Lets go to Mars!

[icegoat63]

But not come back......

PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) -- Invoking the spirit of "Star Trek" in a scholarly article entitled "To Boldly Go," two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return.

"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest "Journal of Cosmology" with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state - in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars - that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth.

Mars is a six-month flight away, possesses surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water, carbon dioxide and essential minerals. They propose the missions start by sending two two-person teams, in separate ships, to Mars. More colonists and regular supply ships would follow.

The technology already exists, or is within easy reach, they wrote.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ONE_WAY_TO_MARS?SITE=OKOKL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Really Simple question and your opinion explaining your answer.

Good Idea or Bad Idea?

I'll Spoil my opinion so as to not interfere with your own judgement or opinion unless you really wanted to read what I have to say before you write your post;

Spoiler

To me, its a good idea.

As stated in the article, Early Explorers had to do the same thing. Take leaps that no other Humans of the time truly wanted to. Risks that put their life on the line and their Existence in question. Early Explorers spent Months even Years traveling uncharted waters for no other reason than to find the way back home or to find land as far away from home as possible.

What is so different here?

Cut off from human contact other than those on the Ship with you. No promise of ever finding anything or even getting home for that matter. A difference I see is that in todays world, we have the Technology that even though you're trillions of miles away... we can still talk to you.

One of the many reprecussions of deep space travel that intrigues me is the "Earth out of View" concept... how badly is it going to impact the Human Psyche? Astronauts who left Earth to go to the moon or space stations or even just out of the Stratosphere have all stated that the sensation of leaving the pulls of our Gravity is a depressing feeling. But how bad would going to Mars, where Earth becomes nothing but a Tiny spec in the windshield of your ship impact the human mind.

Fact of the matter to me is, Life is built upon Devourers. The more you grow the more you Devour. Humans are rapidly growing, rapidly Devouring. We can try the "Save the Earth" campaigns all we want, but our very existence is hell bent on consuming everything around us. Much akin to Honey Bees during the Pollinating season.... when there is nothing left... abandon the hive and find more. To me its inevitable that Humans will Planet hop, maybe not successfully in my lifetime, but without a doubt in my mind... its just our Nature to Consume and move on.

So to me it makes sense to push the tech. Its easy to procrastinate and say we're working on it but want to hold off until its 99% safe to do so in order to buy us a few more decades. But I think in history, the ones that make the biggest impacts are the ones that ignore the "Dont Do That!" or "Dont Go There!" nay-sayers to just Risk it all and go Boldly where no man (or woman) has ever gone before.

One way tickets to Mars... Scary, but a Good Idea in my honest Opinion.

 

[Millz]

Since I'm not going to be one of the people to go on a trip to Mars it's going to be easy for me to say yes, let's go for it. In fact, I am going to say that.

I would be very leery if I was one of the people going though because you really don't know what to expect and anything can happen. I would almost view it as a suicide mission but I don't know all the facts so it would just be my personal opinion.

We've obviously done countless studies and if we think Mars can provide a safe home then it is something to consider.

 

[Hiei]

Well, that was an interesting read. I don't think I could have disagreed with this mission any more. Seriously, with almost every line that I read, I completely disagreed with them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Mars have a SIGNIFICANTLY lower atmosphere? We're not talking about Venus (our sister planet) which actually has an atmosphere, we're talking about the barren wasteland planet Mars. Without enough atmosphere, they wouldn't be able to survive.

Just thinking this out, it reminds me of the movie Pandorum, only worse. At least in Pandorum, they were going several light years away or some such long distance and they were planning on that. This is a flight to Mars. If you have ever felt home sick, imagine being stuck on MARS looking out into the sky and being able to see the Earth. Once you get to Mars, what do you do? Are you going to mine into the Mars?

This wouldn't be like the ancient settlers coming to America. This is more like the ancient Sumerians at the birth of humanity. Could they even light a fire on Mars? Is there enough ambient oxygen in the air to fuel a fire? What would they eat? Are they admitting there is life on another planet?

Even if they brought everything to set up a farm in their ships, just in case, how long will that last? I see nothing but cabin fever like you've never seen before.


However, out of that entire article, this is the only thing that I thought was worth quoting.

"We are on a vulnerable planet," Schulze-Makuch said. "Asteroid impact can threaten us, or a supernova explosion. If we want to survive as a species, we have to expand into the solar system and likely beyond."

If he's really worried about an asteroid hitting us, I'd bet that the chances of an asteroid hitting Mars is probably higher, considering we have the moon to protect us on some level, and we're also Mars is closer to the asteroid belt. And if he wants to say that there's a threat of a supernova explosion, being on Mars wouldn't help what so ever. An explosion that massive could probably wipe out our entire solar system.

As far as branching out into the solar system and into other galaxies, I don't think this guy understands quite how far away the next solar system is. It's, I want to say something like 20 light years away. Doesn't sound like much, but we haven't even come CLOSE to touching the speed of light with anything that we've made. That would take several thousand generations of families to get there. By that time, people would be adapted to their ship and not even understand what a solid planet is.

But, to answer your question, I think this is a bad idea. If it gets passed and they start recruiting people, I'm not going to join. I'd rather die here. I feel more connected to this planet and my creature comforts. :lol:

 

[generalblue]

This reminds me of a project that I did in ROTC that was based on colonizing Mars. I think it is a good idea, because one day a rock the size of Texas will eventually hit us, and we do want to survive as a species. Needless to say when I did this report it was about 8 years ago, so this has been researched left and right for a long time now.

