symbolic attempt at showing some cost estimates. Yes indeed.
I vote we send all of the "Get our asses to Mars" crowd and leave them there. BTW, they should fund it themselves.
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Mars is anywhere from 55M - 401M KM from the earth (depending on where they both are on their rotations)
that means at c, light would take between ~3 and ~22 minutes to reach mars from the earth.
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Both the moon and Mars are loaded with thorium. Of course, the Earth is loaded with 130 trillion tons of it so even if we started using it for all our energy we wouldn't run out any time soon but it still might be valuable enough to ship back to Earth.
Re:Does anyone else feel that this article... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no shortage of land on Earth. Canada alone could comfortably fit billions, assuming they don't mind living in a periodically cold, hostile environment that is still infinitely friendlier than that of Mars.
Re:Did anyone else... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're seeding technological infrastructure, why send people at all? Send ships of robots and parts, once the robots have assembled the habitat, pressurized it, prepared gardens, located water and what not, then you send people to live there.
Re:China will do this (Score:5, Insightful)
That treaty won't be worth the paper it is printed on once some entity that has enough resources to defend its property rights actually makes a large investment in space.