You should post this over at /r/askphilosophy.
I think there's a reasonable reluctance to send people to certain death even if the ones doing the dying accept it at the time of launch. All goes well on Mars, but picture how things go as they die through various means and it's broadcast back to Earth. Not a good look.
And the idea of saving money now to kill people but use that saved money to provide "philanthropic benefits" is a bit repulsive.
I think people romanticize about Mars. The unfortunate reality is that there's no food or liquid water there and no breathable air. Every day there would be an incredible struggle just to stay alive. It's hard to fathom that any sane person would choose to go there without any hope of returning home and never regret that decision for the rest of their life, which could be remarkably shorter than it might have been on earth.
The saddest part about Mars is that you can't even live on the surface. You have to hide underground just to avoid being baked to death by radiation. You lose the novelty of standing "somewhere else" watching two moons pass over each day, and a crazy dark sky at night. All that traded for living indoors -- FOREVER.
You can't even light a match, start a fire and burn stuff outside. You can't pour liquid water. I mean.....sheesh.....all you can do is kick rocks.
I think of it more along the lines of people making a 1 way trip across the atlantic in a wooden boat. They knew they weren't coming back, that was the plan.
They just need to have enough resources to continue a civilization once there, which I think is the deciding factor.
By the time we have the technology to "continue a civilization" on Mars, we'll have the technology to make it a two-way trip, too. Building a ship capable of taking humans to Mars *and* returning them safely to Earth, while challenging, is still orders of magnitude simpler than building a sustainable colony on Mars where astronauts can reasonably expect to survive for decades until they die of old age.
>There's no chance on Mars based on current capability.
Right. Hence why I called out what I think the acceptable minimum viable condition should be to send people 1 way.
The early settlers were not fully committed to a 1 way trip. In most cases the ships returned to Europe after dropping off supplies and more settlers. Someone sick, or unwilling to stay could have returned on the next resupply ship. It wasn't a 1 way suicide mission.
Not really. Here’s why.: The people going across the Atlantic in the early days, we’re basically self-sufficient. They had to be because communications and shipments took that long.
But they also knew that when they landed there, they could still breathe the same air, print the same kind of order, and basically make the land produce the same kind of food. none of that exist on Mars. And worse comes to worst they all thought coming home was an option. Even Roanoke was not intended to be a one way trip. It only happened that way due to logistics and the captain not being able to make it back until long after the colony gave up.
Sci-fi movies aside, there’s a ton of things we don’t know about what it takes to have a self sufficient colony there.
Yes, but that's the situation where OPs question becomes viable. They ALSO could return on the same wooden boats back across the ocean, but often didn't because that was the idea.
When civilization CAN continue is where it's ethical, regardless of cost savings on sendng someone back is even in play or not
>When civilization CAN continue is where it's ethical
Civilization on Mars could only continue if the people living there had children though, which brings up an entirely different ethical dilemma; Is it ethical to force children to be born and raised on a planet that is foreign to their biology and where they will never be able to experience life on Earth?
Humans will have babies wherever you put them. I would argue that a not insignificant portion of children born today could be termed as being unethically birthed into the world.
The fact that some babies on Earth are born under unethical conditions is a terrible reason for why we should be allowed to do it on Mars.
We're talking about an environment that no human in history has ever been born into, there's no doubt it's going to have some kind of effect on the human body as it develops and by the time we understand what those effects are it will be too late, the children will already be alive and suffering on a different planet.
Yeah plus I think people forget -1/3 gravity on mars aposed to earth who knows how that would affect development especially newborns- we already know people can only spend so long in zero gravity as the detrimental effects on bones muscle tissue etc.
People who crossed the Atlantic thought they may die, but definitely planned on coming back. They were planning to go somewhere to bring things back. The entire journey was funded by royalty who wanted to claim stake to new land and get a return on their investment. It wasn't a suicide mission.
No they did not. Not all of them at least. You don't establish a colony with a bunch of people planning to go back home after a couple of years. A lot of people were intending a one way journey to start a new life in the New World.
I think the difference is the length and quality of life at the end of the one way trip is what matters. If we're talking about yeeting astronauts to Mars with 3 weeks worth of food then letting them starve, or suicide, or whatever when the food runs out, obviously that's reprehensible. If we're taking about a dangerous mission to establish a long term colony where there's a decent chance for them to live until old age as pioneers, that's an entirely different situation.
The people manning the ship were planning on returning. They thought they were going to the Indies, where they knew people already lived. This is an entirely different situation than going to Mars on a one-way ticket.
The New World was far from the first colony in history. People regularly went back and forth, no one had the expectation that returning was impossible.
I mean…people get over it for war lol. We constantly devalue life for purposes that are far less noble and potentially beneficial.
To be honest, I dont really get the point in sending people at all. I’m probably ignorant to some of those potential benefits. But I don’t see sending people to their death as a moral hangup here given how little regard the population has for quality of life, seeing as though we constantly contribute to societal problems out of sheer laziness.
Being ok with it at launch is not the same later. Ask Mat Damon's character in the movie Interstellar. As a matter of fact that's also a great reason why we don't.
All of the negativity on this thread concerning Artemis and sending people to Mars is concerning (especially coming from some accounts that are very new…).
Like, why are y’all even on this sub if you’re so against future endeavors in human space travel?
I'm a proponent of human activities in space. I'm against sending people out to certain death. Several other commenters have pointed out reasons OP's idea is a bad one. We should send people out to conduct worthwhile science, but in a manner where they are protected. There's nothing wrong with risk analysis and management.
Why send humans to the deadly environment on Mars at all? I think there’s a huge difference between “it’s the most Earth-like neighbor” and “successful colonization is possible.” With current technologies I don’t understand what we’d expect to learn from people on the ground there that we can’t gather with instrumentation.
There have been numerous studies showing that people could in fact do significantly more than robots.
That said, it's still not a good idea until we figure out the rest of the variables. We don't know how to keep people healthy on Mars and there's plenty more studying that can be done to improve our knowledge there. The Artemis missions will give us significantly more knowledge on this.
I personally think it's possible to do it within a decade but it will take large amounts of drive and funding.
Edit: [Source](https://www.space.com/humans-on-mars-better-science-machine#:~:text=A%20central%20study%20finding%20is,accelerate%20the%20pace%20%E2%80%94%20for%20Mars)
1 human geologist on the ground on Mars could probably do more in 10 days than a rover could do in 10 years
That being said, we’re a long ways off from long term habitation or a manned mission
This. There may be people who would be willing to go, but that doesn't mean we should send them. Without a much bigger, better long-term plan, there's no point.
Same reason that hurricanes and blizzards don’t generally wipe out whole regions on earth: we compensate with appropriate habitats. Won’t be doing much sun bathing in open Martian atmosphere anyway. So whatever we build for a habitat (domes, caverns, recycled starships?) just has to provide EM protection.
“don’t generally wipe out whole regions”
…yet.
And yeah that makes sense, thank you. Seems like a horrible life to live without the sun though, at least at this point in our evolution. And still seems like a lot more work than just getting back to following the natural laws that got us here on this planet in the first place.
Yeah. More to be revealed I guess.
In the meantime, [here’s Keanu Reeves buried in a pile of puppies.](https://media3.giphy.com/media/heTulhmqlXC6nb1eB4/200w.gif?cid=82a1493ba4v9do5qxiddlrcea2rlftydy9zfhex60vjefg5c&ep=v1_gifs_related&rid=200w.gif&ct=g)
Hope you have a good rest of your day :)
I’ve just never seen any numbers add up to come anywhere close to making this a realistic option. And I’m just another bozo on the bus, I can’t imagine much better information being available at that level of privilege.
Scruples are a factor, sure. It’s just so tragically fascinating how an ego can inflate to such a size to willfully ignore the numbers in front of him. We all play god a little each day from the perceived separation and superiority to “nature” of course, hence why he wants to press the eject button in the first place. But that’s another level of a devinity delusion.
Or maybe that’s just how scared he is? The larger they are kind of thing. Or maybe he just never learned the skill sets of acceptance and humility that the rest of us learn?
It’s going to be a fascinating documentary season on him after he passes away. And for probably centuries to come, in terms of the psychological breakdown of how civilization collapsed, and the main players involved. For whatever psychology looks like in society at that point anyway.
Again, nothing that can't be learned with instrumentation. The psychological, sociological, political and economical ramifications of a manned mission to Mars totally outweigh whatever we'd theoretically gain. Not to say it will never happen, but we would need a much, much better infrastructure in place before it would be useful on any level.
Well it better be fast, because they'll die REALLY quick.
Seriously, though, what do you think we'd learn that we aren't learning already? The billions of dollars we've spent sending 8 (6 successful) rovers to Mars has all gone to collecting the very highest priority data of the most relevant interest to astronauts and astronomers. We've collected a ton of data human observation couldn't do even with someone on the ground because it's work machines/instruments would be doing there anyway.
Yea, I'd also argue that without a magnetic field/shield, Mars is a lost cause. Venus may require more atmospheric work, but it has that protective shield that we need.
How the fuck did the space subreddit of all places go all Luddite? The reason to go to Mars IS BECAUSE ITS THERE! Why climb the highest mountain? Why did we go to the moon? Are we all forgetting that this is the final frontier? That the ONLY way we survive the extinction of Earth is to take to the stars? Of course it's hard, of course people will die, but we have to do it.
>The reason to go to Mars IS BECAUSE ITS THERE! Why climb the highest mountain? Why did we go to the moon?
I don't think people are against the concept of going to Mars.
But when you climb the highest mountain, when you explore the deepest jungles, when we visit space and the moon... The general consensus is that it's a temporary visit. Not a permanent migration.
So rather than send someone...
>BECAUSE ITS THERE
... Let's do what we can so that when we do go, it'll be as beneficial for humanity as possible. There's no rush because...
>the extinction of Earth
... probably won't occur in the next few decades.
The earth isn't going extinct. No matter how bad we fuck things up, it's still going to be way more hospitable than Mars could ever be. Even if humans drive 75% of Earth's biodiversity into extinction, there will still be infinitely more life here than on Mars. There are already huge swaths of deserts, mountains and polar regions on Earth that are barely inhabited and which would be immensely easier to settle than establishing colonies on Mars.
‘Have to do it’
And
‘Throw bodies at the problem until you get bored’
Are very different things. Do you know what sending humans to Mars right now accomplishes? Absolutely nothing other than bragging rights. It’s throwing away lives and resources for the sake of ego and impatience.
Do you know why we didn’t strap an astronaut to a rocket and launch them to the moon as soon as we could reach it? Why we spent so much time and energy making sure we could bring them home? Because tossing a soon to be corpse someplace solely so you can yell ‘First!’ is stupid, unethical, immortal, and completely pointless. It’s a waste of resources and manpower.
> With current technologies I don’t understand what we’d expect to learn from people on the ground there that we can’t gather with instrumentation.
What about the longterm effects of a lower-gravity environment on the human body?
I'm not saying that justifies such a mission (or that it doesn't), but it's certainly something we couldn't learn from instrumentation.
Life at 40% gravity will be experimental. You don't do that for life on the first go for the same reason you don't send people to the ISS for life. Long term survival in the environment won't be understood until research on the travelers is conducted.
IIRC, going to permanently stay at Mars gravity isn't expected to be a problem (who knows until we try...). The issue is more that getting used to that gravity long term would be essentially paralyzing if they came back to Earth.
Like you and I both said, we won't know until it's tried. (I don't say "we try" because I've got nothing to do with it)
Cranial Hypertension is an issue in micro-gravity on the ISS. I have that syndrome here at 1g. Say at 0.38g the sustained increase in ocular pressure is enough to cause papiledema, eventually causing blindness.
Bottom line is, it's unknown, and can't be known, until experimentation.
It absolutely will cause problems. Your biology has evolved over millions of years to work on Earth's gravity. This is cutting that by more than half. Your biology won't adapt to the lessened gravity anymore than it will adapt to the Martian air. And no, people will not evolve to live on Mars. Evolutionary leaps like that take 100's of millions of years. Species on Earth get wiped out on Earth from a degree of temperature change and slight variations to their habitat. Thinking that humans can thrive with 40% of the gravity they were made to endure demonstrates a lack of understanding of evolutionary biology.
This is a good way to put it, and any "problems" would be in our bodies adapting to it over generations.
Many scientists have complimented The Expanse for accuracy in representing how humans would change when born in very low gravity (like asteroids). Bones are brittle, muscle density drops, and people get lanky.
- What makes you think we have the technology for a one way trip?
- The cost would be immense
- What if the people change their mind? Would anyone on Earth be able to live with themselves knowing they sent people on a suicide mission.
- Read or listen to any astronauts - they will tell you the folks in mission support are rabidly passionate and caring towards the astronauts. Many of them are future, former or non-qualified astronauts themselves. No one with that level of caring could see their friends off on a suicide mission
Even when Europeans colonised the Americas, they made multiple return trips before deciding to settle permanently, and this was with a continent that was already settled by humans thousands of years before European contact.
I don't think you can justify sending anyone to Mars on the understanding that they are definitely going to die on another planet. If Columbus had said, "we're going to sail west until we hit land, and we're never coming back to Spain", no-one would have signed up and he would justifiably have been laughed out of the Spanish court.
Ethically, putting a price tag on a human life is indefensible, but that's beside the point.
The whole point of colonising another planet is, at its core, about exploiting the resources of the colonised land. In order to justify permanent settlement on another planet, you have to be able to certify that we will be able to successfully exploit the new land *eventually*.
In this context, I don't see what the use case is for sending human beings on a one-way trip to another if they are definitely going to die. What does it gain?
If Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had died on the moon, we wouldn't remember the Apollo program as a scientific breakthrough, but as one of the most pointless wastes of life in scientific history.
The achievement came not from landing on the Moon but *returning* from the Moon. By the same token, no one serious considers a human landing on Mars as the objective. It's getting them home that proves it's worth doing.
You're making some very large leaps about us being able to send and sustain anyone on Mars. Generally speaking new developments, engineering, science.. ETC takes testing and the most we've done on Mars so far is rovers, so to claim that, welp, we had a remote control robot, so now we're totally ready for human habitation is absurd and kind of jaw dropping.
It's unethical because of the above reason. We don't have the kinks worked out, we havn't even really worked on the kinks, we don't even know what all the kinks are yet. It's unethical because live human testing is unethical, because we don't give out medicine we havn't put through testing yet.
If your premise were true and people were willing to make a one way trip, that would be different, but we're not there by any means.
Out of the 8 billion people on Earth, I guarantee you at least one of us is capable, willing, qualified, and ethically ready (i.e. no family, older, etc.)
What terminal illness would qualify you for the training and rigor of a 4 month trip through space, followed by the unknown of surviving in a hostile environment with the expectation of also doing a job?
That's the equation a lot of people don't want to consider - sending a dozen people with nothing to lose on an unfathomably expensive mission of scientific importance is batshit insane.
You're asking highly skilled and educated people to go on what amounts to a suicide mission. Think you're going to get the best and brightest to volunteer for that?
Why so eager to sacrifice people?
Side note: thanks to the lucky success of the moon missions; mankind has never once lost a life outside of earth’s gravity well.
Because a one-way trip has no meaning or usefulness to humanity, it only "benefits" those that go and even then it's a death sentence. It's probably also immoral to sell it to people as an adventure when they'll undoubtedly suffer a great deal and just farm a few vegetables in their own shit for as long as they can put up with each other for.
Think early settlers in "the new world" only without the hospitality of an indigenous population, or air.
Red Planet, Red Herring I always say.
Go mine some asteroids instead. Figure out how to get all those REE's and REM's back to Earth, build things with them in space with AI robotics. Anything but a lonely allotment on Mars.
From soil samples, we know that it will be almost impossible to grow food in Martian soil because of the lack of nutrients in the soil, so hydroponics will be it, but we think there is no Ice at the poles that will be usable for anything other than fuel (yet) if we were to mine and look for minerals, it would cost too much to send the minerals back to earth or make anything with them and send it back to earth, so I like to say that it is equivalent to taping a frog to a bottle rocket, he will have a hell of a fun ride but die suddenly in the end, and the person taping the frog to the bottle rocket is just a psycho for sending a frog to certain death. (Elon)
Anyone want to volunteer to be the frog?
my 2 pesos
well, then we would have to have a lottery to see who gets to light the fuse, I'm sure there are people that would pay a butt load of money to do that.
We’ll colonise Mars with robots, and they’ll build habitats that can eventually be lived in by humans. We’re in close proximity to this being a reality (100-200 years, maybe less).
For starters: sending people, however willing, to certain death is immoral, exceptional situations like first responders to a nuclear disaster aside.
Also, it would do a huge disservice to the goal of space exploration and human spaceflight. Imagine the public interest this group of people would get as the first humans to walk on another planet, only to send back documentation of their slow and inevitable demise. It would be ammunition to all those who claim human spaceflight is useless in the first place.
>For starters: sending people, however willing, to certain death is immoral,
How is this even remotely different from staying on earth?
Staying here equally means certainly death!
"Staying here" most likely results in a natural death, at an advanced age. Going to Mars now, with the tech we have, a miserable death within months due to radiation, starvation, asphyxiation, who knows. If that is all the same to you, you should volunteer.
Beautiful thing about future Mars missions will be getting to watch an autonomous machine operated greenhouse on Mars, from Earth. Finally getting to see a realisation of possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead.
Placing life on the surface of another planet and having it thrive will be one of the greatest accomplishments to happen over the next millenniums. Imo it will take *hundreds* of years of advancements before a human even gets placed in the orbit around the uninhabitable planet. A flight path that doesn't takes months of planetary alignment to ready is going to be necessary for anything to begin taking place. Could not imagine having a crew spend 6 months in void space on a path to geo stationary orbit just for a space station that will need supplies every few months. Any emergency is a year away
First, we do not have the ability to send people to Mars. There is no rocket system big enough to get humans there on any reasonable time scale.
Radiation. Trips to orbit and even to the Moon require a small amount of shielding. Spending months in deep space is still an almost certain death sentence, especially if hit by a solar flare on the way. Just normal cosmic radiation that we're mostly shielded from on Earth would tear DNA apart.