 

[stevenfermi]

It's always good to have a backup storage of humanity. In case Earth gets fragmented. xD
I think, if it's the sole way of doing it, it's worth it. I'm sure volunteers would arrive, and then we can actually get space exploration moving again.

 

[PretzelCorps]

Good idea. If it's based on a volunteer system, of course.


But you might as well forget about landing on Mars within our lifetime --> NASA doesn't have enough funding to land people on the Moon, nevermind another planet. Although, growing economic competition with China could eventually spawn a sudden resurgence in space funding....

 

[Dabs]

It's always good to have a backup storage of humanity. In case Earth gets fragmented. xD
I think, if it's the sole way of doing it, it's worth it. I'm sure volunteers would arrive, and then we can actually get space exploration moving again.

But shouldn't that be God's problem, not ours~
Iffn he made the planet and all.....it would be He who takes it out.

 

[icegoat63]

Iffn he made the planet and all.....it would be He who takes it out.

This really doesnt belong in this thread at all... but I'll bite.

I dont believe he "made the planet" if God made anything he made the Universe possibly Multiverse. Which indirectly created the Planet. To believe that an Omnipotent being with unimaginable control and power gave 7 days to a single planet in a Galaxy with possibly more than 1.4 Billion Planets, in a Universe with more than 80 Billion Galaxies... If God only spent time on Habitable "Earth like Goldilocks" planets instead of the entire 1.12x10{20th}...He'd still have 23% of all those planets to deal with which is still a whopping 2.576x10{19th} and that is a little selfish and egotistical in my opinion.

It would be like saying the Pope must spent 7 minutes with every human being on the planet 3,680,000,000,000,000,000 times (3.68x10{18th}) just to get close to the magnitude of time and visits necessary to pay attention to every single one as if they were planets in the Universe.... Also mind you.. thats Universe as in One... We dont even have any credible knowledge on if there is a Multiverse.

But shouldn't that be God's problem, not ours~

No I think it is our problem. We as humans were given a spectacular gift of sentience and intelligence. Again, in my opinion if God created anything it was our ability to survive. So inherently, we have the Easel and its up to us to paint the picture. But if the Easel begins to break.... the painter must replace it in order to continue what he does best. A successful painter wouldn't get anywhere if he stopped when the Easel broke the first time.

It is our Duty, our Goal as creatures of nature and life to survive. I believe any religion on the face of this planet would agree with me. The whole goal of life is to continue to push forward, spread the word, and keep the the memory alive. We owe that to any Omnipotent Deity You or I may worship.

 

[Dabs]

This really doesnt belong in this thread at all... but I'll bite.

I dont believe he "made the planet" if God made anything he made the Universe possibly Multiverse. Which indirectly created the Planet.



It is our Duty, our Goal as creatures of nature and life to survive. I believe any religion on the face of this planet would agree with me. The whole goal of life is to continue to push forward, spread the word, and keep the the memory alive. We owe that to any Omnipotent Deity You or I may worship.

Ok...see, there is where my problem lies, if this had been in religion, I wouldn't have spoken, and I admit, it was I who brought the religious stuff up.
And I'll go one better and say I agree with you, and I'm sorry...my answer really did not pertain to your question.
Having said that.....I believe I heard that the Bible states that God created the heavens and the earth...so I was basing my answer on that.
Going by what others say, the more religious ones.
On to your second part.....I don't consider it my duty to survive.
We must spread the word??...the word of what??
I don't worship anyone.

 

[icegoat63]

Ok...see, there is where my problem lies, if this had been in religion, I wouldn't have spoken, and I admit, it was I who brought the religious stuff up.
And I'll go one better and say I agree with you, and I'm sorry...my answer really did not pertain to your question.

no no no I'm not trying to be mean. You dont have to apologize, lol Although this may be MD... its not Politics, I'll do my best to make sure you're not personally attacked :hah:

Its always funny Religion and Science, especially Religion and Astronomy because of how closely they've always danced with eachother. They are two studies looking for the same answers, only difference is they're asking two different questions. (Religion asks "Why"; Science asks "How"). So although your initial response may not have been directly related... I do believe it is very Valid.

One of my posts in a previous thread regarding the Goldilocks Planets and Possible intelligent life forms elsewhere in the Galaxy asked the question "How does that impact Earth-centric Religions?" Surely we believe that God just didnt create us (at least I dont).

So if you asked me... a Sprinkle of Religion in these Astronomy based threads never hurts my feelings. Between you and I... I'd much rather talk about it here where its safe ground than in the Religion section itself :hah:

Having said that.....I believe I heard that the Bible states that God created the heavens and the earth...so I was basing my answer on that.

I knew you were

But the Bible also claims the earth is around 6,000-17,000 years old... We have very solid evidence that that is incorrect. If one facet of Creation in the Bible is wrong... would it be too much of a long shot to question the rest?

On to your second part.....I don't consider it my duty to survive.
We must spread the word??...the word of what??
I don't worship anyone.

You probably wouldnt. Because its so deeply engrained in your psyche. When you hold your hand over Fire, do you let it stay there or do instincts automatically make you pull it back? When you're in danger, does your adrenaline not start initiating a fight or flight survival instinct? Sure you probably don't go through the life thinking "My goal today is to not die!" :hah: Thats just silly, but in all truth what other goal in life do we have then to thrive?

And by Spreading the Word, I mean this exact conversation. Honoring religious concepts. Giving credit to the unknown through means unanswered by forces beyond us...aka God. Whom by the way if you're Christian would be the Deity you pray to (in other words worship). If you don't worship anyone then you must be an Atheist... which is nonsensical because we wouldn't be having this convo if that was the case :hah: