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Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

143 points by Sambdala 14y ago

vitno 14y ago
While I am skeptical of the Mars One project, for many reason which others have covered very well, I would happily die on Mars. I'm in my early 20's and I have big plans and dreams here on Earth. I would drop them instantly for the chance to go to Mars, one way trip or no.
cryptoz 14y ago
I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are taking this approach. Ensure complete and rapid rocket re-usability, make engines that take fuel that Mars mostly provides, and ensure a constant stream of supplies, growth, new people. If your colony is growing, and expanding, and there are frequently (every 2 year) opportunities to come back home, many of the psychological issues can be mitigated. Also, you'll be improving your technology as you build and expand, so you'll be able to fix problems and ensure reliability and safety too. It'll be risky at first of course, and for a long while after that. But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth.
- rdl 14y ago
  In the long run, I agree, but I think you could get a 5-10y headstart by doing a simple "one way and ongoing resupply" profile. The risk would be if that kills demand for the "colonization" profile later, but I really don't think that's likely. Sending some pioneers who are willing to accept far higher risk, first, before a mainstream effort which could support thousands, actually seems like a way to increate demand and lower risk (and thus cost) for the colonization mission. If 5-10 people living on Mars for 5 years ahead of you kills all desire to actually colonize the place in a lasting way, then it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  > But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put the number of "safe days" at ~0.5-1 years. That assumes a healthy mid-30s non-smoker during a solar minimum. So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits, even if we had a very well radiation-shielded base waiting on the planet. Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects.
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    > So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits This is the problem with your argument that I'm underestimating risks. You're assuming that nobody finds a way to solve this problem or to mitigate the effects of the radiation, and that nobody would be willing to find a way to go even with the health concerns. I know this will be extremely difficult and quite costly, but I think hard work and constant innovation will solve a lot of the specific problems that you pose today. > Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects. Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Also, so what if it's true? Hundreds of millions of people on Earth voluntarily partake in long-lasting negative health effects habits. Why can't "living on Mars for a bit" be one of them?
    - smtddr 14y ago
      > Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Well I can't personally __prove__ it, but I believe the general belief in the science community of prolonged space-travel is that it will most likely mess you up. Probably in more ways than we've even thought of. I don't think, at least with today's tech, that a human can travel to Mars and back and be perfectly okay. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-space-travel_p2.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-...
- smnrchrds 14y ago
  The thing I'm most worried about is what happens if one of the residents needs medical attention. Mars is going to be a one-way trip and while the pioneers will most probably be young and healthy, they won't stay young and healthy forever. It is entirely possible to place a doctor within the group and send medical supplies, but it could work only for the simplest medical conditions. I think it would be a long time before it would be possible to perform open heart surgeries on Mars, or even fill a tooth.
  - eCa 14y ago
    I think you are right. Medical procedures would likely go back to basics: Bad tooth? Pull it out. Broken leg? Maybe amputate. However, with the right provisions fairly advanced procedures should be possible to carry out with minimum personnel. For instance, in 1961 a Russian doctor in Antarctica removed his own infected appendix [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery
    - danielweber 14y ago
      Amputate a broken leg? Just how bad do you foresee that injury? It's not like we can't ship anesthetics up there. It's not like a layman can't set a broken bone, although I dunno if an X-ray machine would be there to see.
  - lsc 14y ago
    Huh. I'd assume that you'd get top-of-field type people in medicine, science and engineering along for the trip. I'd also assume that you'd get older people, too... brains and experience (and, as they say, getting along with a group) is going to matter more than physical fitness, I would assume. And from what I've seen, most people with technical skills learn social skills much later, if at all. My worry would not be that I'd get stuck with a bunch of peasants, but that the standards would be so high, with regards to education and useful skills, that I would not qualify for the trip. If I was trying to pitch myself at the interview, I'd point out all my experience maintaining older equipment with limited resources. (I'm sure they'd point out that nearly all my repair experience is board-level, not component-level, which is the right thing when you have a lot of cheap spares, such as when dealing with older equipment on earth, but completely the wrong thing when you are in an environment where you have to bring or manufacture everything you use.) I'd also point out my years of 24x7 pager experience, (and my experience in knowing where my burn out point is- I will push back rather than work myself to burn-out) Of course, they'd point out that there exist outliers who can work harder and longer than I can without burn-out, and I'm sure a few of them also know how to spot burn-out coming up. So, yeah; I would assume that if they were taking a credible run at it, they'd get some really good people (including some good medical personnel.)
vfl0 14y ago
I remember looking at a site that were planning a Mars mission and they expected you to pay in order to go on it. I have no idea why anyone would pay to be stuck on Mars..
- e40 14y ago
  Really? You can't image why? The answer is simple and one word: adventure.
  - the1 14y ago
    pay me. i'll drop you off in the pacific, Pi.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      I would pay to be sent to Mars. I would not pay to be dropped into the Pacific. That difference may not make sense to you, but it really doesn't matter if you don't understand it. Nobody is trying to convince you to do it yourself.
- dictum 14y ago
