How do you feel about people willing to give up everything for a 1 way trip to mars?

[Superfluous J]

It's almost as if humans were fallible.

[vger]

It's almost as if humans were fallible.

If we weren't, this debate would be about the Andromeda Galaxy, and not Mars.

[Randox]

I don't see an issue. In fact, I am grateful that there are people out there who would be willing to make that one way trip. There are plenty of reasons someone might want to go, or not have a reason to stay, and their sacrifice would earn them a place in history and help pave the way for our future. Scientific progress isn't always safe. At least they would be going into it with some understanding of the danger ahead of time, as volunteers.

[Brethern]

Hindsight, hindsight. The causes of accidents are almost always obvious after the fact.

But that's the thing there was no need for hindsight to be required.

[Seret]

I think in a way the people who would most want to go would be the ones who'd end up the most unhappy. The urge to explore and have adventures is a fine thing, but humans are amazingly adaptable creatures. Once the novelty of being on Mars wore off (and it would eventually) they'd just be stuck in tiny cramped smelly living quarters with people they didn't choose, surrounded by a poisonous wasteland that they could only ever see an exasperating tiny patch of. No more adventures, no more exploring, just tedious housekeeping jobs and waiting for your inevitably premature death.

Mars would be an amazing, inspiring place to visit, but it would be a terrible place to actually live. I don't think the Mars One volunteers really appreciate that.

[InterCity]

Seems a bit stupid to me, due to one simple fact:

Since there is no oxygen at mars, there is not much space to live. This makes the "Submarine sickness" (a psychological state when you hate people you are living with due to lack of personal space) a serious concern.

[[email protected]]

I can accept that space travel is dangerous and things can go wrong.

However I can't accept that anyone who had the ability to build something as powerful as the saturn V could have screwed up so bad when it comes to what caused the accidents of 1 and 13.

By this point they knew the dangers of working with pure oxygen. They used it for diving during WW2 and it was part of the fuel for the damn thing, not to mention some genus though that having an inward swinging hatch was a good idea.

Then there's the apollo 13 issue. Who in their right mind designs a gauge that only reads to a certain temperature?

The only difference between todays NASA and NASA then is that back then they had money. Their intelligence level is the same.

Human fallibility will never be taken out of the equation. Challenger and Columbia are no different, both of those crews would have survived if NASA had been more cautious.

Atlas was build for less than 2 billion dollars in todays money. The new lifter they are designing for mars will cost over 20 billion. What do you mean lack of funds? They have a problem with bureaucracy, not revenue. Space X is developing hardware with similar capabilities for less than 1/40th of the cost. That's a bureaucracy problem my friend.

[Beowolf]

If I were healthy, I'd be on the volunteer list. This was even covered in pre-marriage negotiations with my wife. In the unlikely event that I get to leave Earth, I'm going. No matter what.

I'm still going, though it'll be a gram of my ashes rather than all of me. I maintain a separate life insurance policy solely to pay for that, in fact.

[Woopert]

I don't like it, it's the easy way to get to Mars. Bringing them back is more of an accomplishment and will prove important for long range space travel, and remember what JFK said:

"We choose to go to the Moon and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard!"

NASA is planning return missions obviously and they know what they're doing. Mars One is a hoax, anyway.

[Beowolf]

Mars One is a hoax, anyway.

Yes, there is that little hitch. I should clarify that, while I'd be on the volunteer list, I wouldn't be giving them any money beyond what I can afford for entertainment. I never did believe they could actually be ready to send people in just 10 more years.

[G'th]

I'd do it in a heartbeat, as there's a proverb in my particular religion that I generally hold as my personal motto:

A coward believes he'll always live, but there will be no rest in peace, even if spears spare his life.

Short of gross negligence, the risk of such a mission is a non-issue. Especially for those that are actually going. I don't think any astronaut, past, future, or current would honestly say they would rather be assured of there being no-risk even if it meant they never got to go.

Until we have advanced enough technology to make spaceflight accessible to the common man (IE, space capable vehicles as common as cars), there will always be a vast amount of risk involved. There's no reason to get that overly concerned about safety unless safety isn't being considered at all.

[dr_jt]

It can't be compared to the explorers or colony building in the old days. Those folks had resources available in the places they went to. They didn't have to worry about breathable air or the problems with gathering resources. Mars has nothing that can be easily used by humans. In order to survive everything including air has to be taken and resupplied. Soil, water, and nutrients have to be brought with them in order to grow food. Back in the day you didn't die because you got a hole in the roof. Making a colony on Mars is a very difficult project.

A co-worker of mine signed up and gave me the coffee mug she was given for signing up. It shows the tiny little habitats they will be spending pretty much the rest of their lives in. Think about living with four other people in a room about the size of the average bedroom for the rest of you life. Also think about never going outside without a space suit or being able to sit in the sun.

[Beowolf]

Also think about never going outside without a space suit or being able to sit in the sun.

Don't have to think about it, I kinda live it. I've been largely house-bound from disability for a decade. Right now, I haven't been outdoors at all for (I think) 3 weeks unless you count stepping onto the front porch to pick up a package. Medications make me highly sun-sensitive, so I haven't sat in the sun since my accident.

