"Mars for Nothing"?

[pattersoncr]

The illiad comes to mind. Isn't the type of choice we are talking about exactly what Achillies faced?
Stay home, live a happy life and die an old man, or go; never to return but to be remembered for a thousand years.

I'll bet there's quite a few people who would take door number two. The Greeks understood that.

 

[Andy44]

Achilles was a warrior, his doom was a prophecy, not part of the mission plan.

 

[to be]

How about a fit, experienced astronaut who's over 60? Life expectancy in this case would be another 20 years. If we could project a mean survivability of this mission to about 8-10 years, then our volunteer would only lose around 15 years of life, assuming all went well.

Only 15 years, that's nothing! Who wouldn't want to give up 15 years of their life, that is only the difference between 55 instead of 70, and 35 instead of 50. It's no big deal right? No one ever does anything important after that age anyway, right? :thumbsdown:

 

[Ghostrider]

That's why I suggested an Odd Man with a fatal disease and a very low life expectancy.

 

[eveningsky339]

1 person would be hard, but it could be possible:
Have robots do the brunt of the work: Calculations for beaming the data, calculations for life support and all the grunt work. Yeah, i know, they need power: Solar panels.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal..."

I don't think many people will volunteer for such a thing with the only reward being "remembered". They won't be aware of being remembered. They will be dead.

 

[Ghostrider]

I don't think many people will volunteer for such a thing with the only reward being "remembered". They won't be aware of being remembered. They will be dead.

And that, sadly, is why the age of the great explorations is over.

 

[eveningsky339]

And that, sadly, is why the age of the great explorations is over.

And the age of safety regulations has begun. :dry:

 

[Ghostrider]

And the age of safety regulations has begun. :dry:

Jeff Cooper, bless his trigger finger, had a better term: "Age of the Wimp". :dry:

 

[C3PO]

I don't think many people will volunteer for such a thing with the only reward being "remembered". They won't be aware of being remembered. They will be dead.

I'd go.

 

[Woo482]

ok any one got a few billion ? I will go but you need to give me a relay fast computer (with orbiter of course)

 

[pattersoncr]

Achilles was a warrior, his doom was a prophecy, not part of the mission plan.

My point is that he knew the prophecy and went anyway.

 

[Andy44]

The age of exploration didn't involve sucide missions by loners to exotic but profitless places. It involved searching for trade routes and new ways to get rich by type-A personalities who expected to return home with fortune and fame.

Extra points to Ghostrider for the Jeff Cooper reference.

 

[Belisarius]

I'd go.

That's the Achillean spirit - count one less citizen of the Age of the Wimp.

BTW, anyone got any idea if the Phoenix lander could be adapted to take one crew member just for descent, say two or three days max? I couldn't find any data on Phoenix from astronautix.

 

[GregBurch]

It's an interesting idea, but one that reveals just how screwed up the space endeavor has become. Had NASA focused on building real, useful space infrastructure after Apollo instead of designing the world's biggest pork-pie, we could already have a modest human presence on Mars. Instead, smart people are talking about shoestring suicide missions.

... oh well ... grumble, grumble, grumble ....

 

[Belisarius]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda... The past is most definitely past. Let's talk about the near future. By the way, instead of suicide, couldn't we just call it "indefinite duration surface permanance"?

 

[Whatu]

Instead of suicide:
The chance to live one of the most singular and scientifically appealing lives that rockets can offer to you. (For the rest of your life).

 

[Belisarius]

Instead of suicide:
The chance to live one of the most singular and scientifically appealing lives that rockets can offer to you. (For the rest of your life).

You're right. In fact the glory-of-being-the-first thing is, as eveningsky points out, something of a red herring. You would indeed be the most famous human ever, but you'd be dead, eventually. You wouldn't be thgere for the everlasting glory part.

The real payoff for this sacrifice comes in just BEING THERE.

BEING ON MARS.

Baxter says it better than I could hope to:

"She placed her right foot on the ground... She was standing freely on Mars... She turned. Sunlight shone into her face,casting reflections from the surfaces of her faceplate. Sunrise on Mars: the sky here was different, the way the light was scattered by the dust... The sun, rising above the silhouetted shoulders of Challenger, was surrounded by an elliptical patch of yellow light, suspended in a brown sky. It looked unreal...."
Stephen Baxter, Voyage, p577...579"

The sky here is different from the sky on my planet. What wouldn't a true explorer give in order to feel that?

 

[Ghostrider]

The past is most definitely past.

O RLY?

 

[Belisarius]

O RLY?

You're very clever. Have you anything constructive to add to the discussion?

 

[Ghostrider]

You're very clever

Gee, thanks! :lol:

Have you anything constructive to add to the discussion?

Actually, I think I've already given my .0000002 cents. Should I be alone and suffering from a fatal condition that in no way would impair me during the flight and (brief) sojourn, I would go. The alternative, after all, would be spending my last days on Earth with no real purpose.

Now, I will spare you my philosophical/religious/synthpop views but I firmly believe that there is more to life than just living through it. I wouldn't care if I couldn't be alive to enjoy all the fame and glory and fast women from being the First Man on Mars (OK, I'd miss the fast women), because I'd be too happy to be there, first human on another planet. I would have done something great and scrumptiously cool and that would be enough for me.

However, the conditions for me are clear and since I'm not (fortunately) in those conditions, I cannot volunteer. Now, there are people around who believe an enterprise to be worthy enough to sacrifice their lives to it, so they'd probably go too.

IMHO, the problem is not the volunteer. It's the rest of the team. Could you sit down at the CAPCOM console (no, not the Commando one) and talk for weeks to an end to someone you know will not come back, ever? Could one sustain the emotional pressure to keep watching over someone you know is going to his/her own death, willingly, and you can't change that fact no matter what? As humans, can we bear this kind of ordeal? The person in the ship is going out there to die, and not only there's nothing we can do - we're accessories to this person's death. That's the real question here, if you can find a team who would be mentally and emotionally fit to oversee the mission.