  You are underestimating the number of people who are interested in both a morally and socially acceptable suicide method and a claim to fame in science.
losethos 14y ago
God says... 17:21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. 17:22 And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: 17:23 And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry. 17:24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? 17:25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? 17:26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. 17:27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.
tokenadult 14y ago
I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to have the ambition to be the first man to set foot on Mars. I'm stunned that at this late date I could STILL be the first man to set foot on Mars. But as I grew into adult life, and visited more than one country here on Earth, I began to think that it is an even higher and more challenging ambition to go somewhere you are not constrained to go by desire for fame or for riches or for being the first in a new territory, but rather by a desire to solve intractable problems. Solving a problem of long standing is a bigger achievement than solving a problem that is unsolved mostly just because no one has found it worthwhile to solve it. Making any of the world's poorest countries richer in general, or making any of the world's most oppressed countries freer in general, is a problem for which some example solutions exist, just as traveling to other planets has some precedent in the manned moon missions and in robot space probes, but I suggest it is actually a much tougher and more interesting problem, a problem more worthy of a gnarly man willing to risk his life. I still admire astronauts, and I've exposed all four of my children to books and films about space exploration, but I'd be even more thrilled to see them or other young people I know take on the exploration challenge of bringing about improvement in the lives of their fellow human beings in the worst-off parts of planet Earth. There is a lot of challenging science involved in those problems, and the contributions to human knowledge that will come from solving those problems will provide lasting benefit to all of humankind, whatever planet our descendants live on. AFTER EDIT: Two comments below mention "paternalism." Nope. I am talking about "fraternalism," sharing in the life of the people where you live, understanding their problems deeply because they become your problems too, and then building solutions from the neighborhoods you live in. You can't jet-set that in, and you can't phone it in or international consultant it in, you can only live it in. I've asked before here on Hacker News how many of the participants here have ever even lived in (not just visited, but lived in) a third-world country. Not many have. (I have, and it was a dictatorship when I lived there, and as a foreign national I was part of the process of nudging it to become the democracy it is today.) To be a brother of your fellow human beings is a great adventure. It's harder than armchair criticism, but also more challenging and interesting.
nnq 14y ago
Unless explorers will be given property of sizable portions of martian land and a number (more than 1!) of back and forth Mars-Earth tickets, this will definitely not attract the kind of valuable and resourceful people that would really be needed to create a self sustaining colony! And you'd also need something like a "diversity Mars Visa lottery" open to anyone so that a colony will not only be formed of "boring, super-fit and super-trained" career space colonists. ...but for all this to work, you'd need good, reliable and "cheap" space propulsion systems, not the current toys. This is where all the work and hype should be, not over the colonization plans and how to grow veggies over there: propulsion, propulsion, propulsion, everything else on 4th, 5th, 6th etc. place.
- danielweber 14y ago
  The goal of a colonization effort is never to make the new place more appealing than the old place for the majority of people, or even the median, or even a sizable minority. You want Mars to appeal enough that you can get dozens or hundreds or people who have both the means and will to do it.
melloclello 14y ago
Have they resolved the important psychological issue of there being no marijuana on Mars yet?
vwinsyee 14y ago
Mars One did an AMA on reddit nine months ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_... Personally, I remember being most astonished that their team only had one technical person: http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team
- skrebbel 14y ago
  I count three M.Sc.'s?
smoyer 14y ago
I'd be perfectly willing to die on Mars and (being one of the older one here), I'd say it's more likely that I am dead before anyone actually gets there. (Note that my family might not like me leaving them behind on Earth). As an aside, it's a shame that the artist's rendition reminds me of a trailer park in a Florida retirement "encampment". I have no intention of retiring somewhere that's populated by snow-birds (well ... if I actually retire. Retirement sounds terribly boring).
edw519 14y ago
Both of my grandfathers did this 100 years ago. They never saw their homeland or most of their friends or relatives ever again. They must have known that was the way it was going to be. I often wonder how they felt about it.
- Mahn 14y ago
  Both of your grandfathers have been to Mars? How come we never heard of this before?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- danielweber 14y ago
  Guys, it's pretty obvious edw519 is talking about his grandfathers emigrating to a brand new nation and leaving the old one behind forever. Lots of world travel was incredibly expensive.
SagelyGuru 14y ago
I don't get it. What is the point of sitting in a caravan on Mars and waiting to die? Is the guy proposing this going himself to set an example? If there is going to be any kind of colony, it needs some means of sustaining life and babies.
- akiselev 14y ago
  You wouldn't be waiting to die. You would be the vanguard of a possible independent arm of human civilization. Your work there would be critical to figuring out the viability of colonizing Mars.
- danielweber 14y ago
  You don't just sit there waiting to die. You go out and build things. We'll ship all the stuff the first people need for several years, but they will need to learn to find their own water, manufacture plastics, grow food, and all that stuff.
Udo 14y ago
