One Way Trip to Mars

[Skyskimmer]

you guys are prooving very quickly why NASA will never have a mission to mars.

Your not seeing the money side of things. Send just 4 people their and back will cost 100's of billions. The scientific value could be done for 1/10th the cost. Exploration which is really just flag planting is also very silly.

The only way this will get public support is if it's for colinzation. Sure there are loads of risk with that, but at a cost of multiple billions per person, it's worth it to leave them there.

For the record it's not double the cost to send them back. Sending return fuels will much more than double the price of the way there.Not to mention the excessive need for return safty will double the cost itself.

If a astornaunt can't realize to get a once in a lifetime oppourtunity, he must cut several years off his life, he's not worth sending. I personally would take 30 years off my life for such a chance, I'm sure I wouldn't mind staying their if I knew the savings could be spent taking millions of people out of poverty.

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

you guys are prooving very quickly why NASA will never have a mission to mars.

Your not seeing the money side of things. Send just 4 people their and back will cost 100's of billions. The scientific value could be done for 1/10th the cost. Exploration which is really just flag planting is also very silly.

What have you been reading? Where do you get your numbers from? A round trip mission to mars with a permanent base can be done for less than $40 billion. We could use an Earth-Mars cycler that constantly travels between the planets to cycle astronauts in and out. A 500 day mission with boots on the ground could probably tell us more than all of the Mars probes combined. We would almost certainly determine whether life existed there or even exists today.

The only way this will get public support is if it's for colinzation. Sure there are loads of risk with that, but at a cost of multiple billions per person, it's worth it to leave them there.

Didn't I just say earlier that NASA's purpose is not for colonization? The goal of NASA is science and discovery... not exploitation.

For the record it's not double the cost to send them back. Sending return fuels will much more than double the price of the way there.Not to mention the excessive need for return safty will double the cost itself.

The return trip would be made using the Earth Return Vehicle that could attach to the cycler. By bringing back the astronauts we not only get their valuable samples and science experiments, but we bring the astronauts back home too. An astronaut with Mars experience would be extremely valuable for our country in many ways, stranding them on Mars is just not fair. Why would you want to strand them on Mars with no possible way back for many years without even knowing if they could survive 500 days there? To save a bit of money?

If a astornaunt can't realize to get a once in a lifetime oppourtunity, he must cut several years off his life, he's not worth sending. I personally would take 30 years off my life for such a chance, I'm sure I wouldn't mind staying their if I knew the savings could be spent taking millions of people out of poverty.

That was quite rude SpaceSkimmer. Show some respect for the "astronaunts" as you call them.

 

[Skyskimmer]

What have you been reading? Where do you get your numbers from? A round trip mission to mars with a permanent base can be done for less than $40 billion. We could use an Earth-Mars cycler that constantly travels between the planets to cycle astronauts in and out. A 500 day mission with boots on the ground could probably tell us more than all of the Mars probes combined. We would almost certainly determine whether life existed there or even exists today.

Didn't I just say earlier that NASA's purpose is not for colonization? The goal of NASA is science and discovery... not exploitation.

The return trip would be made using the Earth Return Vehicle that could attach to the cycler. By bringing back the astronauts we not only get their valuable samples and science experiments, but we bring the astronauts back home too. An astronaut with Mars experience would be extremely valuable for our country in many ways, stranding them on Mars is just not fair. Why would you want to strand them on Mars with no possible way back for many years without even knowing if they could survive 500 days there? To save a bit of money?

That was quite rude SpaceSkimmer. Show some respect for the "astronaunts" as you call them.

A) My point about nasa was they don't have the stomach or desire for such a trip, and for 1/10 th the cost the same amount of science can be done.
B)Alright I was taking a guess on the Mars plan no need to take it too serious, still depends on how long you wanna go their, and as I said people have no interest in spending 40 billion dollars to send 4 people their for 1.5 years.Aside from that does that include radiation shielding masses.
C)Still don't belive it would be worth the cost to send people back, rocks are 1/20 th the cargo of the people.
If you don't have serious plans for colinization than it's a waste of time. People will never back it, unless it's about expanding life as we know it.
D) Rude, that's entirely how you see it, I think it's rude that spending 5 billion a person, is worth getting one person back from mars. Keep in mind we live in a world were millions of americans are at risk at war everyday, and I think there risking theirs lives on a far smaller scale with far less money at stake. If they can't think in those types of terms they simply are not up to the job.

