Who will volunteer to go to Mars? (split-off)

There seems to still be some confusion on this, someone said it was 'common' in engineering circles. Are we still planning to send men/women to Mars? Have any of you volunteered to go?

Quote: TwoFeathersATL

Are we still planning to send men/women to Mars? Have any of you volunteered to go?

I'll go.

Don't go. the basic problem when going to Mars is that you'll be gone well over 2 years -almost three years.

It would take the best NASA space ship over 7 months to travel from Earth to Mars, assuming that you time your departure from Earth to be when the two planets are on the same side of the Sun and optimally close in their orbital positions. By the time you arrive at Mars the Earth has been on the other side of the Sun (186 million miles further away than it was when you left Earth) and is starting its way on its circular orbit back "towards where Mars currently is." If you touched-down on Mars for two minutes and immediately left, you would not be in time to arrive back at the Earth's orbit - the Earth will have already gone past its closest approach to Mars and be on its way to the other side of the Sun again. You need to remain on Mars for about a year before you can leave to arrive on Earth again!

In my professional life, I occasionally worked with NASA on various problems. That's where I came to understand that traveling to Mars was not like traveling to the Moon. The Moon orbits the Earth and is always a fixed distance away. Mars and Earth both orbit the Sun at very different angular velocities and the distance between them varies incredibly with time.

Quote: gordonm888

Don't go. the basic problem when going to Mars is that you'll be gone well over 2 years -almost three years.

More interesting, the stuff which is light years away. http://www.space.com/32537-stephen-hawking-starshot-space-exploration.html

Quote: Wizard

I'll go.

I actually would go too.
We need additional companions, you ain't enuf ;-)

Beam me up, Scottie.

I'll go. No conditions, no qualifiers. I'll just go.

I saw an article about a developer attempting to raise funds for a "Mars Experience" theme park in Las Vegas. Habitats, space suits, a 1/4 gravity experience... You could get an annual pass and try it for a year...

I'd go if it was a round trip. A one way trip would be a rough way to go.

My 2 cents on the matter:

*I ain't going

*I think it is highly likely the answer to the Fermi Paradox is that intelligent life is likely to get wiped out by catastrophe, the universe being a very dangerous place - we are learning more and more in which ways this is true all the time

*therefore I agree with Carl Sagan that we need to be a multiple-planet species, and Mars is an obvious choice [certain moons of Jupiter may soon compete with that?]

*I ain't going

Quote: odiousgambit

*I think it is highly likely the answer to the Fermi Paradox is that intelligent life is likely to get wiped out by catastrophe, the universe being a very dangerous place - we are learning more and more in which ways this is true all the time

I also think we underestimate how hard it is to thread the needle of 1)developing a technologically advanced civilization and 2) not destroying ourselves.

We've got nukes, of course. And we've got people in high positions of power who don't believe in global warming, as well as some who believe the apocalypse is coming and that this is a good thing.

I think we're a huge dog to make it to a Star Trek type existence.

I thought we were on our way back in 1969 with Apollo 11.
Went far, and quick.
Covered such a relatively short distance since.

I know it's hard, and ghastly expensive.
But I still dream.....

a sobering perspective

Quote: go-to-mars-advocate Robert Zubrin

(paraphrasing)Since Apollo, for over 4 decades, manned missions have been stuck in low earth orbit

Meanwhile, the trillions saved by putting the manned exploration of space on hold have yielded positive results. Vaccination rates are up, extending the global average life span, clean water is getting to more places in the world, and being the poorest of the poor in the United States is actually not as bad as the poorest of the poor in most other countries. We are still able to send probes, rovers and satellites into space to explore and collect information without risking human life. We had enough problems just getting folks up and back with the Space Shuttle. A Mars colony would be a huge sinkhole for resources. Let's get folks back on the Moon first.

I think we are going to be around for a long time (barring another giant asteroid strike, super volcano eruption, solar flare, gamma ray burst...)

What's V.P. Joe Biden been doing to forward this? President Obama gave him responsibility for this in a State of the Union address.

The main problem with further space exploration is propulsion. There is an inverse relationship between thrust and specific impulse and we haven't had a big breakthrough for decades. Maybe VASIMR will finally work... And or some form of EP. Going to Mars and beyond with old school liquid propellants is a fool's game.

Edit: To keep with the spirit of the thread... I'll go when I'm confident we can protect the astronauts from cosmic and solar radiation.

Well, I'm not going to go if it's certain death. Gimme some better odds.

Quote: rxwine

Well, I'm not going to go if it's certain death. Gimme some better odds.

You may have missed the point. It's certain odds if you don't. Also if you do. The fact that you will die one day, what does that have to do with the question at hand ;-?

Tomorrow is always a good day to die, much better than today.

In many respects I suppose the risk is similar to early Earth exploration in wooden boats. Years involved. Didn't know if you were going to make it back. Even if you set up a colony it could fail in a year or two for one reason or another.

Quote: rxwine

In many respects I suppose the risk is similar to early Earth exploration in wooden boats. Years involved. Didn't know if you were going to make it back. Even if you set up a colony it could fail in a year or two for one reason or another.

Very true. Except for the lack of oxygen, or water, or food unless you can digest rocks. There is always the unknown, it draws some, scares the hell out of most!

'Wooden Ships on the Water'....da da dee
Jefferson Airplane I think it was, though CSN made it famous, though it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, the bands that is....

Crosby was one of the original rascals. I met him 'bout 20 years ago, a funny tale, for another time..
Read Graham's book recently, apparently we crossed paths too, much earlier.....

Quote: Ayecarumba

What's V.P. Joe Biden been doing to forward this? President Obama gave him responsibility for this in a State of the Union address.

He's probably busy with the Moonshot to Cure Cancer that Obama put him in charge of in the most recent State of the Union.

I'm pretty sure I'd go... I'd want to try to go as part of a colony though, where we attempt to make a sustainable biodome or something one could actually live off of for the rest of their lives.

I remeber in the movie Armageddon Steve buschemi negotiated never paying taxes for the rest of his life. That's a good start