One-way trips to Mars are being talked about these days as a way to make colonization of other planets possible.

So, I ask you, OB. How do you feel about this? Would you go, to be the first human to Mars? Do you want others to go, or do you think the whole thing is a waste of resources?

Paging Lisa to a thread about one-way trips into space.

I would instantly sacrifice myself to any trips into space.

Need to see if it's possible for someone to travel to mars or some other crazy space shit? One way trip? No problem! I'll do it!

Just give me a window to look out of so I can contemplate human existence for the rest of my existence and some weed.

I seriously can't think of a better thing to do with my body and life. I made up my mind on this issue when I was very young.

SPACE MAN. SPAAAAACE.

Links please Dr.

I've been hearing this for months with no reputable sources to confirm.

LeeChan said:
I would instantly sacrifice myself to any trips into space.

Need to see if it's possible for someone to travel to mars or some other crazy space shit? One way trip? No problem! I'll do it!

Just give me a window to look out of so I can cont...

I salute you! You make me proud of humanity. =)

Oh hell yes I'd take a trip to Mars! The one-way bit... well, that's a little rough. But you know, imagine what you'd do for humanity.

Also, Martian babies. As long as a chick comes along for the ride, I'd make sure mine was the seed that birthed the first extraterrestrial human.

smartass said:
Oh, no, there are no definite plans. I said it was being talked about, which it is. I could find you a link that says people are talking about it, if you want!

Links please.

I just finished re-watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos the other day and I agree with the man entirely when he says, without a doubt, that exploration and colonization of other planets is one of the most important steps we'll take as a species as we continue to attempt to understand the universe and our place in it.

There is a WEALTH of information to be learned by exploring Mars. So much to learn that being a member of a one-way trip to Mars on a ship constructed today with today's technology that can send information back to Earth would be an absolute honor.

The question really isn't "Should we go to Mars?" but when. You can say it's a waste of resources considering that there a people living in poverty who have no source of fresh drinking water and from a certain point of view that's true! I firmly believe that in the long run exploring our solar system is a crucial step for humanity and if it needs to be privately funded to happen because the governments of the world are too busy fighting wars in the middle east then so be it.

I misread Mahs as "mass" and I was really, really confused for a few minutes. And also thought maybe you meant to post this on some other website.

I wouldn't go (I don't handle being out of civilization well, even just on a camping trip) but I would totally support those who would go to Mars!

Battlestar Galactica said:


Links please.
PS: And don't link to this thread. That doesn't count. PS: And yes I would go.

http://...foxnews.com/...space-volunteer-way-mission-mars/

http://...discovery.com/...uman-space-settlement-mars.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01krauss.html

So, as I said, people are talking about it.

didnt google do their april fools day joke about privately funding a colony on mars?

didnt we have a thread about it? maybe in the bin?

questions on the job application were legitimate questions but it was funny because they were being presented to a general populace. at least it was funny to me.

questions like "How much experience do you have in extraterrestrial travel? Please list and briefly describe your three most recent trips away from the planet Earth."

StuntCock said:
Carl Sagan's Cosmos

I'm getting started on that series this weekend!

AWW YEA, SPACE.

I'm showing it to a friend this weekend too!

CARL SAGAN IN THE MOTHER FUCKING HOUSE!

Hell yeah, I'd go! I'd sculpt a giant crayon dick from all that red sand. It would be so big that you could see it from an earth telescope.

I'm not really huge on manned space exploration, even though I think flying to the moon was one of the best things the human race has ever done and the fact that Cosmos was arguably the most influential thing in my life next to MAD Magazine and Star Blazers.

For me it just comes down to the fundamental issue of not being able to harvest any organic resources in space. Everything we need to live comes from the Earth. (Or, well, the Sun's energy directly or indirectly making shit happen on Earth)

Eventually we as a species would need to get off this planet in order to survive in the really long term, but I'm not even totally sure that's worth it. I mean, why? So we can do this to another planet?

Even flying to space is depressing. You know why we need such big rockets to get to space and it takes hundreds of pounds of fuel to get a single pound of cargo into orbit? Most of the fuel is spent lifting the other fuel. It's just a losing equation. You can't really move stuff into space, so we either need to find a way to make stuff in space or to get stuff into space easier.

To me, that's the very first goddamn thing that needs to be figured out before manned space exploration becomes something to seriously consider. The proposed space elevator(s) or something like that.

Flying to Mars on a one-way, two-way, or 4892-way trip is an neat technical feat but what would it even prove? For the same amount of resources we could launch quite a few unmanned missions and learn more.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think we ought to do that until a cheap way to get stuff into space at least looks like it's on the horizon.

Are those people that lame to where they would give up seeing their family and friends to die on Mars?

Yeah, I'm really not as into deep space exploration until we learn to make a self perpetuating ecosystem and source of energy (or at least something close). If that were possible, we could send those crazy generational colonies into deep space. Unfortunately the closest we got was that biodome and it fell to shit pretty fast.

You know, it confuses me when people say stuff like "We can't/shouldn't bother with this until we figure out how to ________, THEN we can colonize another planet. "

That's the point, people! You know how science and technology went nuts when we raced to beat the Nazi's to the atomic bomb and later to beat the Soviets into space? Think about an effect like that happening without millions of people dying for it!

John mentioned launching stuff from outside of Earth's orbit. That's generally accepted as how any kind of manned expedition to Mars needs to happen. That means if we're going to seriously talk about colonizing Mars the scientific minds of our day are going to figure that out. Same goes for self sustaining ships that can power themselves and feed their crew. That's what's exciting about manned exploration of other planets, the advances that are going to come out of working out the details!

Manned flight happened in 1903. The very first plane. In 1969 we landed on the god damned moon. Think about the difference in technology that exists between those two events and they're only 65 years apart or so. We could make strides forward of that magnitude in another 65 years if we wanted to and that's pretty fucking incredible to think about!

I agree with Sean, technology always advances in leaps and bounds when we set HIGH expectations and EXTREMELY difficult tasks before us.

Though, I'm also with John in respect to taking the steps one at a time and slowly making transitions to achieve said goal.

To me, sending people to Mars doesn't seem as much as a contribution to humanity as say concentrating on other stuff such as solving our energy needs and making our cities and environment eco friendly.

I mean before we colonize another planet, why cant we put in practice some easy solutions to better ourselves here and use those solutions for future missions to Mars. We can pose the problem "how do we survive on mars" and test those theories right here in preparation for future missions.

Going to Mars is a low priority on my "things to achieve" scale.

This kind of shit is why i do the job i do.

Sagan speaks very eloquently to it in Cosmos, but Bradbury really kills it in his essay "To soon from the cave, too far from the stars". I reread that essay every time I start to feel hopeless about the way we deal with space exploration. I've had to reread it like 4 fucking times this week as I go through the new budget proposal and realize I have to help find a way to shave about a billion dollars from space exploration.

It really does come down to a $ thing, everyone talks about how there was such a spur too technology during the space race with the Soviets. What most people don't think about is the fact that when that occurred NASA had 12% of the federal budget at its disposal. NASA now has less than .05% and it continues to get cut.

That's less than half a percent at a time when we will have no space shuttle within months, and no official plan on what we are actually going to be focusing our energy on for the new means of leaving the earth.