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How about a ONE-WAY trip to Mars?

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I agree with all of your points.

Although I feel that we will try to put put a Moon base before we go to other planets. It makes the most sense, people can actually come back from the Moon, as opposed to how hard it would be to get people back from Mars.

Aside from fine details, one does not preclude the other.

None of which matters in the face of that whiny kid representing stud muffins everywhere in near space.

I solemnly promise, on behalf of the Solar Federation, that that doesn't represent what space babes have to expect.

Mostly. You know.

BTW, I am looking good. Just saying.
 
Early, that's true. I don't see the moon being used as a staging area to get to Mars. Although, the fact that we could put the technology to good testing on the moon before we go all the way to Mars. Plus then there is a point of return.
 
All this talk about the moon making better sense for a first try than Mars has made me wonder: WHY did Mars get picked? It's so obvious that the moon would be much more practical and feasible, in so many ways--not the least of which is the ability to RETURN to Earth--it makes me wonder why they're not going there instead. :confused:
 
Probably as its essentially a huge Barron rock while apparently mars has the potential to be more than a desert.
 
All this talk about the moon making better sense for a first try than Mars has made me wonder: WHY did Mars get picked? It's so obvious that the moon would be much more practical and feasible, in so many ways--not the least of which is the ability to RETURN to Earth--it makes me wonder why they're not going there instead. :confused:

Unless there's an accidental nuclear explosion on the moon that knocks it out of earth's orbit and into deep space. :)
 
Unless there's an accidental nuclear explosion on the moon that knocks it out of earth's orbit and into deep space. :)

lmao!

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I'd love to see lunar colonies. I don't take our ability to go to the moon for granted.

Today, we've lost the imperatives that drove the earlier programs, and projects cost more to produce less and take longer. In the 60s, our booster technology was tied to the cold war effort, and astronauts flew machines that are downright crude by today's standards. I doubt you'd find anyone who would get into similar machines today.

And a lunar colony would have a cycle of 2 weeks of day followed by the same of night - lots of interesting challenges there for people and machinery.

And a trip to Mars doesn't need to be one-way, it simply costs more to make it a two-way proposition. For example, instead of one ship, launch several at once, some dedicated to provisioning the return trip (as one possibility, some or all those could remain in Mars orbit until needed). And there are a number of other scenarios as well.

Right now, the only thing we really know how to do with humans is fly them to the ISS and no further.

With today's knowledge base and technology, we don't know how to fly to and return from anyplace other than our own orbital platforms.

And when the ISS was announced, a whole lot of us facepalmed the whole thing because we'd lost all conception of Arthur C. Clarke's islands in the sky -

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Rather than continue to think in terms of monolithic launch systems, if we had any real dedication to exploration of our solar system, we'd have an orbital platform, shuttle to that, and launch out from there. Those vehicles wouldn't have to include the resources or construction necessary to deal with leaving and re-entering Earth.

Thanks to our decades-long approach of disposable everything, we've got so much crap up there in orbit around us that I doubt that vision could work until we cleaned up the neighborhood.

You may think that the Earth looks like this from space and it pretty much did in the 60s -

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But it really looks like this -

space_debris.jpg



You have to be able to fly though all the pretty dots to stay alive.
 
I'd love to see lunar colonies. I don't take our ability to go to the moon for granted.
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Great post, EarlyMon.

I love your ideas on other, more efficient, more LOGICAL ways of tackling trips like these. The thing about the one way aspect is that that's how the company behind this thread's trips to Mars is planning to do it. And it's the one aspect that makes me KNOW that I would never agree to go! No matter what anyone's said in this thread, there's simply NOTHING that sounds appealing enough to make me want to permanently leave behind everything and everyone I care about.
 
If not for the fact that I WOULDN'T want to spend the rest of my life on Mars, I'd go if the rest of the group was all guys. :D Of course, I don't know how much of a "hottie" I'd be considered at this point in my life... Disabled, out of shape, middle aged... :eek: Yeah, let's just scratch the whole idea. :laugh:

Well, I've had so many women tell me "not if you were the last man on Earth", that I figured maybe if I was the last man on Mars I might just have a shot...
:p:D
 
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