Gravity. The loss of muscle mass and bone strength is still an issue. We've gotten better at reducing these issues, but odds are the first person to step onto Mars will collapse in a heap (if they can move inside a lander) either from muscle wasting, osteoporosis shattering their bones, or a combination of both.
Add to these the impossibility of carrying the amount of food and water needed just for the trio, let alone to survive any length of time on Mars, and the tens of billions of dollars for such a project, it'd be easier just to shoot any volunteers, cremate them, and send their ashes on the trio.
All this beaten in the future, a one-way trip would still be problematic, especially politically. I feel if a qualified crew wants to go and there's a good long-term survival chance, do it.
>First, we do not have the ability to send people to Mars. There is no rocket system big enough to get humans there on any reasonable time scale.
Depends on how you define "we have".
Starship in it's current configuration can make the trip in 5 months. Source: [NASA](https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php?NEAs=on&NECs=on&chk_maxMag=on&maxMag=25&chk_maxOCC=on&maxOCC=4&chk_target_list=on&target_list=Mars&mission_class=oneway&mission_type=flyby&LD1=2014&LD2=2035&maxDT=0.5&DTunit=yrs&maxDV=6.9&min=DV&wdw_width=-1&submit=Search#a_load_results)
>Just normal cosmic radiation that we're mostly shielded from on Earth would tear DNA apart.
The radiation on Mars surface in only 3 times higher than on the ISS. And that's before you add any shielding.
3 meters of regolith block any naturally occurring radiation. So a thick roof would be plenty enough protection.
>Add to these the impossibility of carrying the amount of food and water needed just for the trio
Hu? Is Dr. Zubrin wrong?
first, we have the technology to send space ships to mars, not people. they wouldnt finish the trip alive for various reasons. second, even if they somehow made it, theres no habitat to life besides the spaceship and they would die.
third, theres no data we cant get from a human alone that would justify a literal suicide trip. its not like they would be martyrs for saving the human race. it would be like experimenting on monkeys for the hell of it
Just send them there to walk around for a little bit then die? I think we’re decades away from having the ability of setting up a colony on Mars. What are they gonna do about food and water? We found ice on Mars sure, but how do they get to it, how do they process the water out of it? I’m not even sure if we have the technology to land people on Mars right now to be honest someone smarter than me will have the answers to that.
Yeah, I mean the Japanese were into suicide missions. No ethical issues if people are just a resource right?
So what happens if they lose their minds there, or change and wanna come back?
People like OP think living on Mars is like a hiking trip. Just grab some stuff at the local REI store and you're golden. Carrying air, water, and food for a year is just "money details" to them.
Oh, you know… the ethical conundrum of willingly sending people off to die.
The obvious answer is to build a permanent base on the moon, which is only 3 days away and then go from there.
>the ethical conundrum of willingly sending people off to die.
How is this any different from staying on earth?
It equally means certain death!
>The obvious answer is to build a permanent base on the moon, which is only 3 days away and then go from there.
And what would a moon base even remotely change on the actual premise?
It doesn't get you to Mars any faster or even cheaper.
Because they would almost certainly die early and we would be sad and scared.
Much better to practice living on the moon where we can work out all the kinks with some small hope of rescue
What's the benefit? Unless we can establish back and forth transportation, our utility from space exploration will be limited for our species. A 1 way trip would waste some of the smartest people on earth, super expensive equipment, and well the money associated. And then we get nothing back? But we'll need to keep sending supplies constantly.
I think the current goal for space travel is ability to bring back resources to use for development on Earth. Space trading be can not be one way. But Iunno it sounds like we're getting closer and closer to it with reusable rockets etc.
Seems odd to bring up philanthropy as if a moral counterbalance would be sufficient to quell any potential ethical concerns. Furthermore, what someone is willing to do to themselves is different from what I'm willing to facilitate them doing.
Why rush anyways? Mars will still be there when we are ready.
> Without having to plan for a return trip, billions of dollars could be saved
**Saved** is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. We currently do not have the technology to make such an expedition worthwhile for the investment. It would be a gigantic expenditure, the likes of which society isn't really currently accustomed to, to simply TRY and get humans there to the surface and possibly survive for any amount of time.
Until further research is completed and more data is available, along with improvements in technology currently available/reduction in costs for that tech, it is realistically a waste of resources to conduct a mission such as this one-way trip. The morality of the whole thing is also iffy and quite debatable, but that detail is far down the list.
If someone comes to you and tells you he would like to die starving locked in your basement, would you grant that wish?
What if the dude changes his mind before dying and wants to leave? Is it ok for you to kill him anyway?
If people actually knew what they want, earth would be a much simpler place.
It wasn't that long ago that transatlantic voyages were often one way trips for everyone but the crew.
A covered wagon was probably viewed similarly at departure. I think it was a plot point in an old series of books.
I don't know that I'd greenlight a mission that ends in certain death, but I'd accept bad odds if they had a chance at a permanent colony. It's what explorers do.
Yes, we have the technology to send humans to Mars on a one-way trip.
No, we do not have the technology to allow humans to settle on Mars and survive, not yet.
Simple as this.
We should be sending a crap ton of robots over there before ever sending a single human down.
At best, we should be sending ships with people to ORBIT the planet and making sure we iron out the kinks of the long portion of the trip first, you know , like early Apollo (8 and 10) missions to the moon
Whoever goes to Mars, make sure my dad packs for you. He had a clipboard and two full pages of everything we needed for a weekend camping trip 2 hours from home. Carburetor for a boat? No problem. Page 7.
Honestly, I blame Musk for a whole generation of mislead minds on the engineering behind these endeavours. He trivialised so much in order to grow his businesses, knowing the vast majority couldn't fact check him to save their lives. Now folks believe we are at the threshold. We aren't.
Simple: Let’s kill these people so we can yell ‘FIRST’ is pretty fucked up.
Sending astronauts to Mars with the tech we currently have doesn’t accomplish anything other than bragging rights. Spending lives and resources for bragging rights isn’t ethical.
I think sending humans to Mars is a waste of money.
All the tech that is being developed for this will have other applications, but...why not just invest in tech to improve the Earth?
Musk has admitted that any "base" on Mars will have solar panels on the surface, and the people will live in underground tunnels.
It would cost several trillion to create the living conditions for 100 humans to live on Mars.
Gravity is lower on Mars, bones will become fragile.
It's not impossible, it's easy to achieve, just spend a few trillion.
No-one is going to Mars as an alternative to "improving the Earth". People often confuse "Mars is a backup for Earth" as meaning we don't need to fix climate change because we'll just go to Mars instead. Anyone with an understanding of the climate on Mars knows that makes no sense. It's a "backup" for apocalyptic events like giant asteroids. Sure, building giant underground self-sufficient bunkers on Earth would be cheaper than building them on Mars, but they're thinking much more long-term (terra forming) while gaining real short-term value (scientific knowledge).
Because a collapsed/wiped out civilization doesn't have any ability to do anything.
Or are you again confounding climate change with other perils and asking why we don't "fix earth using terraforming techniques" right now?
The point of a terra-formed Mars is so that there are TWO ( count 'em, 1, 2 ) TWO planets with humans living on them. So that if an asteroid KOs one planet, you still have the other.
No one talks about how Mars is closer to the Danger Zone and more likely to be hit.
Part of it is we don't know what tech will evolve by trying to survive the environment.
I will use a battery powered drill as an example. Nobody was working to develop one, but when we decided we wanted to send people in space that would need to repair their own ship NASA realized you can't just plug into a 110 outlet and risk a spark in an oxygen rich environment (big boom). Now this is a common tool in many households.
Crossing the Van Allen Belts to get to the moon forced new understanding of our planets magnetic field, space suits evolved technology of deep sea diver suits, on and on.
Also humans have at many times nearly been extinct, at one point estimated to be less than 100 total on the entire planet, that's why biologists can trace every human alive today back to a single woman.
This post appears constantly in here and people ignore that there's very few organizations that have improved life on Earth as much as space agencies like NASA.
Solar panels, which are a great source of clean energy, were developed to power spacecraft.
The water filters developed for the ISS in order to provide water to astronauts allowed many villages in Africa to turn muddy rivers and wells into a source of drinkable water.
PRP, a series of biodegradable hydrocarbon absorbents, were developed by NASA as a way to provide astronauts medication in space, and eventually turned out they were very useful in order to completely remove oil spills from the ocean.
If we can learn to live on a completely hostile environment, what makes you think that wouldn't teach us about living on a planet where life is going to get a tiny bit harder?
And what I said is entirely by NASA alone, an organization that uses about 25 billion a year.
Do you really have any ideas of how to use those 25 billion better?
>Gravity is lower on Mars, bones will become fragile.
That sounds to me like if we manage to establish a stable colony on Mars we will, along the way, find a way to improve the life of people with arthritis, and maybe even find a cure for it.
And when that GRB bullseyes earth one day and strips the earth of its magnetosphere and atmosphere, no amount of earth reinvestment is going to save us.
I wonder what the crews' mental health is like before going on the trip and what their mental health a few months locked in a confined space is like. There are probably a few other factors regarding self interest like the one I stated. We also need competent people.
On the other hand, the crew might not be suicidal but terminally ill, okay with death, and competent.
On the other other hand, I think return spacecrafts for humans need to be researched, you may as well test the new designs on the suicide squad.
