Applicants wanted for a one way ticket to Mars | Hacker News Reader

Applicants wanted for a one way ticket to Mars

bbc.co.uk

44 pointslx24 comments

Send people when there's a coherent plan for them to do something useful.

Not before.

(1) Oliver Morton: "The fact that there are plenty of people who might volunteer ... does not mean that it would be right to indulge them.

If they live, they do so because of unparalleled spending. A world where a select few gets hundreds of millions, at the very least, invested annually merely to keep them alive while equally deserving people die in large numbers for want of far less is not a very attractive place.

Human Mars exploration is indeed a fine goal, and it is quite possible that fairly early on there will be some who elect to stay. But the only real argument for doing it sooner rather than later is the selfish one of wanting to see/participate in it personally.

There is something poetic about the notion of death on Mars, or of choosing to die there - Clarke's Transit of Earth caught that nicely. But Liebestod is not a good basis for public policy."

http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijournal/2009/09/oneway-to...

(2) Funding large risky space missions through advertising is not credible. Cash needs peak ~3 years before Mars arrival. The team building the British Mars lander tried hard to raise money from advertising - with help from M&C Saatchi - but "failed to raise any external funding guarantees." Hunting for sponsors "seriously hindered the orderly build-up of the project engineering team," contributing to the 2003 loss of the spacecraft over Isidis Planitia.

Crash investigation: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/ukspaceagency/docs/space-scienc...

When I was in high school I was invited to a youth science symposium. After a fancy dinner after a day-long event I asked the speaker, a woman from NASA, if a non-returning mission to Mars was on NASA's list of possibilities ( as the difficulty of the return trip is the primary prohibitive part of a manned mission to Mars ). She took this opportunity to try to humiliate me for even thinking such a crazy plan was worth considering, stating that "we would never send anyone to Mars if we could not return them home" as if it was some kind of militaristic "leave no man behind" moral code. I was very disappointed that she didn't even take the time to consider it and argue against it from a reasoned position. I am happy to see that others are not so closed minded these days and that space and planetary exploration will most likely continue with more open-minded people finding ways to reach out push on the edge of our envelope.

Imagine if she'd said yes. About a week later the tabloids would be screaming 'NASA to launch astronauts on death mission.' She wasn't trying to humiliate you, she was engaged in her job of doing public outreach.

I would think that she could have answered simply, "while your ideas are completely valid, we at NASA find it to be a more compelling challenge to return people to Earth from Mars as it would provide a much better opportunity to innovate and increase our knowledge base on return mission while opening up new industries beyond simply landing Humans on Mars, but ones that span the entire Solar system".

So as a scientist, speaking to young scientists, perhaps she should have said something like "First please note that while the following answer may be the truth, the nature of my job sometimes compels me to give non-truthful answers." Perhaps such a disclaimer should be given by any "scientist" whose PR operations sometimes preclude accuracy?

It is more the distinction between the official line and their personal opinion. In more private contexts (and with some beer) you can have some interesting conversations. (Did you know that the people on the ISS have not tried to invent any cool 0g games? "but juggling is really easy" ahh, the possibilities..)

I will try not to be surprised when most of the money raised is spent on the salaries of the promoters.

This comment fulfills your RDA of cynical first comments on HN.

You're probably right, but I'm applying anyway. It's not like a better possibility for me to get to Mars is opening up anytime soon. I'll balance the small amount of wasted money with the (extremely remote) possibility that I'd get to be a heroic space explorer.

With any luck they will strike up a sponsorship promotional deal and Justin Bieber will go first.

Mars One are based in The Netherlands and he was just over there after all.

If they sold gift certificates, they would make an immense fortune.

Don't _you_ have people you'd like to send to Mars?

My initial impression is "Wow, so cool, I wonder if I could do it.

Then quickly I am brought back to Earth by thinking that I will never see my family, friends or pets again.

I wonder how many of these "thousands" of applicants have truly though this through and could actually do it.

Think of all the millions of people who left places like Ireland to emigrate to the US back in the day. Most of them never saw their families they left behind again. At least nowadays we have internet... though with the 10 - 20 minute radio delay to Mars, Skyping isn't going to work so well

I don't think the Ireland example is the best. My understanding is they left because their home country was poor and the grass looked greener in America (land of opportunity and all).

The grass does not look that green in Mars

That is true but I was only comparing in terms of not seeing one's family again. It's hard to imagine saying good bye to your friends and family and knowing you won't likely ever see them again.

Most Irish left for America during the potato famine so didn't really have much choice in the matter - it was emigrate or starve.

It depends on your perception. For some people the land of Mars can be greener. The knowledge we would get back from that is huge and can be a huge opportunity. I agree that most people doesn't think about everything they will quit but I think we can find people that are ready to do it.

There's a big difference though.

On Mars if a small piece of equipment fails in your shelter, that's it. It's not like you can go outside and breathe some fresh air for a bit.

Not everyone thinks of family, friends and pets .. Remember those initial explorers (Columbus, Magellan etc) who went to unknown oceans risking their life. May not be a good comparison, but when you compare the naval technology at that time and space technology now, seems its a comparable risk. And they had to fight other humans so risk to life was even high.

Columbus made four voyages. This is a one way trip.

For most part, they were also unaware if their future was going to be better or worse, so there in offered great reward.

From my perspective, yes studying the Mars environment would be interesting but not worth leaving everything behind. If however there were life forms on Mars or something "better" than what's available on Earth, then it might be an interesting prospect.

I think I would want to know who else was signing up to be on the ship with me.

Previous submission, with much discussion, of CBC.ca report on same project:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5390420

I was thinking about this the other day. Wouldn't the people most likely to say yes to a chance like this be the least ideal people to send to start a colony? Historically, people have embarked on migrations in the hope the life at the other end would be a lot better, but that's almost certainly not true for living on Mars, even with every mod con you could imagine.

More click-bait. This seems to describe a reality show, without further implications.

There was a reality show along these lines a few years ago - how I remember this, goodness only knows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadets_(TV_series)

People ought to be nominated for this. I nominate the Nobel Peace Prize winner Barrack Obama.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com