If Mars can be mined for water (and it looks like it can), there is no reason to make it a one-way trip only. Sending people there with the explicit expectation to die soon speaks of poor planning and not a lot of willingness to export the basic tenets of humanity into space with us. It's a bad precedent, it carries the wrong message about the value of intelligent life, and I'm afraid the mission's limitations also impact its overall chances of success. Although we have experienced a sad regression in our space capabilities, there is nothing in principle preventing us from sending humans and basic building blocks there, let them build a decent base, and then instate a regular shuttling service. Even if building the outpost takes 10 years, that's not the same as sending them onto a suicide mission as the article implies. We're missing a lot of necessary infrastructure for this though, and without it the stated Sept. 2022 launch date might as well be 2122 or even 4022. We'll need a moon base to stage this thing (not only the initial flight but more importantly the supply line), and if we're serious about expanding into the solar system, one or two space elevators are probably a necessity. The political will to build any of these, never mind maintaining them, does not exist. We're too busy propping up corrupt political and financial systems, not to mention the importance of waging an eternal war the expenses of which could provide enough for a decent colonialization program many times over. Scraping together a suicide team and shooting it roughly in Mars' general direction is not the answer to this problem.
- indrax 14y ago
  "Die on mars" does not mean "die soon". This proposal is not a suicide mission.
- saalweachter 14y ago
  > Scraping together a suicide team and shooting it roughly in Mars' general direction is not the answer to this problem. I think you misunderstand. While the linked article is brief, the one-way plan isn't to send a ship-full of people with suicide pills, but to supply them for the next 40-80 years from Earth. Because of the hilarities of the rocket equation, it is cheaper to send rocket after rocket full of water, breathable air, food, fuel, and other supplies than it is to send enough rocket fuel for a return trip. Like, way cheaper. As the article says, the technology for a return trip just doesn't exist; the technology for a series of one-way trips does.
fjarlq 14y ago
I don't like it. Let's go all the way and make bringing the crew back safely part of the challenge. It will be more rewarding because it's more difficult. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things -- not because they are easy; but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept; one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win -- and the others, too."
- iandanforth 14y ago
  It's interesting, we used to have to bring people back to do our exploration, but in some ways thanks to high-quality video that need is less and less. If you think of society as a single entity then the notion of 'bringing people back' doesn't have as much meaning as it used to. We don't need martian resources (other than the space) and anything else is a souvenir. People had to go and come back from the Americas because of the lack of video (no other way to see it) and because we wanted something the Americas had (gold, wood, coal, cotton etc). We went to the Moon a few times, but it didn't have very much of anything we needed. Also you can pull up a video of what it's like to walk or drive on the moon anytime you want. While I agree the full return trip is a higher, more noble goal I just don't see the same forces at work that will require regular back and forth trips.
jamespo 14y ago
Is the chap proposing this willing to go off there himself?
lumberjack 14y ago
I see that Mars One will be using the SpaceX vehicles. I wonder if Elon Musk will be fine with this, because as far as I see it, it is actually undermining the competitive spirit of the race for Mars which is more about building the better technology than actually setting the foot there first just to get your name on the history books. For someone as devoted to offering real technological innovation, as Elon Musk is, it would probably smack a bit of cheating.
- akiselev 14y ago
  The obstacle of going to Mars has long since been a problem of desire and not technology. Obviously better radiation shielding, drugs that reduce the negative effects of zero-g, nuclear propulsion, and other technologies would reduce the risk of failure but at the end of the day going to Mars is a massive engineering and logistics problem. A good analogy (I think) would be the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Sure it is trivial to build today with our technology, as (I hope) it will be trivial to travel to Mars in the distant future, but the reason its a great wonder of the world is because, despite a lack of modern technology, it was built as a national engineering project that spanned decades. Just like a mission to Mars, it was a daunting task (one that required a generation or two of slaves perhaps) that was pulled off through pure grit.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Musk himself said he would like to die on Mars: "“I will go if I can be assured that SpaceX would go on without me . . . I've said I want to die on Mars, just not on impact.” (http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/03/elon-musk-die-mars http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/03/elon-musk-die...)
aleprok 14y ago
Where do I apply? I would do this just for being one of the first persons in mars and be recorded in history books.
Qantourisc 14y ago
... food ... water? Otherwise your life (before you die) would be rather short ...
- randomchars 14y ago
  They're not sending people to sit in the corner and wait until they die. It's about building a colony. Regular supply missions and growing stuff on Mars would be part of the plan.
n3rdy 14y ago
My biggest fear would not be dying on Mars or on the way to it. My biggest fear would be having the novelty wear off and coming to the realization that I just moved to a trailer park.. on mars.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Definitely the first people on Mars shouldn't do so merely to live on Mars, they should be the sort of people who are going to build Mars up. And if that's the case then it's unlikely the novelty will wear off quickly. There is a lot to do on Mars and a surprising amount can be done with fairly small amounts of capital equipment. Within the first few trips there could be enough equipment to bootstrap a Martian industrial base with production of Water, Oxygen, Methane, and Carbon Monoxide from the ground and the air. Which means you can provide resources for living, of course, with water and Oxygen, but also you can provide rocket fuel (liquid methane and Oxygen), and fuel for combustion powered surface vehicles (compressed methane and Oxygen), and resources for growing plants, and resources for smelting Iron (CO). In a few short years a Martian colony could be producing food, concrete, Iron and steel, even plastics, all from local materials. And in not many years after that it could be producing everything from fully functional Mars habitats to microchips to spacecraft. For people with drive and know how there would be as much excitement as they desire.
  - lovehashbrowns 14y ago