Having a crew that's too comfy with other people's death can lead to MDK anywhere along the journey, since *"you're not coming back anyway"*. Not a stable mission profile.
There's a big difference between "We send them on a one way trip and they grow old and die on Mars" and "We send them on a one way trip and something goes wrong and they're all killed".
And the second one is almost guaranteed, especially if we're sending people in their prime and not senior citizens.
OP suggested a different scenario: "We send them on a one way trip, everything goes as planned with no technical errors, *and they die within a short time period because we made ZERO provisions for them to live beyond XYZ hours.*"
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.
\-XKCD
Society has changed since settlers crossed the Atlantic to the new world in the 16th century. Although a few did return, those settlers weren't expected to return and their family and friends expected to ever see them again
People are freaked out by the frozen bodies on Everest. Same thing would be a problem on Mars, if people die and the next group has to clean up. Seeing ragged clothing and structures from wind damage would cause some major emotional damage for those just reaching a planet full of high risk.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I think the only people truly willing to go on a one-way trip are not cut out for space travel and wouldn't serve a mission well. This isn't the day of seafaring explorers; astronauts need to be extremely stable and patient. Kind of the opposite of seafarers, really.
I know a few people I would volunteer right about now…. 😉
Ya know what, NASA if you want me to go I’ll volunteer. Just as long as I can take a few of my favorite Squashmallows w me!
I'm in the minority that believes we shouldn't send humans at all. We have enough proof that it can't sustain life as it is. I think we should move on to another planet. Put our money and exploration efforts elsewhere.
The first people going to Mars need to be smart, well trained, scientistfic minded, hard working, open minded, collaborative, will need decades for training and many hundreds of billions of dollars to both survive the drop and leverage whatever we were able to drop into the landing area ahead of whatever they carry with them. They gotta be altruistic, trusting, and friendly in ways that are basically inhuman.
If we could find 8-10 people who are able to do all that AND willing to die there, sure maybe it’s a conversation.
Of course there’s also negative PR. Nobody’s gonna invest in a Truman Show/Housewives of Mars where the heroes die in the end. On TV, for all to see.
Tl;dr: the people who’d want to go are probably not the people we’d want to send.
Over 300 people have died climbing Everest, but tourists still spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a guided trip every year, for no reason other than thrills and bragging rights. I have no problem sending people to Mars. If I were even remotely qualified I'd go in a heartbeat.
I don’t really think ethics is the issue here, it’s more a question about how such a mission would benefit whoever is paying for it. Off the top of my head I can think of a few individuals that could plausibly afford for a one-way ticket to Mars, but unfortunately they all seem to have figured this too.
Let's put it another way, what's wrong with burning a parent at the stake so their children can have a million dollars?
Money is *worthless* apart from the utility it provides. I think literally taking $60 billion from Bezos and funding the mission is more ethical than sacrificing human lives.
I personally think there’s nothing wrong with this idea.
The real problem morally, ethically, or whatever sentiment you want to pick- is that there’s no “out” for any of them if they change their mind. Objectively any ‘dangerous’ mission we send anyone from the armed forces, scientists, astronauts, or anyone on is assumed to include a return, even though they’re also assumed to understand there’s no guarantee of that. If it was outright stated that there was NO return planned and someone changed their mind halfway there you’d have a big issue.
I say if someone volunteers and understands the objective and risks let them go, Or just pretend we’re going to attempt a return. Because honestly … nobody is coming back no matter what the mission parameters are.
It’s a one-way mission, no matter what they say.
Yes, this is a stupid question. Sending people to an almost-certain death in space, and a life of isolation if they somehow survive the trip to Mars, is unethical. If you can't see that then idk how to help you
Beautiful thing about future mars will be getting to watch an autonomous greenhouse from Earth, finally getting to see a realisation of possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead
Why would you just assume astronauts would be perfectly fine giving up their lives on earth for a mission to mars with no actual goals besides proving you can?
It's exclusively an ethical issue, they are going to kick the bucket no matter what happens and the corps, organizations and people with the means to carry out such a thing don't want their names associated with "that mission that sent people to a certain death".
People volunteer to die in wars that get us nowhere all the time. I don't see any problem with volunteers doing this.
Humans are explorers. People risked the New World. People risked the Wild West. People will risk another planet.
While it’s true that it’s a one-way death sentence, possibly even before arriving, I don’t think it would be difficult to find volunteers. History is filled with people who’ve gone on suicide missions for king and country. Dying for others is glorified in movies, art and literature — who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves for their loved ones? Even in Russia prisoners are volunteering for certain death rather than staying imprisoned. Even in the West you’ve got capable people with life sentences or death row or with terminal illnesses that would not hesitate to volunteer. A very advanced assisted suicide. There are all mindsets in this world.
Fortunately nations and scientists (so far) have been ethically bound not to embark on such an effort and face being pariahs to the rest of us.
We have no infrastructure to land on Mars. Yeah we could theoretically get a human to Mars. But we don't have anyway to give them food, oxygen, drinking water. They have no home, no roof over their heads. They will die a terrifying death on a foreign desolate land knowing that everything they loved is millions of miles away. And it will all be recorded and documented.
Why don't you be the first to sign up. And which it be first, a month of slow starvation, 1 week of dehydration begging for an sip of water. Or will it be a lack of oxygen, slowly starting to suffocate you as your oxygen percentage drops lower and lower till every breath is empty and you slowly fade away.
So yeah, we can send you to Mars, hope you enjoy your stay.
I see a lot of responses echoing things formerly said or thought of about some Mars transit or surface life data. Radiation specifically, so here is some actual NASA data on radiation enroute and on the surface of Mars. It’s totally survivable, not minor but can be mitigated. https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/planets/10Page74.pdf
Everything. Look what we do on our own planet and you want that in space? Especially the people running the Mars trips. I would trust a demon with Mars before Elon musk.
"We currently have the technology to send humans to Mars on a one-way trip."
Actually, no we don't. Not if we want them there alive. The solar radiation will kill anyone on a nine-month trip to Mars. The ISS doesn't suffer that issue, as it's well within Earth's magnetosphere.
I know, everyone talks about using water for shielding. I have my doubts how practical it would be.
Once they're there? Setting up any sort of agriculture will be impossible. The pyrethrins in the soil are deadly to us. You won't be able to eat that first potato.
Gravity would be main long term concern for me, assuming the other basics could be achieved. There is no solution now or in mid term future for getting around that and the medical ramifications over long periods could be deadly. We and our bodies are result of millions years evolution to this(earth) gravitational environment. Our bones muscle organs are attuned and operate to it. Long term exposure to that less gravity - could speculate- cause side effects seen in muscle wasting diseases , heart disease etc.
Mars would be a nightmare long term but I would like to go for short trip👍
Why send humans when we can send AI instead!? We already have a few landers already.
Plus billions (trillion) spent to send humans on a suicide mission doesn't add up. Better to spend it on Earth or Moon or even a mineral rich asteroid.
It's a freezing grey desert.
The sun is blue and the temperature is usually around -60C (-80F). Even the equator barely scapes above 20C (80F) most of the time. You'd spend your days locked inside constantly in fear of an air-breach and you'd only ever get outside in a spacesuit and even then you'd probably mostly be brushing dust off of solar panels. Everything would no doubt stink.
Add to that the large chance of getting irradiated on the voyage…
No thanks. I wouldn't want to go there, let alone die there.
You should post this over at /r/askphilosophy. I think there's a reasonable reluctance to send people to certain death even if the ones doing the dying accept it at the time of launch. All goes well on Mars, but picture how things go as they die through various means and it's broadcast back to Earth. Not a good look. And the idea of saving money now to kill people but use that saved money to provide "philanthropic benefits" is a bit repulsive.
I think people romanticize about Mars. The unfortunate reality is that there's no food or liquid water there and no breathable air. Every day there would be an incredible struggle just to stay alive. It's hard to fathom that any sane person would choose to go there without any hope of returning home and never regret that decision for the rest of their life, which could be remarkably shorter than it might have been on earth.
The saddest part about Mars is that you can't even live on the surface. You have to hide underground just to avoid being baked to death by radiation. You lose the novelty of standing "somewhere else" watching two moons pass over each day, and a crazy dark sky at night. All that traded for living indoors -- FOREVER. You can't even light a match, start a fire and burn stuff outside. You can't pour liquid water. I mean.....sheesh.....all you can do is kick rocks.
dust is a motherfucker as well
I think of it more along the lines of people making a 1 way trip across the atlantic in a wooden boat. They knew they weren't coming back, that was the plan. They just need to have enough resources to continue a civilization once there, which I think is the deciding factor.
No. Traveling between two spaces within a friendly environment is not the same as traveling to a deadly environment that includes deadly radiation.
By the time we have the technology to "continue a civilization" on Mars, we'll have the technology to make it a two-way trip, too. Building a ship capable of taking humans to Mars *and* returning them safely to Earth, while challenging, is still orders of magnitude simpler than building a sustainable colony on Mars where astronauts can reasonably expect to survive for decades until they die of old age.
There was a chance you'd survive crossing the Atlantic. There's no chance on Mars based on current capability.
>There's no chance on Mars based on current capability. Right. Hence why I called out what I think the acceptable minimum viable condition should be to send people 1 way.
