(Signe Wilkinson via Gocomics.com)
When Thomas Friedman, America’s Most Conventional Dispenser of This Week’s Conventional Wisdom(tm) , sours on the business of unfettered consumption and announces bitterly that “The Earth Is Full“, is it really so surprising that more than a thousand sensible, middle-class Americans would volunteer for a “One-way ticket to Mars “?
… It was not proposed as a suicide mission, although the chances of a long life on Mars probably aren’t great. Rather, it was pitched as what would potentially be the greatest scientific adventure and exploration of all time.
__
The idea was floated by two scientists, Paul Davies of Arizona State University and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the University of Washington, in an article in the Journal of Cosmology. One of the journal’s editors, Ron Becker, said that as the hundreds of e-mails flowed in from prospective Mars explorers, the initial reaction of both researchers and journal staff was to dismiss them as not serious. But that changed as it became apparent that many of the correspondents were quite sincere…
__
The idea, which is clearly not what NASA managers have in mind for Mars exploration, has now led to the release of “A One Way Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet,” a compilation of articles from the Journal of Cosmology, plus some additions from scientists with the Mars Society and others.
__
Among the articles in the book are “The Search for Life on Mars,” “Medical Care for a Martian Transit Mission and Extended Stay on the Martian Surface” and “Sex on Mars: Pregnancy, Fetal Development and Sex in Outer Space.” The authors include dozens of NASA researchers, some former astronauts and some scientists and advocates who have pushed for decades (with no success) for a human mission to Mars….
__
Schulze-Makuch said the idea would be to start a colony on Mars, not simply to send astronauts there and abandon them. He imagines them living in the shelter of a lava tube or some habitat they take with them, and imagines that a stream of others would follow. Robotic exploration has shown there is substantial water ice below the Martian surface, so many of the ingredients for survival are present…
To boldly go! …
… And in a far more immediate timeframe, Book Chat reminder: I will put up the first post on When Everything Changed this evening, at 8pm EDT. What else have people got on the agenda for a too-soon-summer midweek?
M. Bouffant
If no one will beam me up (There’s no intelligent life here!) then I’ll have to volunteer.
harlana
I’d like to give Friedman a one-way ticket to Mars.
I’m sorry, that was just too easy.
chopper
once again, Friedman excels at grasping something the rest of us have been talking about for years. he musta asked a cab driver.
BO_Bill
Gail Collins looks creepily almost exactly like Lindsey Graham. Connect the dots.
DBrown
This stupid idea is typical of people who have zero understanding of the issue of money relative to mass for deep space missions – to place people on Mars is hugely expensive (even one way) and to provide them enough just to live for ten or so years (not permanently), would multiply the cost by a magnitude or more compared to a two way mission with a less than year and half surface stay (normal two way mission requirement)- this whole approach is beyond stupid.
The issue is, has always been and remains (for NASA) shielding – both for the trip to and back (for a real mission) to Mars and don’t forget a surface stay (caves? What a nutcase – these are rare and not where the water is (do need a lot for oxygen and water to drink.) The surface/deep space threats are completely different and must be shielded for in special ways – deep space shielding must defeat 1 GeV (average) cosmic rays (from protons to iron nuclei (and heavier) and a possible solar storm (lower energy radiation but far higher and far more dangerous flux); and surface shielding must defeat huge secondary proton and worse, neutron radiation fluxes that are higher and in the 0.1 GeV to a few keV energy range on average and still the solar storm threat (again, very different type of threat on the surface.)
These fools just don’t get it for a real Mars mission. To live on Mar’s surface for any time (one way) requires huge investment in all types of recycling and resource processing equipment AND you can spend little time unshielded on the surface working (the radiation flux is very high due to secondary radiation.)
A there and back mission would cost far, far less due to far lower mass required to be delivered (total.)
Stupid – just crunch the numbers (I did for a full mission – four people and NASA’s future heavy lift rocket (requires two).) It makes zero sense for a one-way trip that would require many more than two heavy lift rockets.
Linda Featheringill
Good morning.
Another $%^%^ hot day here in NE Ohio. I’m hoping for an easier day today. I struggled all day yesterday, coped all day, cooperated all day, was flexible all day, and got up and tried again and again all day. Enough!
So I’m hoping to just kind of drift along today.
A colony on Mars would be cool! [No, you’re not going to talk me off of terra firma.]
alwhite
no split infinitives! “To go boldly”
That is one of the few things still stuck in my brain from High School English. I couldn’t tell you what an infinitive is any more without google but I remember this example of the form :)
I would volunteer if I could.
Linda Featheringill
@DBrown:
Go away and rain on somebody else’s parade and let us Trekkies oooh and aaaah over the idea of a Mars colony.