    Yup, it just depends on what mentality you take with you. If you sign up for this with the mentality that you're going to have lots of fun and how amazing Mars is going to be, obviously the disappointment is going to set it very quickly. But if you go there with the goal of building everything from the ground up and knowing that it's going to be a very crappy place to live in for quite a while, then I think it would be hard to be disappointed. As you said, there is a lot of work to do and each little project would just add to the excitement of living there. At least for me it would.
- D_Alex 14y ago
  Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days on the space station "Mir" - an environment at least an order of magnitude more limited than Mars, I'd say. Wikipedia has this information about his mission: "Polyakov underwent medical assessments before, during, and after the flight. He also underwent two follow-up examinations six months after returning to Earth. When researchers compared the results of these medical exams, it was revealed that although there were no impairments of cognitive functions, Polyakov experienced a clear decline in mood as well as a feeling of increased workload during the first few weeks of spaceflight and return to Earth.[6][7] However, Polyakov's mood stabilized to pre-flight levels between the second and fourteenth month of his mission. It was also revealed that Polyakov did not suffer from any prolonged performance impairments after returning to Earth. In light of these findings, researchers concluded that a stable mood and overall function could be maintained during extended duration spaceflights, such as manned missions to Mars."
deleted 14y ago
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eloisant 14y ago
Before talking about colonizing Mars, why not colonizing other areas of Earth? See the Sahara for example, or even your own deserts in US. Closer, more clement climate and no less resources. Why colonize a far away deserts when we have enough on Earth?
- danielweber 14y ago
  Because we don't want to.
- cmccabe 14y ago
  Because those areas are owned by other people, who probably don't want you taking over their land? Because any catastrophe that would destroy earth probably would destroy your desert too?
handzhiev 14y ago
I wonder how many of the people who say they are ready to go, imagine what it really is going to be. I think it won't be glorious. It might be exciting at first but if you have the chance to live there more than few months it will turn into rather lonely and hard experience. You won't have the internet or other communications. You won't have your favorite beer, or most probably any beer at all. Chances are you'd say good-bye to sex/love relationships, to your parents and friends forever, to the Earth weather and green grass... You get the idea. I know it sounds romantic and glorious when you are 20 years old or so, but I hope everyone who thinks they are ready to go, really is.
DocG 14y ago
The big question is, Is this my only chance to get to Mars? Or am I young enough to get artificially longer life, to get round trip to mars? Or do I die before it is possible? Can I live on Mars long enough for round trips to get frequent? Is science advanced enough to keep me live after getting back(c'mon, I am piece of history then, first ones on Mars, of course they are going to keep me alive if they can)? What are you betting on?
copx 14y ago
They will certainly find people. However these people won't die of old age. Radiation alone will make sure of that. Whether this project has any point at all is a question of rational thinking vs. mass psychology. Scientists will tell you that it is pointless to send humans to Mars. All research can be done with robots - cheaper and without endangering human life. However, a human colony on Mars might generate irrational public excitement which in return could lead to governments investing more money into space travel and colonization again. I said irrational excitement because we know we can do it. NASA simply hasn't done it because there is neither money nor a rational reason for it. If the US government wanted to NASA could have a Mars colony up and running in no time. As the article points out the technology already exists. Personally I believe the irrational excitement factor will be a strong one and thus these people who basically sign up to die of radiation poisoning will end up being true "space pioneers". However, I doubt that Mars One will actually manage to secure the necessary funding. So I am not getting excited about this yet.
frozenport 14y ago
UNANSWERED QUESTION: why mars, what is there that we need? What would I be doing that a robot can't do? Why would I sacrifice my life for a gimmick?
- saraid216 14y ago
  Space colonization is an unmitigated Good Thing for the indefinite future, assuming you're okay with the human species existing after our sun explodes. Mars is the first step for dealing with that problem.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    Worrying about humans surviving after the sun explodes is not a motivation for anything. We have only existed for moment in time relative to the age of the sun, and any number of things could lead to our extinction in another relative moment's time, such that our entire existence on a solar lifetime calendar would not even be noticed.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Did you know that we do more than one thing at a time? It is a strange and abnormal thing, but it is true.
account_taken 14y ago
Good plot for a movie.
desireco42 14y ago
I think a lot of you are underestimating (what I read so far in comments) how much risk would people be ready to take. I would totally take this serious, it isn't convenient to go now for me, but in 10 yrs time, or less, I think this would be something I would really like to do. And I wouldn't be bothered by being confined in small space. However, I already can think of ways to expand that space, so this assumptions are not quite correct. I would probably not live super long due to radiation, but I would accept this for chance to go somewhere no-one had gone before. I am fairly confident that living on Mars would bring significant discoveries.
RachelCHRIS 14y ago
Aren't there better ways to generate ad dollars besides sending people on a suicide mission to Mars?
lsc 14y ago
Man. Think of the latency. 8 light minutes. We'd need to bring back uucp, read content offline. Caching would be essential. Heh. It sounds like a lot of fun, really. I mean, in 2022, I'll be 42; I mean, I'd need more information, (and I might be disqualified just for not being immediately ready to jump, but eh.) but it does sound like an incredible way to spend the second half of my life, even if it ends up making that second half, uh, significantly shorter.
Evbn 14y ago
I wonder if we will ever have a day on HN without talking about death. Or if someone could write a filtering app.