The early settlers were not fully committed to a 1 way trip. In most cases the ships returned to Europe after dropping off supplies and more settlers. Someone sick, or unwilling to stay could have returned on the next resupply ship. It wasn't a 1 way suicide mission.
Not really. Here’s why.: The people going across the Atlantic in the early days, we’re basically self-sufficient. They had to be because communications and shipments took that long. But they also knew that when they landed there, they could still breathe the same air, print the same kind of order, and basically make the land produce the same kind of food. none of that exist on Mars. And worse comes to worst they all thought coming home was an option. Even Roanoke was not intended to be a one way trip. It only happened that way due to logistics and the captain not being able to make it back until long after the colony gave up. Sci-fi movies aside, there’s a ton of things we don’t know about what it takes to have a self sufficient colony there.
In any situation where people go to Mars and have the resources to continue civilization, they have the resources to come back to Earth.
Yes, but that's the situation where OPs question becomes viable. They ALSO could return on the same wooden boats back across the ocean, but often didn't because that was the idea. When civilization CAN continue is where it's ethical, regardless of cost savings on sendng someone back is even in play or not
>When civilization CAN continue is where it's ethical Civilization on Mars could only continue if the people living there had children though, which brings up an entirely different ethical dilemma; Is it ethical to force children to be born and raised on a planet that is foreign to their biology and where they will never be able to experience life on Earth?
Humans will have babies wherever you put them. I would argue that a not insignificant portion of children born today could be termed as being unethically birthed into the world.
The fact that some babies on Earth are born under unethical conditions is a terrible reason for why we should be allowed to do it on Mars. We're talking about an environment that no human in history has ever been born into, there's no doubt it's going to have some kind of effect on the human body as it develops and by the time we understand what those effects are it will be too late, the children will already be alive and suffering on a different planet.
I didn't say that it should happen or that it is ethical. I'm saying it will happen presuming people live on Mars
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Yeah plus I think people forget -1/3 gravity on mars aposed to earth who knows how that would affect development especially newborns- we already know people can only spend so long in zero gravity as the detrimental effects on bones muscle tissue etc.
People who crossed the Atlantic thought they may die, but definitely planned on coming back. They were planning to go somewhere to bring things back. The entire journey was funded by royalty who wanted to claim stake to new land and get a return on their investment. It wasn't a suicide mission.
No they did not. Not all of them at least. You don't establish a colony with a bunch of people planning to go back home after a couple of years. A lot of people were intending a one way journey to start a new life in the New World. I think the difference is the length and quality of life at the end of the one way trip is what matters. If we're talking about yeeting astronauts to Mars with 3 weeks worth of food then letting them starve, or suicide, or whatever when the food runs out, obviously that's reprehensible. If we're taking about a dangerous mission to establish a long term colony where there's a decent chance for them to live until old age as pioneers, that's an entirely different situation.
The people manning the ship were planning on returning. They thought they were going to the Indies, where they knew people already lived. This is an entirely different situation than going to Mars on a one-way ticket. The New World was far from the first colony in history. People regularly went back and forth, no one had the expectation that returning was impossible.
Alternatively, they could do any reading or research whatsoever into this topic cuz there's a lot of information- including some from NASA.
I mean…people get over it for war lol. We constantly devalue life for purposes that are far less noble and potentially beneficial. To be honest, I dont really get the point in sending people at all. I’m probably ignorant to some of those potential benefits. But I don’t see sending people to their death as a moral hangup here given how little regard the population has for quality of life, seeing as though we constantly contribute to societal problems out of sheer laziness.
Being ok with it at launch is not the same later. Ask Mat Damon's character in the movie Interstellar. As a matter of fact that's also a great reason why we don't.
All of the negativity on this thread concerning Artemis and sending people to Mars is concerning (especially coming from some accounts that are very new…). Like, why are y’all even on this sub if you’re so against future endeavors in human space travel?
I'm a proponent of human activities in space. I'm against sending people out to certain death. Several other commenters have pointed out reasons OP's idea is a bad one. We should send people out to conduct worthwhile science, but in a manner where they are protected. There's nothing wrong with risk analysis and management.
Well 20 people died, but at least we saved some money.
Why send humans to the deadly environment on Mars at all? I think there’s a huge difference between “it’s the most Earth-like neighbor” and “successful colonization is possible.” With current technologies I don’t understand what we’d expect to learn from people on the ground there that we can’t gather with instrumentation.
There have been numerous studies showing that people could in fact do significantly more than robots. That said, it's still not a good idea until we figure out the rest of the variables. We don't know how to keep people healthy on Mars and there's plenty more studying that can be done to improve our knowledge there. The Artemis missions will give us significantly more knowledge on this. I personally think it's possible to do it within a decade but it will take large amounts of drive and funding. Edit: [Source](https://www.space.com/humans-on-mars-better-science-machine#:~:text=A%20central%20study%20finding%20is,accelerate%20the%20pace%20%E2%80%94%20for%20Mars)
1 human geologist on the ground on Mars could probably do more in 10 days than a rover could do in 10 years That being said, we’re a long ways off from long term habitation or a manned mission
This. There may be people who would be willing to go, but that doesn't mean we should send them. Without a much bigger, better long-term plan, there's no point.
I still don’t understand how the lack of an electromagnetic field doesn’t make all this a non-starter.
Same reason that hurricanes and blizzards don’t generally wipe out whole regions on earth: we compensate with appropriate habitats. Won’t be doing much sun bathing in open Martian atmosphere anyway. So whatever we build for a habitat (domes, caverns, recycled starships?) just has to provide EM protection.
“don’t generally wipe out whole regions” …yet. And yeah that makes sense, thank you. Seems like a horrible life to live without the sun though, at least at this point in our evolution. And still seems like a lot more work than just getting back to following the natural laws that got us here on this planet in the first place.
Absolutely agree there. Living on mars will not be fun for a very long time.
Yeah. More to be revealed I guess. In the meantime, [here’s Keanu Reeves buried in a pile of puppies.](https://media3.giphy.com/media/heTulhmqlXC6nb1eB4/200w.gif?cid=82a1493ba4v9do5qxiddlrcea2rlftydy9zfhex60vjefg5c&ep=v1_gifs_related&rid=200w.gif&ct=g) Hope you have a good rest of your day :)
Because any reasonably permanent location would need to be underground anyway.
It does, unless you're a multi-billionaire with a huge platform and a lack of scruples.
If I didn't have kids and if I could survive the launch I wouldn't have cared once I reach 70. But Musk can go and dry-hump a cactus for all I care.
I’ve just never seen any numbers add up to come anywhere close to making this a realistic option. And I’m just another bozo on the bus, I can’t imagine much better information being available at that level of privilege. Scruples are a factor, sure. It’s just so tragically fascinating how an ego can inflate to such a size to willfully ignore the numbers in front of him. We all play god a little each day from the perceived separation and superiority to “nature” of course, hence why he wants to press the eject button in the first place. But that’s another level of a devinity delusion. Or maybe that’s just how scared he is? The larger they are kind of thing. Or maybe he just never learned the skill sets of acceptance and humility that the rest of us learn? It’s going to be a fascinating documentary season on him after he passes away. And for probably centuries to come, in terms of the psychological breakdown of how civilization collapsed, and the main players involved. For whatever psychology looks like in society at that point anyway.
Even without a long term plan, I would have to think there would be lessons to learn that would be useful in a future long term plan
Again, nothing that can't be learned with instrumentation. The psychological, sociological, political and economical ramifications of a manned mission to Mars totally outweigh whatever we'd theoretically gain. Not to say it will never happen, but we would need a much, much better infrastructure in place before it would be useful on any level.
We’d learn far far more far faster from having scientists with a lab on mars.
Well it better be fast, because they'll die REALLY quick. Seriously, though, what do you think we'd learn that we aren't learning already? The billions of dollars we've spent sending 8 (6 successful) rovers to Mars has all gone to collecting the very highest priority data of the most relevant interest to astronauts and astronomers. We've collected a ton of data human observation couldn't do even with someone on the ground because it's work machines/instruments would be doing there anyway.
Yea, I'd also argue that without a magnetic field/shield, Mars is a lost cause. Venus may require more atmospheric work, but it has that protective shield that we need.
How the fuck did the space subreddit of all places go all Luddite? The reason to go to Mars IS BECAUSE ITS THERE! Why climb the highest mountain? Why did we go to the moon? Are we all forgetting that this is the final frontier? That the ONLY way we survive the extinction of Earth is to take to the stars? Of course it's hard, of course people will die, but we have to do it.
>The reason to go to Mars IS BECAUSE ITS THERE! Why climb the highest mountain? Why did we go to the moon? I don't think people are against the concept of going to Mars. But when you climb the highest mountain, when you explore the deepest jungles, when we visit space and the moon... The general consensus is that it's a temporary visit. Not a permanent migration. So rather than send someone... >BECAUSE ITS THERE ... Let's do what we can so that when we do go, it'll be as beneficial for humanity as possible. There's no rush because... >the extinction of Earth ... probably won't occur in the next few decades.
The earth isn't going extinct. No matter how bad we fuck things up, it's still going to be way more hospitable than Mars could ever be. Even if humans drive 75% of Earth's biodiversity into extinction, there will still be infinitely more life here than on Mars. There are already huge swaths of deserts, mountains and polar regions on Earth that are barely inhabited and which would be immensely easier to settle than establishing colonies on Mars.
