While the idea of sending astronauts aloft never to return is jarring upon first hearing, the rationale for one-way trips into space has both historical and practical roots. Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip, usually because the places they were leaving were pretty intolerable anyway. Give us a century or two and we may turn the whole planet into a place from which many people might be happy to depart.
Krauss also points out that he knows people who would be willing to go right now.
If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand. The lure of space travel remains intoxicating for a generation brought up on “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”
Would you guys be willing to travel to Mars knowing you’ll never come back? Would Michele Bachmann being elected president help in your decision? Four more years of Obama? Vote below.
Hilarious comment from Mr. Glum, “Um, pilgrims and colonists were going somewhere with an oxygen atmosphere.”
Good point!
yes.
I didn’t read the article yet but yes I would be willing to die on mars and the rest of my family would probably be willing to come along.
31. The idea of one-way trips has been the basis of a few Science Fiction books…
I seem to remember one where they would clone this guy and send his clone into space. Of course the clone would die and they’d have to send another one. Finally, for some utterly contrived reason, they had to send him and not another clone. Of course, for some utterly contrived reason he made it back somehow.
It was so utterly contrived I’m shocked it was never made into a movie starring Keanu Reeve.
I believe I read somewhere that JPL was founded (or co-founded) by some devil worshiper(s), or cultists. And possibly there’s still a strong enfluence of them today. So it would come to little surprise to me, if they now want their own planet to run amok on. And isolationism would be their mode of choice. Maybe Tom Cruise will move to Mars.
#34 Glenn said, “Maybe Tom Cruise will move to Mars”
Xenu can provide Tom with better transportation than that. Maybe he can go further out to a whole other galaxy, although unfortunately, that will not be far enough away.
I have a better idea, send pedro and alfred1 there instead. them dying on mars would move the world forward.
Robots first to build the stuff.
When enough of a viable situation exists (green houses and the rest) i see no reason why it should be one way.
Lower atmosphere and less gravity do have some benefits.
Just park the return craft in orbit, or even send it later, the launcher would as here be just fuel and a shell for the people to get up with.
Perhaps a rail launcher there would be more viable then here too, to cut down fuel expenses even more.
But if one could die by old age i see many willing to go.
And as for colonization, do the old fashioned way, send convicts at the start.
as opposed to having a death panel here on earth, where do I sign?
I would be happy to go.
To die off Earth would be wonderful. No one has done that.
Cursor_
I’ve told my wife I would go given the chance. I’m sure there are a few here that would go and a few that would want to see me go.
I’d be willing to bet, without even looking into it that Lawrence M. Krauss is a Demoncrat, favors abortion, and still backs President Hussein in everything he’s doing, like good NAZI.
Whatever………………..
Traaxx
[And were you one of them? – ed.]
While I HAVE a pussy I am not one of THE pussies.
Since I knew I wouldn’t b
#42 – continued after finger check:
Since I knew I wouldn’t be coming back, I’d send back videos of me pulling rosary beads and scientific instruments out of my butt.
With a few notable exceptions, the space program is just entertainment for the masses – a romantic, expensive distraction. In fact, every invention facilitated by the space program would have been made, in time, on earth.
Consider the meaning and implications of a “light year” and you will realize that the idea of interplanetary exploration and colonization is ridiculous. And if you believe that worm holes, warp speed and other sci-fi stuff is real, you have big problems.
“Mankind is meant to explore.” Baloney! Money and spreading religion have always been the reasons to explore.
Mars does not matter
Jupiter does not matter.
The Moon does not matter.
Black holes do not matter.
The Sun will explode and eat Earth. It does not matter, because we can’t stop it.
What matters is our only home – Earth – while we still have it.
@RealityCheck
how far away do you think Mars is that you invoke “the light year” year and postulate interplanetary travel is impossible? You do realize probes have visited every planet in the solar system? It takes nine months two get to Mars, even modest technology gains could could tha time to weeks.
Wait I got it!!!! The Mutant Star Goat is coming to eat earth!!! we gotta go colonize mars!
into the first ship, the ‘A’ ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or ‘C’ ship, would go all the people who did the actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the ‘B’ ship – that’s us – would go everyone else, the middlemen you see.”
(with apologies to Douglas Adams…)
#43 – Sister, lighting farts at Zero-G might be interesting too.
# 44 RealityCheck,
“Mankind is meant to explore.” Baloney! Money and spreading religion have always been the reasons to explore.
I thought running away from the horde of mongol swords was the reason to explore.
@RealityCheck
owNow far away do you think Mars is that you invoke “the light year” year and postulate interplanetary travel is impossible? You do realize probes have visited every planet in the solar system? It takes nine months two get to Mars, even modest technology gains could could tha time to weeks.
Yes I would take a one-way ticket to Mars. I would love the chance to start a colony on Mars. But the real reason to go to Mars is to learn how to live and expand in space, even if it is only in our little solar system for the foreseeable future. For all the planets there are 1000 times more asteroids and comets to explore and mine.
# 46 Special Ed said, “Sister, lighting farts at Zero-G might be interesting too.”
Nah. You wouldn’t get a good flow around the rosary beads.
Hundreds of thousand of complete and utter IDIOTS are willing to die in foreign wars just to make American corporations richer. Why should they be able to find more IDIOTS willing to die going to Mars? The US is in no short supply of stupid people.
A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!
The trip is going to be long and boring with excellent odds that you will get a lethal amount of radiation on the way.
When you get there you will be lucky to find a fossil microbe. I might settle for bugs or some such but not nothing.
We’ll never go to Mars. The conditions that set the Moon race, no longer exist.
# 50 Cap’nKangaroo:
“…For all the planets there are 1000 times more asteroids and comets to explore and mine.”
Now you’re talkin’! There may be untold mineral riches in those smaller bodies, with no gravity well to overcome. And the less valuable ones can be used to gravitationally nudge Mars into a closer orbit, and add to its mass at the same time! Just fling them in such a way that they graze Mars, stealing some of its momentum, slowing it so that it wanders in closer to the sun. Crashing a few hundred million comets on its surface might even help build an atmosphere and supply some water. They’re out there free for the taking!
We might even double-purpose some of these gravitational missiles — arrange their orbits so the momentum they steal from Mars gets transferred to Venus. Move it farther away from the sun and maybe it will eventually cool enough to land on. If we arrange it so they all land going around the same way, we could even spin it up so it has a decent day/night cycle.
Now _that’s_ terraforming!
#1 Mars has no global magnetic field, so there is nothing to protect against the Sun’s radiation or loss of local atmosphere.
#2 Mars has no ozone to protect against UV radiation (see #1 above).
#3 There is nothing to do there but eat out of a can and shit into a can.
#4 After four months the “Science” one does there 12 hours a day, everyday, will be so utterlly boring and pointless that one would probably want to shoot one’ s self in the head (I speak from experience on this point).
#5 There will never be anything to do on Mars because of 1-4 above.
For some people the meaning of life is survival. They are the bean counters. They work so hard they hardly have time to enjoy themselves with friends and family. They abandon their dreams convinced that the risk is too great. I guess if the quality of ones life were measured in years passed safely… Everybody dies, nobody knows when or how, so choose, on your feet or on your knees. For my part I’d like them to consider me as a candidate. If won $ 51 million in the lottery I’d give it all to the russians to fly to the ISS and back.
I completely agree with RealityCheck, the space program is just entertainment for the masses – a romantic, expensive distraction.
We should first care of our Earth – while we still have it..