143 points by Sambdala 14y ago

vitno 14y ago

While I am skeptical of the Mars One project, for many reason which others have covered very well, I would happily die on Mars. I'm in my early 20's and I have big plans and dreams here on Earth. I would drop them instantly for the chance to go to Mars, one way trip or no.

cryptoz 14y ago

I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are taking this approach. Ensure complete and rapid rocket re-usability, make engines that take fuel that Mars mostly provides, and ensure a constant stream of supplies, growth, new people. If your colony is growing, and expanding, and there are frequently (every 2 year) opportunities to come back home, many of the psychological issues can be mitigated. Also, you'll be improving your technology as you build and expand, so you'll be able to fix problems and ensure reliability and safety too. It'll be risky at first of course, and for a long while after that. But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth.

rdl 14y ago
In the long run, I agree, but I think you could get a 5-10y headstart by doing a simple "one way and ongoing resupply" profile. The risk would be if that kills demand for the "colonization" profile later, but I really don't think that's likely. Sending some pioneers who are willing to accept far higher risk, first, before a mainstream effort which could support thousands, actually seems like a way to increate demand and lower risk (and thus cost) for the colonization mission. If 5-10 people living on Mars for 5 years ahead of you kills all desire to actually colonize the place in a lasting way, then it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place.
dangrossman 14y ago
> But I doubt it would be much riskier than we're currently living our lives here on Earth. You're probably underestimating the risks associated with humans leaving Earth for any considerable period of time. Radiation is the first issue. NASA will not plan a mission that exposes astronauts to higher than a 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Their reports from 2010 based on all the studies done up to that point put the number of "safe days" at ~0.5-1 years. That assumes a healthy mid-30s non-smoker during a solar minimum. So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits, even if we had a very well radiation-shielded base waiting on the planet. Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  > So just getting to Mars would exceed the safe limits This is the problem with your argument that I'm underestimating risks. You're assuming that nobody finds a way to solve this problem or to mitigate the effects of the radiation, and that nobody would be willing to find a way to go even with the health concerns. I know this will be extremely difficult and quite costly, but I think hard work and constant innovation will solve a lot of the specific problems that you pose today. > Multiple years in space and Mars gravity will also have severe impacts on bone density and muscles. You're never going to be able to fly to Mars, spend a few years, and fly back and resume your life on Earth without long-lasting health effects. Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Also, so what if it's true? Hundreds of millions of people on Earth voluntarily partake in long-lasting negative health effects habits. Why can't "living on Mars for a bit" be one of them?
  - smtddr 14y ago
    > Prove it. Until you do, I disagree. Well I can't personally __prove__ it, but I believe the general belief in the science community of prolonged space-travel is that it will most likely mess you up. Probably in more ways than we've even thought of. I don't think, at least with today's tech, that a human can travel to Mars and back and be perfectly okay. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-dangers.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-space-travel_p2.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19158_the-6-weirdest-dangers-...
smnrchrds 14y ago
The thing I'm most worried about is what happens if one of the residents needs medical attention. Mars is going to be a one-way trip and while the pioneers will most probably be young and healthy, they won't stay young and healthy forever. It is entirely possible to place a doctor within the group and send medical supplies, but it could work only for the simplest medical conditions. I think it would be a long time before it would be possible to perform open heart surgeries on Mars, or even fill a tooth.
- eCa 14y ago
  I think you are right. Medical procedures would likely go back to basics: Bad tooth? Pull it out. Broken leg? Maybe amputate. However, with the right provisions fairly advanced procedures should be possible to carry out with minimum personnel. For instance, in 1961 a Russian doctor in Antarctica removed his own infected appendix [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Amputate a broken leg? Just how bad do you foresee that injury? It's not like we can't ship anesthetics up there. It's not like a layman can't set a broken bone, although I dunno if an X-ray machine would be there to see.
- lsc 14y ago
  Huh. I'd assume that you'd get top-of-field type people in medicine, science and engineering along for the trip. I'd also assume that you'd get older people, too... brains and experience (and, as they say, getting along with a group) is going to matter more than physical fitness, I would assume. And from what I've seen, most people with technical skills learn social skills much later, if at all. My worry would not be that I'd get stuck with a bunch of peasants, but that the standards would be so high, with regards to education and useful skills, that I would not qualify for the trip. If I was trying to pitch myself at the interview, I'd point out all my experience maintaining older equipment with limited resources. (I'm sure they'd point out that nearly all my repair experience is board-level, not component-level, which is the right thing when you have a lot of cheap spares, such as when dealing with older equipment on earth, but completely the wrong thing when you are in an environment where you have to bring or manufacture everything you use.) I'd also point out my years of 24x7 pager experience, (and my experience in knowing where my burn out point is- I will push back rather than work myself to burn-out) Of course, they'd point out that there exist outliers who can work harder and longer than I can without burn-out, and I'm sure a few of them also know how to spot burn-out coming up. So, yeah; I would assume that if they were taking a credible run at it, they'd get some really good people (including some good medical personnel.)

vfl0 14y ago

I remember looking at a site that were planning a Mars mission and they expected you to pay in order to go on it. I have no idea why anyone would pay to be stuck on Mars..

e40 14y ago
Really? You can't image why? The answer is simple and one word: adventure.
- the1 14y ago
  pay me. i'll drop you off in the pacific, Pi.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I would pay to be sent to Mars. I would not pay to be dropped into the Pacific. That difference may not make sense to you, but it really doesn't matter if you don't understand it. Nobody is trying to convince you to do it yourself.
dictum 14y ago
You are underestimating the number of people who are interested in both a morally and socially acceptable suicide method and a claim to fame in science.

