One-Way Trip to Mars, Anyone?

[Klaitu]

Here's the scenario: You and 5 other people have been selected for a one-way trip to Mars. You'll be riding a rocket into orbit and then rendezvous with the interplanetary craft.

You'll spend 6 months in space on the way to Mars, and when you finally set foot on the planet, you'll have a common habitable area made from parts of your spacecraft, and enough initial supplies to last you for an Earth year.

Communication to Earth is possible through e-mail and videograms and so forth, but realtime communication is not possible.

The ship is incapable of returning you to Earth, but Earth will send you replacement supplies as needed. You will spend your time doing scientific missions as prescribed from Earth, and there's a possibility that other humans will come to Mars in the future.

It's also possible that one day in the future that Earth can send a ship that can return you to Earth, but at the time of your launch, there is not even a design for it. It's unlikely that you will see Earth again except for through a telescope.

On the other hand, you may be the first person to set foot on Mars, or discover life there. There are also other possibilities like having the first Martian child. The trip would almost guarantee you a place in the history books.

Given this scenario, would you make the trip to Mars? Why or why not?

DISCUSS!

 

[Jetfire]

I want to say I would but Mars does nothing for me...other bodies in the solar system appeal to me more like some of the moons of gas giants...plus the views would be better than on Mars.

Being one of the first is appealing but over time it fades...I'll pass on this mission.

 

[sojourner]

Depends on the living conditions provided.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I think I'll have to take a pass, too. Environmentally, Mars is basically just a big, red desert, and not amicable to human life at all. Very, very little of what I would call "pleasant weather" there. I expect once the novelty wore off it would become a crushing bore, especially over an entire lifetime.

No, since my passion in life isn't geology (and even if it were would, I suspect, be more along the lines of analyzing data rather than lumbering around in spacesuits digging up rocks) I think I'll stay down here on earth, where there's a lot more of, well, just about everything.

 

[Amaris]

Only if there's a comely lass joining me, and adequate supplies.

J.

 

[Jadzia]

I'd have no desire to go to Mars, even for a one year return trip. Being the first is neither here nor there.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I've seen Defying Gravity, so my answer would be "no" too.

Besides, Mars ain't the kind of place to raise one's kids. In fact, it's cold as hell...

 

[Mark de Vries]

And there's no one there to raise them if you did.

Personally, I would say no, if anyone offered it to me. I'm all for manned exploration of the solar system, but I'm not sure if there's much to be gained in sending people there before you know they can come back again. They'd better come up with a ship that can make a return trip before sending me there.

That said, if I could, I'd love to go to space. I'm just not keen on staying there until I die.

 

[Joshua Howard]

I won't stop going to Starbucks, because it is an important part of my day for some reason. That says enough. After a week of being stuck in a little bubble on Mars, I would be going mad. It would be worse - psychologically - than life in prison, because even in prison there is a social network and knowledge of some connectivity with the outside world. Forever on Mars wouldn't work, even for a devoted scientist. If it was a habitable planet - like another Earth - that might be a different story.

 

[O'Dib]

I'd say fuck yes at the drop of a hat.

 

[Kelso]

You and 5 other people have been selected for a one-way trip to Mars.

How many of the 5 are beautiful women?

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Gee, I thought I'd be in the minority by not wanting to go. You bunch of lily-livered...

 

[T'Girl]

If the other five people were my spouse and children, or my spouse and two other couples. Start a small community. Sure we'd do science and explore, but we'd first (hopefully) grow food, develop local resources, build beyond little sheet metal huts.

Would I go as a colonist, yes. Would I go just as a NASA employee, no.

 

[Finn]

No thanks. If they find an Earthlike planet, I might think about it.

 

[Klaitu]

If the other five people were my spouse and children, or my spouse and two other couples. Start a small community. Sure we'd do science and explore, but we'd first (hopefully) grow food, develop local resources, build beyond little sheet metal huts.

Would I go as a colonist, yes. Would I go just as a NASA employee, no.

This is the scenario of work that I was trying to convey in my original post. Maybe you wouldn't be so much a colonist, but a forerunner to colonists, setting up the very first part of the infrastructure that will be needed to support more people.

 

[Joshua Howard]

^ I think that the entire defining issue here is the question of whether Mars could support life. If it could, then that is one thing. If plants could really grow there, and people could really exist there in a way that could be self-sustaining, it would be completely different.

Being sent to a mostly or entirely dead planet to collect data while living inside a bubble would be like a death sentence. Settling a new world would be a fresh start. For the latter, thousands - if not millions - of people in the world would be willing to commit their lives. For the first, you would be lucky to find one.

 

[Mr. B]

I don't understand the appeal of a trip to a barren rock with no hope of returning.

 

[Captain Pike]

I don't understand the appeal of a trip to a barren rock with no hope of returning.

Sounds like one of our old school trips..

 

[Klaitu]

^ I think that the entire defining issue here is the question of whether Mars could support life. If it could, then that is one thing. If plants could really grow there, and people could really exist there in a way that could be self-sustaining, it would be completely different.

The objective of the trip would be to create a somewhat self-sufficient base of operations from which to launch scientific missions, and possibly serve as the nucleus for a future colony.

Think of it like Antarctica's McMurdo station. Not really a colony, but still a permanent settlement.

Obviously when you first arrive, you will not be self sufficient.

Being sent to a mostly or entirely dead planet to collect data while living inside a bubble would be like a death sentence. Settling a new world would be a fresh start. For the latter, thousands - if not millions - of people in the world would be willing to commit their lives. For the first, you would be lucky to find one.

It's interesting that you use the term death sentence, as there is certainly a lot of risk involved in spaceflight, and of living in such an extreme enviornment. This would be true no matter the intentions of those on mars, settlers or not.

 

[Jetfire]

Other than our Moon & Mars what are the next choices for human colonization?