Bye.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
“The Earth Is Full”. My achin’ ass. Maybe if he scaled back the 11,400 sq ft mansion and lived the life he preaches (and yeah, I’m looking at you too, Al Gore) the Earth wouldn’t be so goddamn full.
Putz.
Yevgraf
Personally, I think we’re currently at a really high wall on manned space exploration – the cost far outweighs any benefit gained, whether on an economic outlook or a review of knowledge gained.
There’s just not enough heavy lift capacity available through chemical rocketry to make it an economically sound idea (particularly to carry the weight of the utterly essential and insanely heavy shielding). Besides, robotic exploration really has advanced.
Better to spend the money on high energy physics research, because that’s where I suspect the heavy lift capacity will come from.
arguingwithsignposts
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has an excellent Nova show about the difficulties in traveling to Mars. It’s available on Netflix Streaming.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@DBrown: This caught my eye:
Perhaps if we made similar investments on this blue marble, which already comes supplied with water and oxygen, we wouldn’t have to worry about colonizing less hospitable turf.
ETA: I forgot the blue marble also comes with shielding. Although in the case of UV (ozone layer) we appear to be getting rid of that along with the clean water.
DecidedFenceSitter
@Yevgraf: Cause if we don’t figure a way to get off this rock, we’re doomed. The moment we pulled our first non renewable resource out of the ground to make a flint weapon we put ourselves on a course for eventually running out of resources – a question not of “if” but “when”.
Mark S.
Many as in one. What the hell are they going to eat?
aimai
This really takes me back to one of my earliest books in grade school, all about a brother and sister who are living in a Mars colony (think its mars) and who discover the long lost aliens, living like little friendly shriveled hippies, hiding from the parental units and other grownups in the long term settlement. I wish I still had it because it was such a period piece down to the details of what the children were allowed to take with them on this important settlement mission (their kitten) and the way the parents deal with the surprising fact that they aren’t the sole sentient race in the universe (annoyed by the fact that they now have to take care of an entire race of hippy martian grandparents). But I think even in fourth grade I grasped that it would be quite expensive to transhume to another planet and set up shop.
aimai
Linda Featheringill
We would have to develop a way to produce a significant amount of food on our own. Food plants could be grown during the journey to the planet and presumably after we land. I wonder if we could farm fish. Fish eggs don’t weigh much. Would they travel well in space?
Probably the first settlement would live in orbit around the planet, perhaps in a synchronous orbit so they could stay in the same place, so to speak. Establish farms in that space station. Develop a way for mammals to reproduce. Build the desired facilities on the planet surface.
Then later groups could descend to the surface.
We also need a quick-and-easy way to transport stuff and people from the space station to the ground and back.
Do I have any of these solutions tucked away in my shirt pocket? No. But you have to dream about them first.
PurpleGirl
@Linda Featheringill:
Hear! Hear! Science fiction readers have been wanting to live and travel in space for decades. (Have for millennia before there was science fiction!) It has nothing to do with the earth being full — they want to experience life someplace else.
ETA: But you have to dream about them first.
This!
Bruuuuce
I guess this is a good place to recommend the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, plus assorted stories). I should both reread them (especially Red Mars, which describes the initial mission there, and compare it to the actual NASA documents and proposals.
Also, too, D Brown, please be welcome to stay here when those of us who are willing leave the planet for the wider world outside. If Robert Heinlein is right about the sort who go and the sort who stay, you really do sound like a homebody.
Montysano
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Did you read the article and disagree with it, or (as often happens here) are you simply bashing Friedman because that’s what the cool kids do? Because “He haz big house” is a facile argument.
arguingwithsignposts
this guy is an australian. He’s clearly never heard of the US Congress.
polyorchnid octopunch
I think a far more reasonable kind of space mission to undertake would be to go to the asteroid field and bring back a nice big nickel-iron asteroid to put into geo-synchronous orbit around the earth, and then use it as the basis for a space elevator/orbital facility.
As for today, I’m going to spend the office day slaying spammers with my spork (well, firewall/blacklists), and then playing some tunes with my funk/reggae outfit at band practice tonight.
George
Did anyone else just hear Pat Buchanan say that Paul Krugman was right all along on Morning Joe? Anyone else see those pigs flying over DC this morning? Maybe I ate some bad shrimp..
Third Eye Open
Fuck Mars, I say we should colonize the trees so if the cephalopods finally get off their squishy, lazy ass and evolve to hunt us, we at least have the high-ground, plus you have the benefit of wearing a loin cloth.
WereBear
@Bruuuuce: Space elevator!
We do have to go somewhere. And I’m frankly tired of all the whining about what we can’t do. Maybe a Mars mission isn’t right about now, but one of these pedal to the metal projects to remake our own world, better; nothing wrong with that.