losethos 14y ago

God says... 17:21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. 17:22 And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: 17:23 And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry. 17:24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? 17:25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? 17:26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. 17:27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

tokenadult 14y ago

I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to have the ambition to be the first man to set foot on Mars. I'm stunned that at this late date I could STILL be the first man to set foot on Mars. But as I grew into adult life, and visited more than one country here on Earth, I began to think that it is an even higher and more challenging ambition to go somewhere you are not constrained to go by desire for fame or for riches or for being the first in a new territory, but rather by a desire to solve intractable problems. Solving a problem of long standing is a bigger achievement than solving a problem that is unsolved mostly just because no one has found it worthwhile to solve it. Making any of the world's poorest countries richer in general, or making any of the world's most oppressed countries freer in general, is a problem for which some example solutions exist, just as traveling to other planets has some precedent in the manned moon missions and in robot space probes, but I suggest it is actually a much tougher and more interesting problem, a problem more worthy of a gnarly man willing to risk his life. I still admire astronauts, and I've exposed all four of my children to books and films about space exploration, but I'd be even more thrilled to see them or other young people I know take on the exploration challenge of bringing about improvement in the lives of their fellow human beings in the worst-off parts of planet Earth. There is a lot of challenging science involved in those problems, and the contributions to human knowledge that will come from solving those problems will provide lasting benefit to all of humankind, whatever planet our descendants live on. AFTER EDIT: Two comments below mention "paternalism." Nope. I am talking about "fraternalism," sharing in the life of the people where you live, understanding their problems deeply because they become your problems too, and then building solutions from the neighborhoods you live in. You can't jet-set that in, and you can't phone it in or international consultant it in, you can only live it in. I've asked before here on Hacker News how many of the participants here have ever even lived in (not just visited, but lived in) a third-world country. Not many have. (I have, and it was a dictatorship when I lived there, and as a foreign national I was part of the process of nudging it to become the democracy it is today.) To be a brother of your fellow human beings is a great adventure. It's harder than armchair criticism, but also more challenging and interesting.

nnq 14y ago

Unless explorers will be given property of sizable portions of martian land and a number (more than 1!) of back and forth Mars-Earth tickets, this will definitely not attract the kind of valuable and resourceful people that would really be needed to create a self sustaining colony! And you'd also need something like a "diversity Mars Visa lottery" open to anyone so that a colony will not only be formed of "boring, super-fit and super-trained" career space colonists. ...but for all this to work, you'd need good, reliable and "cheap" space propulsion systems, not the current toys. This is where all the work and hype should be, not over the colonization plans and how to grow veggies over there: propulsion, propulsion, propulsion, everything else on 4th, 5th, 6th etc. place.

danielweber 14y ago
The goal of a colonization effort is never to make the new place more appealing than the old place for the majority of people, or even the median, or even a sizable minority. You want Mars to appeal enough that you can get dozens or hundreds or people who have both the means and will to do it.

melloclello 14y ago

Have they resolved the important psychological issue of there being no marijuana on Mars yet?

vwinsyee 14y ago

Mars One did an AMA on reddit nine months ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_... Personally, I remember being most astonished that their team only had one technical person: http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team

skrebbel 14y ago
I count three M.Sc.'s?

smoyer 14y ago

I'd be perfectly willing to die on Mars and (being one of the older one here), I'd say it's more likely that I am dead before anyone actually gets there. (Note that my family might not like me leaving them behind on Earth). As an aside, it's a shame that the artist's rendition reminds me of a trailer park in a Florida retirement "encampment". I have no intention of retiring somewhere that's populated by snow-birds (well ... if I actually retire. Retirement sounds terribly boring).

edw519 14y ago

Both of my grandfathers did this 100 years ago. They never saw their homeland or most of their friends or relatives ever again. They must have known that was the way it was going to be. I often wonder how they felt about it.

Mahn 14y ago
Both of your grandfathers have been to Mars? How come we never heard of this before?
deleted 14y ago
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danielweber 14y ago
Guys, it's pretty obvious edw519 is talking about his grandfathers emigrating to a brand new nation and leaving the old one behind forever. Lots of world travel was incredibly expensive.

SagelyGuru 14y ago

I don't get it. What is the point of sitting in a caravan on Mars and waiting to die? Is the guy proposing this going himself to set an example? If there is going to be any kind of colony, it needs some means of sustaining life and babies.

akiselev 14y ago
You wouldn't be waiting to die. You would be the vanguard of a possible independent arm of human civilization. Your work there would be critical to figuring out the viability of colonizing Mars.
danielweber 14y ago
You don't just sit there waiting to die. You go out and build things. We'll ship all the stuff the first people need for several years, but they will need to learn to find their own water, manufacture plastics, grow food, and all that stuff.