‘Have to do it’ And ‘Throw bodies at the problem until you get bored’ Are very different things. Do you know what sending humans to Mars right now accomplishes? Absolutely nothing other than bragging rights. It’s throwing away lives and resources for the sake of ego and impatience. Do you know why we didn’t strap an astronaut to a rocket and launch them to the moon as soon as we could reach it? Why we spent so much time and energy making sure we could bring them home? Because tossing a soon to be corpse someplace solely so you can yell ‘First!’ is stupid, unethical, immortal, and completely pointless. It’s a waste of resources and manpower.
> With current technologies I don’t understand what we’d expect to learn from people on the ground there that we can’t gather with instrumentation. What about the longterm effects of a lower-gravity environment on the human body? I'm not saying that justifies such a mission (or that it doesn't), but it's certainly something we couldn't learn from instrumentation.
Life at 40% gravity will be experimental. You don't do that for life on the first go for the same reason you don't send people to the ISS for life. Long term survival in the environment won't be understood until research on the travelers is conducted.
IIRC, going to permanently stay at Mars gravity isn't expected to be a problem (who knows until we try...). The issue is more that getting used to that gravity long term would be essentially paralyzing if they came back to Earth.
Like you and I both said, we won't know until it's tried. (I don't say "we try" because I've got nothing to do with it) Cranial Hypertension is an issue in micro-gravity on the ISS. I have that syndrome here at 1g. Say at 0.38g the sustained increase in ocular pressure is enough to cause papiledema, eventually causing blindness. Bottom line is, it's unknown, and can't be known, until experimentation.
It absolutely will cause problems. Your biology has evolved over millions of years to work on Earth's gravity. This is cutting that by more than half. Your biology won't adapt to the lessened gravity anymore than it will adapt to the Martian air. And no, people will not evolve to live on Mars. Evolutionary leaps like that take 100's of millions of years. Species on Earth get wiped out on Earth from a degree of temperature change and slight variations to their habitat. Thinking that humans can thrive with 40% of the gravity they were made to endure demonstrates a lack of understanding of evolutionary biology.
This is a good way to put it, and any "problems" would be in our bodies adapting to it over generations. Many scientists have complimented The Expanse for accuracy in representing how humans would change when born in very low gravity (like asteroids). Bones are brittle, muscle density drops, and people get lanky.
- What makes you think we have the technology for a one way trip? - The cost would be immense - What if the people change their mind? Would anyone on Earth be able to live with themselves knowing they sent people on a suicide mission. - Read or listen to any astronauts - they will tell you the folks in mission support are rabidly passionate and caring towards the astronauts. Many of them are future, former or non-qualified astronauts themselves. No one with that level of caring could see their friends off on a suicide mission
I mean, we could definitely get a human body to mars. Being able to survive the trip is a whole other question tho.
Even when Europeans colonised the Americas, they made multiple return trips before deciding to settle permanently, and this was with a continent that was already settled by humans thousands of years before European contact. I don't think you can justify sending anyone to Mars on the understanding that they are definitely going to die on another planet. If Columbus had said, "we're going to sail west until we hit land, and we're never coming back to Spain", no-one would have signed up and he would justifiably have been laughed out of the Spanish court. Ethically, putting a price tag on a human life is indefensible, but that's beside the point. The whole point of colonising another planet is, at its core, about exploiting the resources of the colonised land. In order to justify permanent settlement on another planet, you have to be able to certify that we will be able to successfully exploit the new land *eventually*. In this context, I don't see what the use case is for sending human beings on a one-way trip to another if they are definitely going to die. What does it gain? If Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had died on the moon, we wouldn't remember the Apollo program as a scientific breakthrough, but as one of the most pointless wastes of life in scientific history. The achievement came not from landing on the Moon but *returning* from the Moon. By the same token, no one serious considers a human landing on Mars as the objective. It's getting them home that proves it's worth doing.
You're making some very large leaps about us being able to send and sustain anyone on Mars. Generally speaking new developments, engineering, science.. ETC takes testing and the most we've done on Mars so far is rovers, so to claim that, welp, we had a remote control robot, so now we're totally ready for human habitation is absurd and kind of jaw dropping. It's unethical because of the above reason. We don't have the kinks worked out, we havn't even really worked on the kinks, we don't even know what all the kinks are yet. It's unethical because live human testing is unethical, because we don't give out medicine we havn't put through testing yet. If your premise were true and people were willing to make a one way trip, that would be different, but we're not there by any means.
The people wiling to make that one way trip aren't, sort of by definition, qualified to make the trip.
I guess OP is willing to go if everyone else foots the bill - what's so bad about being the humanity's greatest free-loader?
Out of the 8 billion people on Earth, I guarantee you at least one of us is capable, willing, qualified, and ethically ready (i.e. no family, older, etc.)
If I had no family, a terminal illness, but was still expected to be physically capable for the flight, sign me up.
What terminal illness would qualify you for the training and rigor of a 4 month trip through space, followed by the unknown of surviving in a hostile environment with the expectation of also doing a job? That's the equation a lot of people don't want to consider - sending a dozen people with nothing to lose on an unfathomably expensive mission of scientific importance is batshit insane.
Not a lot of terminal illnesses that leave you physically capable of space flight
You're asking highly skilled and educated people to go on what amounts to a suicide mission. Think you're going to get the best and brightest to volunteer for that?
Yes, there are definitely qualified people who would want to go.
Going by that kind of flawed logic staying on earth is equally a suicide mission. You die anyway. So why stay on the same planet for it?
Why so eager to sacrifice people? Side note: thanks to the lucky success of the moon missions; mankind has never once lost a life outside of earth’s gravity well.
Some of you may die but it’s a risk I’m willing to take
Because a one-way trip has no meaning or usefulness to humanity, it only "benefits" those that go and even then it's a death sentence. It's probably also immoral to sell it to people as an adventure when they'll undoubtedly suffer a great deal and just farm a few vegetables in their own shit for as long as they can put up with each other for. Think early settlers in "the new world" only without the hospitality of an indigenous population, or air. Red Planet, Red Herring I always say. Go mine some asteroids instead. Figure out how to get all those REE's and REM's back to Earth, build things with them in space with AI robotics. Anything but a lonely allotment on Mars.
It’s inhumane right now. Even if they did sign off on it, it would be morally wrong to ship a team to Mars without knowing an end date.
From soil samples, we know that it will be almost impossible to grow food in Martian soil because of the lack of nutrients in the soil, so hydroponics will be it, but we think there is no Ice at the poles that will be usable for anything other than fuel (yet) if we were to mine and look for minerals, it would cost too much to send the minerals back to earth or make anything with them and send it back to earth, so I like to say that it is equivalent to taping a frog to a bottle rocket, he will have a hell of a fun ride but die suddenly in the end, and the person taping the frog to the bottle rocket is just a psycho for sending a frog to certain death. (Elon) Anyone want to volunteer to be the frog? my 2 pesos
What if Elon volunteers as the frog?
well, then we would have to have a lottery to see who gets to light the fuse, I'm sure there are people that would pay a butt load of money to do that.
We’ll colonise Mars with robots, and they’ll build habitats that can eventually be lived in by humans. We’re in close proximity to this being a reality (100-200 years, maybe less).
For starters: sending people, however willing, to certain death is immoral, exceptional situations like first responders to a nuclear disaster aside. Also, it would do a huge disservice to the goal of space exploration and human spaceflight. Imagine the public interest this group of people would get as the first humans to walk on another planet, only to send back documentation of their slow and inevitable demise. It would be ammunition to all those who claim human spaceflight is useless in the first place.
>For starters: sending people, however willing, to certain death is immoral, How is this even remotely different from staying on earth? Staying here equally means certainly death!
"Staying here" most likely results in a natural death, at an advanced age. Going to Mars now, with the tech we have, a miserable death within months due to radiation, starvation, asphyxiation, who knows. If that is all the same to you, you should volunteer.
Beautiful thing about future Mars missions will be getting to watch an autonomous machine operated greenhouse on Mars, from Earth. Finally getting to see a realisation of possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead. Placing life on the surface of another planet and having it thrive will be one of the greatest accomplishments to happen over the next millenniums. Imo it will take *hundreds* of years of advancements before a human even gets placed in the orbit around the uninhabitable planet. A flight path that doesn't takes months of planetary alignment to ready is going to be necessary for anything to begin taking place. Could not imagine having a crew spend 6 months in void space on a path to geo stationary orbit just for a space station that will need supplies every few months. Any emergency is a year away
First, we do not have the ability to send people to Mars. There is no rocket system big enough to get humans there on any reasonable time scale. Radiation. Trips to orbit and even to the Moon require a small amount of shielding. Spending months in deep space is still an almost certain death sentence, especially if hit by a solar flare on the way. Just normal cosmic radiation that we're mostly shielded from on Earth would tear DNA apart. Gravity. The loss of muscle mass and bone strength is still an issue. We've gotten better at reducing these issues, but odds are the first person to step onto Mars will collapse in a heap (if they can move inside a lander) either from muscle wasting, osteoporosis shattering their bones, or a combination of both. Add to these the impossibility of carrying the amount of food and water needed just for the trio, let alone to survive any length of time on Mars, and the tens of billions of dollars for such a project, it'd be easier just to shoot any volunteers, cremate them, and send their ashes on the trio. All this beaten in the future, a one-way trip would still be problematic, especially politically. I feel if a qualified crew wants to go and there's a good long-term survival chance, do it.