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

A) My point about nasa was they don't have the stomach or desire for such a trip, and for 1/10 th the cost the same amount of science can be done.

Yes, they do have the stomach and the desire. NASA has always wanted to go to Mars, it's just that no president has been brave or competent enough to give them the political will to do it. We got to the moon because of the political powerhouses of LBJ and Kennedy, both of whom fought for the Apollo program and ensured its success. When HW Bush proposed we should go to Mars, he doomed a Mars mission for at least 20 more years because he essentially threw NASA to the wolves once they released the 90 day report.

And you still haven't provided your numbers where you got 1/10th the cost from.

B)Alright I was taking a guess on the Mars plan no need to take it too serious, still depends on how long you wanna go their, and as I said people have no interest in spending 40 billion dollars to send 4 people their for 1.5 years.Aside from that does that include radiation shielding masses.

I think we should stay there permanently. Eventually maybe some space profiteers will decide to try and set up a small town around the NASA bases, and perhaps NASA could help them with that similar to COTS. NASA's business is not colonization though. Show me one place where NASA publicly states that their official goal is to colonize other worlds. It's not. It's to learn and explore, not colonize and exploit. I think $40 billion would be well worth the cost, it could be even lower than that if some of the bureacracy is reduced and the cost could be divided among several nations to help.

You see the money is not really a big issue- $40 billion is very much worth a mission to Mars compared to the 1 trillion that we've wasted on the War on terror.

Here's my question to you, how would colonization be any cheaper than that? Do you care to provide any statistics or literature that I could take a look at?

I'm sure you are asking the same of me. I'd like to reccomend you read "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Here: http://books.google.com/books?id=tyGFoz ... &q&f=false

There's some really good information in there. He favors an approach with a permanent NASA base that has its crew rotated out every 500 days that leads to eventual town building and finally terraforming.

So you see I am not opposed to colonization, but it is foolish to immediately try to colonize a place that we do not know if we can survive there for long periods of time or not. Small steps is what I advocate.

C)Still don't belive it would be worth the cost to send people back, rocks are 1/20 th the cargo of the people.
If you don't have serious plans for colinization than it's a waste of time. People will never back it, unless it's about expanding life as we know it.

Nope. People like NASA, it's not that spaceflight is expensive, it's that the program really isn't going anywhere. If we had set up the moon base, did the Venus flyby, space station, space shuttle, Mars mission, and other components of the Apollo Applications Program then we would be in a much greater position in space than we are today. Robert Zubrin says that almost everyone he's talked to first hand is in support of a manned Mars mission, and there are polls that support this.

I think you will actually find it a lot easier to convince people to support a 4 man permanent Mars base than this huge scheme of colonization like you are talking about. You can say that each ship that comes could just add more astronauts, but for each person there it costs more money to track them and take care of them. Show me some numbers that say otherwise.

D) Rude, that's entirely how you see it, I think it's rude that spending 5 billion a person, is worth getting one person back from mars. Keep in mind we live in a world were millions of americans are at risk at war everyday, and I think there risking theirs lives on a far smaller scale with far less money at stake. If they can't think in those types of terms they simply are not up to the job.

NASA doesn't hire astronauts for Mars colonization, and since none that I know of have publicly spoken their thoughts on the ethics of it, then you just can't make that claim they are "not up to the job". It is not THEIR job to colonize! It's there job to explore and discover all that we can about Mars. That's what really matters, not exploitation.

 

[Space_pioneer]

I'd say that discovery and exploration lead up to exploitation. You don't know what goos stuff is there if you don't check first.

 

[Skyskimmer]

A) My point about nasa was they don't have the stomach or desire for such a trip, and for 1/10 th the cost the same amount of science can be done.

Yes, they do have the stomach and the desire. NASA has always wanted to go to Mars, it's just that no president has been brave or competent enough to give them the political will to do it. We got to the moon because of the political powerhouses of LBJ and Kennedy, both of whom fought for the Apollo program and ensured its success. When HW Bush proposed we should go to Mars, he doomed a Mars mission for at least 20 more years because he essentially threw NASA to the wolves once they released the 90 day report.

And you still haven't provided your numbers where you got 1/10th the cost from.

B)Alright I was taking a guess on the Mars plan no need to take it too serious, still depends on how long you wanna go their, and as I said people have no interest in spending 40 billion dollars to send 4 people their for 1.5 years.Aside from that does that include radiation shielding masses.