Udo 14y ago

If Mars can be mined for water (and it looks like it can), there is no reason to make it a one-way trip only. Sending people there with the explicit expectation to die soon speaks of poor planning and not a lot of willingness to export the basic tenets of humanity into space with us. It's a bad precedent, it carries the wrong message about the value of intelligent life, and I'm afraid the mission's limitations also impact its overall chances of success. Although we have experienced a sad regression in our space capabilities, there is nothing in principle preventing us from sending humans and basic building blocks there, let them build a decent base, and then instate a regular shuttling service. Even if building the outpost takes 10 years, that's not the same as sending them onto a suicide mission as the article implies. We're missing a lot of necessary infrastructure for this though, and without it the stated Sept. 2022 launch date might as well be 2122 or even 4022. We'll need a moon base to stage this thing (not only the initial flight but more importantly the supply line), and if we're serious about expanding into the solar system, one or two space elevators are probably a necessity. The political will to build any of these, never mind maintaining them, does not exist. We're too busy propping up corrupt political and financial systems, not to mention the importance of waging an eternal war the expenses of which could provide enough for a decent colonialization program many times over. Scraping together a suicide team and shooting it roughly in Mars' general direction is not the answer to this problem.

indrax 14y ago
"Die on mars" does not mean "die soon". This proposal is not a suicide mission.
saalweachter 14y ago
> Scraping together a suicide team and shooting it roughly in Mars' general direction is not the answer to this problem. I think you misunderstand. While the linked article is brief, the one-way plan isn't to send a ship-full of people with suicide pills, but to supply them for the next 40-80 years from Earth. Because of the hilarities of the rocket equation, it is cheaper to send rocket after rocket full of water, breathable air, food, fuel, and other supplies than it is to send enough rocket fuel for a return trip. Like, way cheaper. As the article says, the technology for a return trip just doesn't exist; the technology for a series of one-way trips does.

fjarlq 14y ago

I don't like it. Let's go all the way and make bringing the crew back safely part of the challenge. It will be more rewarding because it's more difficult. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things -- not because they are easy; but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept; one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win -- and the others, too."

iandanforth 14y ago
It's interesting, we used to have to bring people back to do our exploration, but in some ways thanks to high-quality video that need is less and less. If you think of society as a single entity then the notion of 'bringing people back' doesn't have as much meaning as it used to. We don't need martian resources (other than the space) and anything else is a souvenir. People had to go and come back from the Americas because of the lack of video (no other way to see it) and because we wanted something the Americas had (gold, wood, coal, cotton etc). We went to the Moon a few times, but it didn't have very much of anything we needed. Also you can pull up a video of what it's like to walk or drive on the moon anytime you want. While I agree the full return trip is a higher, more noble goal I just don't see the same forces at work that will require regular back and forth trips.

jamespo 14y ago

Is the chap proposing this willing to go off there himself?

lumberjack 14y ago

I see that Mars One will be using the SpaceX vehicles. I wonder if Elon Musk will be fine with this, because as far as I see it, it is actually undermining the competitive spirit of the race for Mars which is more about building the better technology than actually setting the foot there first just to get your name on the history books. For someone as devoted to offering real technological innovation, as Elon Musk is, it would probably smack a bit of cheating.

akiselev 14y ago
The obstacle of going to Mars has long since been a problem of desire and not technology. Obviously better radiation shielding, drugs that reduce the negative effects of zero-g, nuclear propulsion, and other technologies would reduce the risk of failure but at the end of the day going to Mars is a massive engineering and logistics problem. A good analogy (I think) would be the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Sure it is trivial to build today with our technology, as (I hope) it will be trivial to travel to Mars in the distant future, but the reason its a great wonder of the world is because, despite a lack of modern technology, it was built as a national engineering project that spanned decades. Just like a mission to Mars, it was a daunting task (one that required a generation or two of slaves perhaps) that was pulled off through pure grit.
nitrogen 14y ago
Musk himself said he would like to die on Mars: "“I will go if I can be assured that SpaceX would go on without me . . . I've said I want to die on Mars, just not on impact.” (http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/03/elon-musk-die-mars http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/03/elon-musk-die...)

aleprok 14y ago

Where do I apply? I would do this just for being one of the first persons in mars and be recorded in history books.

Qantourisc 14y ago

... food ... water? Otherwise your life (before you die) would be rather short ...

randomchars 14y ago
They're not sending people to sit in the corner and wait until they die. It's about building a colony. Regular supply missions and growing stuff on Mars would be part of the plan.