And you know what? I don't miss any of it. The only thing outdoors I miss at all is flying. I used to own an ancient, beat-up Piper Cherokee that I adored. People talk like it's horrible being stuck inside, but I honestly don't think I'd bother going outside if I was healthy long as I still couldn't fly. Everything else I want is right here. Heck, I even prefer the curtains closed and artificial lights on.

When I had 3 limbs in casts and was stuck in a single room, I did get some cabin fever, but it took over a month. Now that I can move around a 2500 sq ft house, I've never been bothered by it again. I don't get claustrophobic even when stuffed into an MRI scanner.

People differ. Some live for the wide, open spaces, while others couldn't care less. Hopefully those volunteering for Mars One are more like me in that respect.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Beowolf
added "Piper" so nobody would think I owned a person. ;)

[AmbientWalrus]

Space travel isn't easy or cheap in any respect. With a return trip, you just have a mission which is: more complicated and thus more likely to go wrong (harder), way more expensive, and rather pointless. Now, some of you may be confused by the fact that I stated a return trip is pointless. That isn't entirely true, but consider this. Once an astronaut is to land on Mars, he or she would have to wait for several months before they could start the journey back home. Now, the supplies needed to keep someone alive for that amount of time masses quite a lot, so much that no known rocket could actually carry that much to Mars. Thus, you obviously land the supplies on the Martian surface before the astronaut(s) get there, but what if the supplies can be harvested/grown on the Martian surface with equipment that masses a lot less than the supplies themselves? Well, obviously you send the equipment and save a lot of money! However, if that equipment you just sent to the Martian surface is sufficient to sustain multiple human beings indefinitely (it is), why send a return rocket? Instead of having a couple months to do valuable research, one could spend more than 30 years (not to mention that Mars One will continue sending people every two years until the colony is of a sufficient size to grow in size on its own) doing wonderful research on the Martian surface, for less money!

Now, would you rather: wait longer for a more expensive mission which would accomplish less, or get a mission which costs less and establishes a permanent human settlement on another planet? I prefer the latter.

[NASAFanboy]

I think most of them can stay inside for a very long time.

I've stayed inside for months at a time using artificial lights. Al I needed was a good copy of KSP and a computer, nothing else. Being stuck inside is nolonger an ordeal, with the invention of video games and computers

[Seret]

what if the supplies can be harvested/grown on the Martian surface with equipment that masses a lot less than the supplies themselves?

That's a pretty big "what if". It might be possible one day, but that's not where the technology is actually at. While doing it that way would of course be preferable, the downside is that you will have to wait decades (or longer) for us to develop the required technology. I suspect that for stays of a few years or so it'd still be cheaper just to send the consumables, the heavy machinery required for full self-sufficiency would be extensive.

At the moment any outpost on Mars would be getting all consumables from Earth. We're capable of fielding a semi-closed life support system, but all that will do is reduce the mass of life support consumables, it won't eliminate it. Fully closed life support is still a research topic, not actual tech. A permanent outpost would require regular and continuous resupply, which is where Mars One's business plan starts to look highly dubious IMO.

[Godot]

I think most of them can stay inside for a very long time.

I've stayed inside for months at a time using artificial lights. Al I needed was a good copy of KSP and a computer, nothing else. Being stuck inside is nolonger an ordeal, with the invention of video games and computers

I agree, when "staying inside" means that you have your own personal room/house, where you are not bothered by others.

It might be more problematic, if, due to place constraints, you have to live with closely together with others and cannot enjoy your KSP sesion without getting bothered by the noises of the others, or constantly have people who ask you questions, try to start a conversation, or see you doing KSP as some form of entertainment they have to watch

[Seret]

I don't think long-duration spaceflight is terribly analagous to being housebound, I think the closest thing would be life on a submarine. In a house you have fresh air, relative quiet, lots of space, services like entertainment, communication and can have anything you want (from fresh food to hookers) delivered to your door. That's really not the same psychologically as being stuck inside a small, noisy, smelly tin can with limited contact with the outside world and painful death on the other side of the bulkhead.

It's a genuine area of concern among flight surgeons, which is why they've run simulator experiments. The results did confirm a number of their fears. Participants did suffer psychological effects that reduced their effectiveness, such as depression and insomnia.

[James_Eh]

Frankly, I would. It would mean leaving my wife and (nearly grown kids) behind, and it would be the hardest decision I would ever, ever make, but the opportunity to be able to make that kind of contribution to the species as a whole, which I am quite positive I will never have otherwise, is something that I would not be able to turn down, assuming that my assessment of the mission gave SOME kind of success probability. What is that number? No idea. 40%? 50%.

It's moot, because I am too old and underqualified for such an endeavor.

HOWEVER:

I remain fully convinced that the only successful one-way colonization missions will need to involve families, at the very least young couples. History supports this. Ocean voyages to new lands. Covered wagons to the North American plains. And so on. People did not just risk their own lives, but their families'. And this is where I begin to waffle immensely. What if the mission were only taking families? Would I accept the same possibility of death for my entire family? I suspect that is where I would back away from this. Could I take my kids on a 1 way trip to Mars even if the odds were 80% that we'd survive? I'm not sure I have that in me.