Linda Featheringill
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Towing a likely space object in to serve as the base to build a station on sounds good. It also would have some of its own gravity and if we could put a spin on it, that would be even better. Good idea.
[“Polyorchnid” octopunch. How much junk do you have, dear? :-)]
Disgruntled Lurker
One way trip to mars?
Me second!!! (My guess is that they won’t get shit right the first time)
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Montysano: Nope, didn’t read Friedman’s article. Just teed off on the headline, with the understanding that to give 6 billion humans a middle-class lifestyle would take 8 planet earths. And that anyone living in an 11,000 SF house is way above a middle-class lifestyle and is consuming more than a 1/6,000,000,000 share of the available resources.
PeakVT
I don’t think humans should go to Mars until we know there’s no existing biosphere that could be contaminated. We’re just full of and covered with little critters, some of which could colonize Mars, as harsh as it is.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Rachel’s show last night was essential. Not only the necessary invocation of ‘IOKIYAR’ in regards to the current ‘scandal’, which I will avoid invoking by name for now, but the depressing overlook of the closing of Claire Ferguson High School in Michigan, directly out of the Financial Martial Law powers.
Read up, be saddened, be outraged and…honestly, I don’t know what else at this point. All this continues to snowball into what seems like an unstoppable juggernaut of suck and Randianism that seems impossible to bear back anymore.
Scott P.
This is nothing new. I remember a survey done in the mid-90s that asked a similar question, and more than 50% of Americans said they would volunteer for a mission to Mars even if it were going to be one-way.
My preference would be for something along the lines of von Braun’s Marsprojekt: 10 spacecraft with 70 crewmembers. You build in redundancy and can achieve orders of magnitude more than you could with three or four jacks-of-all-trades.
AAA Bonds
Cute cartoon but I really,
really,
really hope American liberals are not going to start supporting the “new” IMF and Christine Lagarde just because she was in “The Inside Job”.
Look: she is a right-wing French minister, and so, there was no downside to loudly blaming the economic crisis on the United States.
But Christine Lagarde is another wealthy right-wing crook, part of Sarkozy’s “bomb and purge” coalition.
Americans need to learn to tell right-wingers from left-wingers in other countries. We have some trouble with this.
Linda Featheringill
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Sigh. :-(
The comments to the article are fairly interesting, though. One person said the GOP wanted to eradicate public education, period. Maybe so. And maybe they thought the parents of these girls wouldn’t have enough political clout to make much trouble, which they probably don’t.
Fred
Say what you will about the guys. At least they are a lot more practical with respect to how many pairs of shoes they own.
Citizen_X
@DBrown: Thank you for raining a bit of reality down on everybody’s “parade.” Dear haters: you don’t make the big steps by ignoring harsh facts. The Wright Bros. didn’t get into the air by just dreaming, but by working their asses off, running wind tunnel experiments, rigorously analyzing the results, and reworking their designs.
“Homebody”? Yeesh!
Carol
A link:
Save the Catherine Ferguson Academy (Facebook)
Bruce S
While we’re kicking idiots at the Times, it’s incumbent on decent people who care about the children to call out David Brooks. He’s as big a liar as Rep. Weiner. And IMHO a bigger dick. How many folks noticed that on Monday – under cover of the Weinergate frenzy – he sent New York Times readers an image of his weewee erect for Medicare privatization – and proceeded to lie about it:
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/06/deep-thinker-david-brooks-fails-to-tell.html
Rock
I find it amusing that Friedman has chosen to lecture everyone on the evils of consumption and that we need to find happiness without owning as much stuff.
This is Friedman’s house
Hedges Ahead
Isn’t a mission to Mars the perfect opportunity for all those Galtian superpeople and libertarians to put their ideology into practice? They can truly be freed of moochers, parasites, even government intervention. I’m sure the chemistry course they took in college is all the more they need to bake cosmic radiation-absorbing bricks from readily available materials on Mars to build habitats out of.
DBrown
Sorry for raining (damn, could use a cold front even if it rained here) on everyone’s Mars trip – I had to write a masive white paper on such a mission and crunch all the numbers down to every effing kilo for every effing system, all fuel as well as every possible threat (that could be thought of and that list was long even if it could never be realisticlly completed.)
Going to Mars is far cheaper (and more easy from a systems stand point) if you come back – one way is only cheaper if you die at the end of the year and half. Hell, we aren’t allowed to let terminally ill patents to die by their own hand even when they are in terrible pain.
As for terra forming, we have the best planet right here that is orders of magitude easier than Mars to terra form.