n3rdy 14y ago

My biggest fear would not be dying on Mars or on the way to it. My biggest fear would be having the novelty wear off and coming to the realization that I just moved to a trailer park.. on mars.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
Definitely the first people on Mars shouldn't do so merely to live on Mars, they should be the sort of people who are going to build Mars up. And if that's the case then it's unlikely the novelty will wear off quickly. There is a lot to do on Mars and a surprising amount can be done with fairly small amounts of capital equipment. Within the first few trips there could be enough equipment to bootstrap a Martian industrial base with production of Water, Oxygen, Methane, and Carbon Monoxide from the ground and the air. Which means you can provide resources for living, of course, with water and Oxygen, but also you can provide rocket fuel (liquid methane and Oxygen), and fuel for combustion powered surface vehicles (compressed methane and Oxygen), and resources for growing plants, and resources for smelting Iron (CO). In a few short years a Martian colony could be producing food, concrete, Iron and steel, even plastics, all from local materials. And in not many years after that it could be producing everything from fully functional Mars habitats to microchips to spacecraft. For people with drive and know how there would be as much excitement as they desire.
- lovehashbrowns 14y ago
  Yup, it just depends on what mentality you take with you. If you sign up for this with the mentality that you're going to have lots of fun and how amazing Mars is going to be, obviously the disappointment is going to set it very quickly. But if you go there with the goal of building everything from the ground up and knowing that it's going to be a very crappy place to live in for quite a while, then I think it would be hard to be disappointed. As you said, there is a lot of work to do and each little project would just add to the excitement of living there. At least for me it would.
D_Alex 14y ago
Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days on the space station "Mir" - an environment at least an order of magnitude more limited than Mars, I'd say. Wikipedia has this information about his mission: "Polyakov underwent medical assessments before, during, and after the flight. He also underwent two follow-up examinations six months after returning to Earth. When researchers compared the results of these medical exams, it was revealed that although there were no impairments of cognitive functions, Polyakov experienced a clear decline in mood as well as a feeling of increased workload during the first few weeks of spaceflight and return to Earth.[6][7] However, Polyakov's mood stabilized to pre-flight levels between the second and fourteenth month of his mission. It was also revealed that Polyakov did not suffer from any prolonged performance impairments after returning to Earth. In light of these findings, researchers concluded that a stable mood and overall function could be maintained during extended duration spaceflights, such as manned missions to Mars."

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eloisant 14y ago

Before talking about colonizing Mars, why not colonizing other areas of Earth? See the Sahara for example, or even your own deserts in US. Closer, more clement climate and no less resources. Why colonize a far away deserts when we have enough on Earth?

danielweber 14y ago
Because we don't want to.
cmccabe 14y ago
Because those areas are owned by other people, who probably don't want you taking over their land? Because any catastrophe that would destroy earth probably would destroy your desert too?

handzhiev 14y ago

I wonder how many of the people who say they are ready to go, imagine what it really is going to be. I think it won't be glorious. It might be exciting at first but if you have the chance to live there more than few months it will turn into rather lonely and hard experience. You won't have the internet or other communications. You won't have your favorite beer, or most probably any beer at all. Chances are you'd say good-bye to sex/love relationships, to your parents and friends forever, to the Earth weather and green grass... You get the idea. I know it sounds romantic and glorious when you are 20 years old or so, but I hope everyone who thinks they are ready to go, really is.

DocG 14y ago

The big question is, Is this my only chance to get to Mars? Or am I young enough to get artificially longer life, to get round trip to mars? Or do I die before it is possible? Can I live on Mars long enough for round trips to get frequent? Is science advanced enough to keep me live after getting back(c'mon, I am piece of history then, first ones on Mars, of course they are going to keep me alive if they can)? What are you betting on?

copx 14y ago

They will certainly find people. However these people won't die of old age. Radiation alone will make sure of that. Whether this project has any point at all is a question of rational thinking vs. mass psychology. Scientists will tell you that it is pointless to send humans to Mars. All research can be done with robots - cheaper and without endangering human life. However, a human colony on Mars might generate irrational public excitement which in return could lead to governments investing more money into space travel and colonization again. I said irrational excitement because we know we can do it. NASA simply hasn't done it because there is neither money nor a rational reason for it. If the US government wanted to NASA could have a Mars colony up and running in no time. As the article points out the technology already exists. Personally I believe the irrational excitement factor will be a strong one and thus these people who basically sign up to die of radiation poisoning will end up being true "space pioneers". However, I doubt that Mars One will actually manage to secure the necessary funding. So I am not getting excited about this yet.

frozenport 14y ago

UNANSWERED QUESTION: why mars, what is there that we need? What would I be doing that a robot can't do? Why would I sacrifice my life for a gimmick?

saraid216 14y ago
Space colonization is an unmitigated Good Thing for the indefinite future, assuming you're okay with the human species existing after our sun explodes. Mars is the first step for dealing with that problem.
- ams6110 14y ago
  Worrying about humans surviving after the sun explodes is not a motivation for anything. We have only existed for moment in time relative to the age of the sun, and any number of things could lead to our extinction in another relative moment's time, such that our entire existence on a solar lifetime calendar would not even be noticed.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Did you know that we do more than one thing at a time? It is a strange and abnormal thing, but it is true.

account_taken 14y ago

Good plot for a movie.

desireco42 14y ago

I think a lot of you are underestimating (what I read so far in comments) how much risk would people be ready to take. I would totally take this serious, it isn't convenient to go now for me, but in 10 yrs time, or less, I think this would be something I would really like to do. And I wouldn't be bothered by being confined in small space. However, I already can think of ways to expand that space, so this assumptions are not quite correct. I would probably not live super long due to radiation, but I would accept this for chance to go somewhere no-one had gone before. I am fairly confident that living on Mars would bring significant discoveries.

RachelCHRIS 14y ago

Aren't there better ways to generate ad dollars besides sending people on a suicide mission to Mars?

lsc 14y ago

Man. Think of the latency. 8 light minutes. We'd need to bring back uucp, read content offline. Caching would be essential. Heh. It sounds like a lot of fun, really. I mean, in 2022, I'll be 42; I mean, I'd need more information, (and I might be disqualified just for not being immediately ready to jump, but eh.) but it does sound like an incredible way to spend the second half of my life, even if it ends up making that second half, uh, significantly shorter.

Evbn 14y ago

I wonder if we will ever have a day on HN without talking about death. Or if someone could write a filtering app.