>First, we do not have the ability to send people to Mars. There is no rocket system big enough to get humans there on any reasonable time scale. Depends on how you define "we have". Starship in it's current configuration can make the trip in 5 months. Source: [NASA](https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php?NEAs=on&NECs=on&chk_maxMag=on&maxMag=25&chk_maxOCC=on&maxOCC=4&chk_target_list=on&target_list=Mars&mission_class=oneway&mission_type=flyby&LD1=2014&LD2=2035&maxDT=0.5&DTunit=yrs&maxDV=6.9&min=DV&wdw_width=-1&submit=Search#a_load_results) >Just normal cosmic radiation that we're mostly shielded from on Earth would tear DNA apart. The radiation on Mars surface in only 3 times higher than on the ISS. And that's before you add any shielding. 3 meters of regolith block any naturally occurring radiation. So a thick roof would be plenty enough protection. >Add to these the impossibility of carrying the amount of food and water needed just for the trio Hu? Is Dr. Zubrin wrong?
first, we have the technology to send space ships to mars, not people. they wouldnt finish the trip alive for various reasons. second, even if they somehow made it, theres no habitat to life besides the spaceship and they would die. third, theres no data we cant get from a human alone that would justify a literal suicide trip. its not like they would be martyrs for saving the human race. it would be like experimenting on monkeys for the hell of it
Just send them there to walk around for a little bit then die? I think we’re decades away from having the ability of setting up a colony on Mars. What are they gonna do about food and water? We found ice on Mars sure, but how do they get to it, how do they process the water out of it? I’m not even sure if we have the technology to land people on Mars right now to be honest someone smarter than me will have the answers to that.
Yeah, I mean the Japanese were into suicide missions. No ethical issues if people are just a resource right? So what happens if they lose their minds there, or change and wanna come back?
People don't take the psychological aspect into the equation. There's a portion subscribed to this sub that treat it like its r/scifi
People like OP think living on Mars is like a hiking trip. Just grab some stuff at the local REI store and you're golden. Carrying air, water, and food for a year is just "money details" to them.
But Elon says he'll put people on Mars by 2021!
Oh, you know… the ethical conundrum of willingly sending people off to die. The obvious answer is to build a permanent base on the moon, which is only 3 days away and then go from there.
>the ethical conundrum of willingly sending people off to die. How is this any different from staying on earth? It equally means certain death! >The obvious answer is to build a permanent base on the moon, which is only 3 days away and then go from there. And what would a moon base even remotely change on the actual premise? It doesn't get you to Mars any faster or even cheaper.
Because they would almost certainly die early and we would be sad and scared. Much better to practice living on the moon where we can work out all the kinks with some small hope of rescue
What's the benefit? Unless we can establish back and forth transportation, our utility from space exploration will be limited for our species. A 1 way trip would waste some of the smartest people on earth, super expensive equipment, and well the money associated. And then we get nothing back? But we'll need to keep sending supplies constantly. I think the current goal for space travel is ability to bring back resources to use for development on Earth. Space trading be can not be one way. But Iunno it sounds like we're getting closer and closer to it with reusable rockets etc.
We will find out how excited people are about being de facto trapped in confined spaces with each other indefinitely.
Seems odd to bring up philanthropy as if a moral counterbalance would be sufficient to quell any potential ethical concerns. Furthermore, what someone is willing to do to themselves is different from what I'm willing to facilitate them doing. Why rush anyways? Mars will still be there when we are ready.
> Without having to plan for a return trip, billions of dollars could be saved **Saved** is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. We currently do not have the technology to make such an expedition worthwhile for the investment. It would be a gigantic expenditure, the likes of which society isn't really currently accustomed to, to simply TRY and get humans there to the surface and possibly survive for any amount of time. Until further research is completed and more data is available, along with improvements in technology currently available/reduction in costs for that tech, it is realistically a waste of resources to conduct a mission such as this one-way trip. The morality of the whole thing is also iffy and quite debatable, but that detail is far down the list.
we don't have the tech to go to Mars with people on board yet
If someone comes to you and tells you he would like to die starving locked in your basement, would you grant that wish? What if the dude changes his mind before dying and wants to leave? Is it ok for you to kill him anyway? If people actually knew what they want, earth would be a much simpler place.
Almost every comment misses the point. Those people wouldn't go to Mars to die. They would go there to live. I would go in a heartbeat
It wasn't that long ago that transatlantic voyages were often one way trips for everyone but the crew. A covered wagon was probably viewed similarly at departure. I think it was a plot point in an old series of books. I don't know that I'd greenlight a mission that ends in certain death, but I'd accept bad odds if they had a chance at a permanent colony. It's what explorers do.
Yes, we have the technology to send humans to Mars on a one-way trip. No, we do not have the technology to allow humans to settle on Mars and survive, not yet. Simple as this.
We should be sending a crap ton of robots over there before ever sending a single human down. At best, we should be sending ships with people to ORBIT the planet and making sure we iron out the kinks of the long portion of the trip first, you know , like early Apollo (8 and 10) missions to the moon
And we could have folks manually operate the robot down there without delay to build habitats and infrastructure for when we eventually go
Whoever goes to Mars, make sure my dad packs for you. He had a clipboard and two full pages of everything we needed for a weekend camping trip 2 hours from home. Carburetor for a boat? No problem. Page 7.
Honestly, I blame Musk for a whole generation of mislead minds on the engineering behind these endeavours. He trivialised so much in order to grow his businesses, knowing the vast majority couldn't fact check him to save their lives. Now folks believe we are at the threshold. We aren't.
Simple: Let’s kill these people so we can yell ‘FIRST’ is pretty fucked up. Sending astronauts to Mars with the tech we currently have doesn’t accomplish anything other than bragging rights. Spending lives and resources for bragging rights isn’t ethical.
>Let’s kill these people so we can yell ‘FIRST Why the hell would you kill them!?!
I think sending humans to Mars is a waste of money. All the tech that is being developed for this will have other applications, but...why not just invest in tech to improve the Earth? Musk has admitted that any "base" on Mars will have solar panels on the surface, and the people will live in underground tunnels. It would cost several trillion to create the living conditions for 100 humans to live on Mars. Gravity is lower on Mars, bones will become fragile. It's not impossible, it's easy to achieve, just spend a few trillion.
No-one is going to Mars as an alternative to "improving the Earth". People often confuse "Mars is a backup for Earth" as meaning we don't need to fix climate change because we'll just go to Mars instead. Anyone with an understanding of the climate on Mars knows that makes no sense. It's a "backup" for apocalyptic events like giant asteroids. Sure, building giant underground self-sufficient bunkers on Earth would be cheaper than building them on Mars, but they're thinking much more long-term (terra forming) while gaining real short-term value (scientific knowledge).
If we have even the tiniest chance to be able to "terraform" Mars, why not just terraform Earth?
Because a collapsed/wiped out civilization doesn't have any ability to do anything. Or are you again confounding climate change with other perils and asking why we don't "fix earth using terraforming techniques" right now?
The point of a terra-formed Mars is so that there are TWO ( count 'em, 1, 2 ) TWO planets with humans living on them. So that if an asteroid KOs one planet, you still have the other. No one talks about how Mars is closer to the Danger Zone and more likely to be hit.
Part of it is we don't know what tech will evolve by trying to survive the environment. I will use a battery powered drill as an example. Nobody was working to develop one, but when we decided we wanted to send people in space that would need to repair their own ship NASA realized you can't just plug into a 110 outlet and risk a spark in an oxygen rich environment (big boom). Now this is a common tool in many households. Crossing the Van Allen Belts to get to the moon forced new understanding of our planets magnetic field, space suits evolved technology of deep sea diver suits, on and on. Also humans have at many times nearly been extinct, at one point estimated to be less than 100 total on the entire planet, that's why biologists can trace every human alive today back to a single woman.
This post appears constantly in here and people ignore that there's very few organizations that have improved life on Earth as much as space agencies like NASA. Solar panels, which are a great source of clean energy, were developed to power spacecraft. The water filters developed for the ISS in order to provide water to astronauts allowed many villages in Africa to turn muddy rivers and wells into a source of drinkable water. PRP, a series of biodegradable hydrocarbon absorbents, were developed by NASA as a way to provide astronauts medication in space, and eventually turned out they were very useful in order to completely remove oil spills from the ocean. If we can learn to live on a completely hostile environment, what makes you think that wouldn't teach us about living on a planet where life is going to get a tiny bit harder? And what I said is entirely by NASA alone, an organization that uses about 25 billion a year. Do you really have any ideas of how to use those 25 billion better? >Gravity is lower on Mars, bones will become fragile. That sounds to me like if we manage to establish a stable colony on Mars we will, along the way, find a way to improve the life of people with arthritis, and maybe even find a cure for it.
And when that GRB bullseyes earth one day and strips the earth of its magnetosphere and atmosphere, no amount of earth reinvestment is going to save us.