@polyorchnid octopunch: Do the math for fuel to move any deep space object into Earth orbit and get back to us – interia is a bitch even in space (unless you have a few million years to wait); also, where is that fuel coming from? If from Earth, recalculte to lift that to the required orbit, too (10:1 ratio if lucky). If from the Moon, still need to lift off there and send from Earth all processing equipment/supplies etc. Ditto for Mars but far, far more fuel to get everything there and off the ground again.
Judas Escargot
@DBrown:
A manned Mars mission would cost $150-350 billion dollars (depending on whom you ask) That’s about 10-20 months’ worth of Iraq/Afghanistan wartime goodness. Priorities, priorities.
That said, even if that kind of cash were available, we’re nowhere near the technical level to get there and back. We’d be better off spending the money on gradually developing technologies that slowly (but seriously) extend the reach into space.
IMO it makes no real sense to plan (or pay for) an Apollo-style “stack and capsule” 36-month mission, when we could instead focus on developing a propulsion system that could get to Mars in 40 days.
We also need to stop thinking of these little capsules as “spaceships”, when they’re closer to the launches used by the old sailing vessels to get to/from shore. A practical Mars vehicle is going to look more like this than like two Orion capsules docked together.
Catsy
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Can you imagine the panic, hysteria, fearmongering, and outrage that would accompany such a mission? Putting a big asteroid on a course for Earth, let alone putting it into geo-sync orbit? An orbit that would have to be maintained by some kind of station-keeping system, a system that could theoretically experience failure?
The real risks are (pardon the pun) astronomical, let alone the risks that would be raised by demagogues. It will never happen.
polyorchnid octopunch
@DBrown: Nuclear sub sized nuclear reactor and a mass driver. Alternatively, take a massive solar array with you and get it from the sun to run the mass driver. Start refining the metal and tossing the dross out one end via the mass driver. It won’t take a million years to get it here but it will take several. OTOH, the upside would be huge. This has been studied quite a lot. Everything I’ve read indicates that it’s doable, but expensive. OTOH, you can then have all the mass you want in orbit without having to lift it there. Sure, there’s a lot of energy required, but it’s a tiny fraction of the energy required to get it up out of earth’s gravity well.
CatHairEverywhere
Good time to re-read Ray Bradbury’s story, “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”. Americans colonizing Mars, bringing all their Cape Cod houses etc. with them. Epiphanies are had.
brendancalling
they had the exact same comic, different words, today, but about Anthony Weiner.
ruemara
If I build a rocket, can I blast Friedmann to Mars? And will the Martians attack us for polluting their planet with moustaches?
Tonal Crow
@DecidedFenceSitter:
Only if we continue to treat the earth idiotically.
Non-renewability arises from unsustainable levels of use, which, in turn arises from idiocy, economic structures that require indefinite growth, and overpopulation.
We’re doomed only if we insist on being idiots.
Tonal Crow
@Mark S.:
Each other.
Tonal Crow
@Rock: And Al Gore is fat, too, right?
Tonal Crow
@DBrown:
Plus, Randistas don’t accept the reality of the greenhouse effect, so they couldn’t terraform Mars.
Cris (without an H)
Reminds me of the classic line from Bruce Sterling:
He closes that comment with “We just romanticize it because it’s so hard to reach,” but I have to take issue with that part. As Linda Featheringill’s comment indicates, it’s a little more than that — outer space and alien planets are appealing not because they’re difficult per se, but because they’re alien. We’re not really looking for a challenge, we’re looking for new horizons. I’m sure most of us would be excited about exploring other planets even if it were easy, quick, and inexpensive to get there.
Joel
Isn’t the Journal of Cosmology one of those fake journals?
Judas Escargot
@Cris (without an H):
This isn’t really a fair comparison: You can’t settle the Gobi desert because it’s been politically claimed by someone (the Mongolians) who has an army.
There’s really no technical reason keeping us from mass-colonizing Antarctica, either. The real obstacles are money (as ever), and a treaty that’s over a half-century old.
Catsy
People making this kind of argument are missing half the point of colonizing space and other worlds. Right now all of humanity’s eggs are in on single fragile basket: Earth. There are countless calamities that could befall our planet that would render it uninhabitable to human life or exterminate humanity outright. Sure, most of them are vanishingly unlikely–but they’re possible, and quite a few of them fall into the category of things we couldn’t do anything to stop even if we had advance warning.
In terms of risk management, when you weigh the likelihood of each of these calamities against their severity, the extermination of all life on Earth and the end of the human race has to carry quite a bit of weight.
There’s more to the drive to colonize space than sci-fi idealism and the desire for new horizons. In the long term, it’s about our very survival as a species.
Tonal Crow
@Catsy: The problem there is that actively pursuing space colonization becomes an excuse not to preserve earth’s habitability, while diverting large quantities of resources from efforts that are vital to that task, such as limiting climate change.
Minimizing risk means reducing our impact on the only home we now have, earth.