I think we should stay there permanently. Eventually maybe some space profiteers will decide to try and set up a small town around the NASA bases, and perhaps NASA could help them with that similar to COTS. NASA's business is not colonization though. Show me one place where NASA publicly states that their official goal is to colonize other worlds. It's not. It's to learn and explore, not colonize and exploit. I think $40 billion would be well worth the cost, it could be even lower than that if some of the bureacracy is reduced and the cost could be divided among several nations to help.

You see the money is not really a big issue- $40 billion is very much worth a mission to Mars compared to the 1 trillion that we've wasted on the War on terror.

Here's my question to you, how would colonization be any cheaper than that? Do you care to provide any statistics or literature that I could take a look at?

I'm sure you are asking the same of me. I'd like to reccomend you read "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Here: http://books.google.com/books?id=tyGFoz ... &q&f=false

There's some really good information in there. He favors an approach with a permanent NASA base that has its crew rotated out every 500 days that leads to eventual town building and finally terraforming.

So you see I am not opposed to colonization, but it is foolish to immediately try to colonize a place that we do not know if we can survive there for long periods of time or not. Small steps is what I advocate.

C)Still don't belive it would be worth the cost to send people back, rocks are 1/20 th the cargo of the people.
If you don't have serious plans for colinization than it's a waste of time. People will never back it, unless it's about expanding life as we know it.

Nope. People like NASA, it's not that spaceflight is expensive, it's that the program really isn't going anywhere. If we had set up the moon base, did the Venus flyby, space station, space shuttle, Mars mission, and other components of the Apollo Applications Program then we would be in a much greater position in space than we are today. Robert Zubrin says that almost everyone he's talked to first hand is in support of a manned Mars mission, and there are polls that support this.

I think you will actually find it a lot easier to convince people to support a 4 man permanent Mars base than this huge scheme of colonization like you are talking about. You can say that each ship that comes could just add more astronauts, but for each person there it costs more money to track them and take care of them. Show me some numbers that say otherwise.

D) Rude, that's entirely how you see it, I think it's rude that spending 5 billion a person, is worth getting one person back from mars. Keep in mind we live in a world were millions of americans are at risk at war everyday, and I think there risking theirs lives on a far smaller scale with far less money at stake. If they can't think in those types of terms they simply are not up to the job.

NASA doesn't hire astronauts for Mars colonization, and since none that I know of have publicly spoken their thoughts on the ethics of it, then you just can't make that claim they are "not up to the job". It is not THEIR job to colonize! It's there job to explore and discover all that we can about Mars. That's what really matters, not exploitation.

Well most of your points about NASA aren't relevant, I mean cleary there goal isn't colinization or does there budget allow for it, nor are they willing to hire the right kind of people to send. When I say Colinize I mean send 15 people or so permanently.

The costs our a bit of a different story, if you can show me who's citing realistic cost models of 40 billion dollars, and what they plan to do with that money, I'd love to hear it I assume 4 billion in probes would equal that scale of a project.

You mention politicis, but I don't think your being realistic, people won't get as excited about going to mars as they did the moon, there too jaded, realiseing it's a one time deal. A quick stop over to be watch on youtube. I mean NASA has zero ability to act beyond 4 year timespans, espeically in the economic times were facing, this will have to be international.

If it's for permanate settlement, it won't be NASA recruits you will have people who have spent about 15 years each in prep for the mission(mostly in remote isolation in the high artic, or anartic, people who have been conditioned over decades for mars.

 

[netarch]

Time to update this thread - it's in the news...

Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship? The title is misleading, as typical news is. It's really about a one-way trip to Mars.

"A NASA official may have made a 35-million-mile slip of the tongue.

The director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California casually let slip mention of the 100-Year Starship recently, a new program funded by the super-secret government agency, DARPA. In a talk at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference, Simon “Pete” Worden said DARPA has $1M to spend, plus another $100,000 from NASA itself, for the program, which will initially develop a new kind of propulsion engine that will take us to Mars or beyond.

There's only one problem: The astronauts won't come back.

The 100-year ship would leave Earth with the intention of colonizing a planet, but it would likely be a one-way trip because of the time it takes to travel 35 million miles. That’s a daunting prospect, partly because of the ethical dilemma, and partly because it may be the only recourse."