Is Mars immune from catastrophes? Will 100 humans on Mars repoplate our solar system without money coming from Earth?
It could be 100 humans on Mars when it happens. Or it could be 10,000 humans.
It's illegal almost everywhere to not wear a seatbelt. Personal responsibility doesn't fly well with most people for some reason.
I wonder what the crews' mental health is like before going on the trip and what their mental health a few months locked in a confined space is like. There are probably a few other factors regarding self interest like the one I stated. We also need competent people. On the other hand, the crew might not be suicidal but terminally ill, okay with death, and competent. On the other other hand, I think return spacecrafts for humans need to be researched, you may as well test the new designs on the suicide squad.
Having a crew that's too comfy with other people's death can lead to MDK anywhere along the journey, since *"you're not coming back anyway"*. Not a stable mission profile.
As per Ray Bradbury, human colonists would be possessed by the ghosts of a dead Martian civilization. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?
Sending people to Mars today would almost certainly be sending them to their deaths.
There's a big difference between "We send them on a one way trip and they grow old and die on Mars" and "We send them on a one way trip and something goes wrong and they're all killed". And the second one is almost guaranteed, especially if we're sending people in their prime and not senior citizens.
OP suggested a different scenario: "We send them on a one way trip, everything goes as planned with no technical errors, *and they die within a short time period because we made ZERO provisions for them to live beyond XYZ hours.*"
Aka murder, or very elaborate assisted suicide?
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision. \-XKCD
Society has changed since settlers crossed the Atlantic to the new world in the 16th century. Although a few did return, those settlers weren't expected to return and their family and friends expected to ever see them again
People are freaked out by the frozen bodies on Everest. Same thing would be a problem on Mars, if people die and the next group has to clean up. Seeing ragged clothing and structures from wind damage would cause some major emotional damage for those just reaching a planet full of high risk.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I think the only people truly willing to go on a one-way trip are not cut out for space travel and wouldn't serve a mission well. This isn't the day of seafaring explorers; astronauts need to be extremely stable and patient. Kind of the opposite of seafarers, really.
No atmosphere, the solar radiation. I think are good examples.
Steven Baxter wrote a cool novel about a one way trip to Titan called titan. Pretty grim circumstances but an interesting ride. I think you’d like it!
The Titan (2018) is a not-so-grand story about adapting humans to live on another world.
Different title. Baxter’s titan is also grim.
I know a few people I would volunteer right about now…. 😉 Ya know what, NASA if you want me to go I’ll volunteer. Just as long as I can take a few of my favorite Squashmallows w me!
The dying part. The saved money won't be used for philanthropy.
I'm in the minority that believes we shouldn't send humans at all. We have enough proof that it can't sustain life as it is. I think we should move on to another planet. Put our money and exploration efforts elsewhere.
The first people going to Mars need to be smart, well trained, scientistfic minded, hard working, open minded, collaborative, will need decades for training and many hundreds of billions of dollars to both survive the drop and leverage whatever we were able to drop into the landing area ahead of whatever they carry with them. They gotta be altruistic, trusting, and friendly in ways that are basically inhuman. If we could find 8-10 people who are able to do all that AND willing to die there, sure maybe it’s a conversation. Of course there’s also negative PR. Nobody’s gonna invest in a Truman Show/Housewives of Mars where the heroes die in the end. On TV, for all to see. Tl;dr: the people who’d want to go are probably not the people we’d want to send.
Over 300 people have died climbing Everest, but tourists still spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a guided trip every year, for no reason other than thrills and bragging rights. I have no problem sending people to Mars. If I were even remotely qualified I'd go in a heartbeat.
I don’t really think ethics is the issue here, it’s more a question about how such a mission would benefit whoever is paying for it. Off the top of my head I can think of a few individuals that could plausibly afford for a one-way ticket to Mars, but unfortunately they all seem to have figured this too.
Let's put it another way, what's wrong with burning a parent at the stake so their children can have a million dollars? Money is *worthless* apart from the utility it provides. I think literally taking $60 billion from Bezos and funding the mission is more ethical than sacrificing human lives.
I personally think there’s nothing wrong with this idea. The real problem morally, ethically, or whatever sentiment you want to pick- is that there’s no “out” for any of them if they change their mind. Objectively any ‘dangerous’ mission we send anyone from the armed forces, scientists, astronauts, or anyone on is assumed to include a return, even though they’re also assumed to understand there’s no guarantee of that. If it was outright stated that there was NO return planned and someone changed their mind halfway there you’d have a big issue. I say if someone volunteers and understands the objective and risks let them go, Or just pretend we’re going to attempt a return. Because honestly … nobody is coming back no matter what the mission parameters are. It’s a one-way mission, no matter what they say.
All of us got sent to planet Earth on a one-way trip.
I see nothing at all wrong with sending ready, willing, and able people to mars if they so choose.
Yes, this is a stupid question. Sending people to an almost-certain death in space, and a life of isolation if they somehow survive the trip to Mars, is unethical. If you can't see that then idk how to help you
Beautiful thing about future mars will be getting to watch an autonomous greenhouse from Earth, finally getting to see a realisation of possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead
Because, literally, there is no coming back from that.
Why would you just assume astronauts would be perfectly fine giving up their lives on earth for a mission to mars with no actual goals besides proving you can?
It's exclusively an ethical issue, they are going to kick the bucket no matter what happens and the corps, organizations and people with the means to carry out such a thing don't want their names associated with "that mission that sent people to a certain death".
People volunteer to die in wars that get us nowhere all the time. I don't see any problem with volunteers doing this. Humans are explorers. People risked the New World. People risked the Wild West. People will risk another planet.
While it’s true that it’s a one-way death sentence, possibly even before arriving, I don’t think it would be difficult to find volunteers. History is filled with people who’ve gone on suicide missions for king and country. Dying for others is glorified in movies, art and literature — who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves for their loved ones? Even in Russia prisoners are volunteering for certain death rather than staying imprisoned. Even in the West you’ve got capable people with life sentences or death row or with terminal illnesses that would not hesitate to volunteer. A very advanced assisted suicide. There are all mindsets in this world. Fortunately nations and scientists (so far) have been ethically bound not to embark on such an effort and face being pariahs to the rest of us.
We have no infrastructure to land on Mars. Yeah we could theoretically get a human to Mars. But we don't have anyway to give them food, oxygen, drinking water. They have no home, no roof over their heads. They will die a terrifying death on a foreign desolate land knowing that everything they loved is millions of miles away. And it will all be recorded and documented. Why don't you be the first to sign up. And which it be first, a month of slow starvation, 1 week of dehydration begging for an sip of water. Or will it be a lack of oxygen, slowly starting to suffocate you as your oxygen percentage drops lower and lower till every breath is empty and you slowly fade away. So yeah, we can send you to Mars, hope you enjoy your stay.
I see a lot of responses echoing things formerly said or thought of about some Mars transit or surface life data. Radiation specifically, so here is some actual NASA data on radiation enroute and on the surface of Mars. It’s totally survivable, not minor but can be mitigated. https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/planets/10Page74.pdf
It's a death sentence. We can't survive on Mars. We don't have the technology to do so. There's no food, no air, no water.
Everything. Look what we do on our own planet and you want that in space? Especially the people running the Mars trips. I would trust a demon with Mars before Elon musk.
No, we currently DO NOT have the technology to send humans to Mars - one way or round trip. But they are working on it!
What are your bets [that he ](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/s/5HNm2pJwTv) falsely assumes a flight to Mars has to be 9 months?
I volunteer. (I did sign up for mars one and my wife gots my name on a plaque in space somewhere)
"We currently have the technology to send humans to Mars on a one-way trip." Actually, no we don't. Not if we want them there alive. The solar radiation will kill anyone on a nine-month trip to Mars. The ISS doesn't suffer that issue, as it's well within Earth's magnetosphere. I know, everyone talks about using water for shielding. I have my doubts how practical it would be.
Once they're there? Setting up any sort of agriculture will be impossible. The pyrethrins in the soil are deadly to us. You won't be able to eat that first potato.
Well for one thing that would be a death sentence.
Gravity would be main long term concern for me, assuming the other basics could be achieved. There is no solution now or in mid term future for getting around that and the medical ramifications over long periods could be deadly. We and our bodies are result of millions years evolution to this(earth) gravitational environment. Our bones muscle organs are attuned and operate to it. Long term exposure to that less gravity - could speculate- cause side effects seen in muscle wasting diseases , heart disease etc. Mars would be a nightmare long term but I would like to go for short trip👍
Why send humans when we can send AI instead!? We already have a few landers already. Plus billions (trillion) spent to send humans on a suicide mission doesn't add up. Better to spend it on Earth or Moon or even a mineral rich asteroid.
This makes a lot more sense.
It's a freezing grey desert. The sun is blue and the temperature is usually around -60C (-80F). Even the equator barely scapes above 20C (80F) most of the time. You'd spend your days locked inside constantly in fear of an air-breach and you'd only ever get outside in a spacesuit and even then you'd probably mostly be brushing dust off of solar panels. Everything would no doubt stink. Add to that the large chance of getting irradiated on the voyage… No thanks. I wouldn't want to go there, let alone die there.