Ever since Neil Armstrong took his famous first steps onto the surface of the moon, space travel has captured the imaginations of generations of young Americans. Some of these children went on to study science and engineering, inspired to help create the technology of the future. Others became authors, crafting imaginative stories about the great and terrible ramifications that humanity's expeditions to the stars might have. And some people were inspired to write New York Times editorials about strapping old people to a rocket with no intention of getting them back.
Yeah. Here are some choice excerpts.
The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun's cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.
Whoa there, you might want to be careful about how you phrase these things. It sounds like you're about to suggest that NASA callously leave astronauts stranded on Mars for the rest of their lives just to save money! But no major newspaper would ever waste ink and column space by printing something advocating such an inhumane measure, right?
There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?
Because we are not completely horrible?
Is this a trick question?
While the idea of sending astronauts aloft never to return is jarring upon first hearing, the rationale for one-way trips into space has both historical and practical roots. Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip, usually because the places they were leaving were pretty intolerable anyway. Give us a century or two and we may turn the whole planet into a place from which many people might be happy to depart.
If our planet ever becomes such a craphole that people will willingly strand themselves in space just to escape the constant horror that is life then maybe we should use the countless resources it would take to go to Mars to address whatever caused that instead.
Moreover, one of the reasons that is sometimes given for sending humans into space is that we need to move beyond Earth if we are to improve our species' chances of survival should something terrible happen back home. This requires people to leave, and stay away.
Yeah, if we don't strand people on Mars now, how can we possibly be prepared for when the Earth is devoured by the sun in approximately 7,600,000,000 years?
Much of the cost of a voyage to Mars will be spent on coming home again. If the fuel for the return is carried on the ship, this greatly increases the mass of the ship, which in turn requires even more fuel.
Oh crap, a NASA mission could potentially suffer technical problems and go massively over budget. Clearly this is a problem so unprecedented and devastating that we can't afford to risk being decent human beings. Better to just let the astronauts sit up there for a few decades and then croak, yeah?
Surely if the point of sending astronauts is to be able to carry out scientific experiments that robots cannot do (something I am highly skeptical of and one of the reasons I don't believe we should use science to attempt to justify human space exploration), then the longer they spend on the planet the more experiments they can do.
If people are productive during business hours, imagine how productive they'll be when we lock them in their offices and feed them through a slot in the door!
Moreover, if the radiation problems cannot be adequately resolved then the longevity of astronauts signing up for a Mars round trip would be severely compromised in any case. As cruel as it may sound, the astronauts would probably best use their remaining time living and working on Mars rather than dying at home.
Fun tip: If you feel the need to qualify something with the phrase "cruel as it may sound", then it's probably something that you shouldn't be saying in public to begin with.
If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand. The lure of space travel remains intoxicating for a generation brought up on "Star Trek" and "Star Wars."
Sure these people might eventually come to miss trivialities such as cities and culture and their friends and family and human interaction and their homes and their country and being able to go outside without a pressurized suit and not drinking their own recycled urine, but it's just like "Star Trek!"
Clearly this argument is entirely validated.
We might want to restrict the voyage to older astronauts, whose longevity is limited in any case. Here again, I have found a significant fraction of scientists older than 65 who would be willing to live out their remaining years on the red planet or elsewhere.
Well as long as we're putting things in those terms, why don't we just launch Irish orphans into space while we're at it?
With older scientists, there would be additional health complications, to be sure, but the necessary medical personnel and equipment would still probably be cheaper than designing a return mission.
Wait, does this mean that the government is going to bring universal health care to Mars? Truly illegal Muslim President Obama's socialist agenda knows no planetary confines.
Delivering food and supplies to these new pioneers -- along with the tools to grow and build whatever they need, for however long they live on the red planet -- is likewise more reasonable and may be less expensive than designing a ticket home. Certainly, as in the Zubrin proposal, unmanned spacecraft could provide the crucial supply lines.
Hey, you know what else would help supply these astronauts with the crucial supplies they need? BRINGING THEM BACK TO EARTH AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIVES.
The largest stumbling block to a consideration of one-way missions is probably political. NASA and Congress are unlikely to do something that could be perceived as signing the death warrants of astronauts.
Would an example of something that could be perceived as signing the death warrants of astronauts be, let's say, signing something that actually, literally ensures that the astronauts involved will probably die?
Nevertheless, human space travel is so expensive and so dangerous that we are going to need novel, even extreme solutions if we really want to expand the range of human civilization beyond our own planet. To boldly go where no one has gone before does not require coming home again.
I wish I had the sheer amount of balls required to write a proposal suggesting stranding our own countrymen in a barren, dangerous wasteland for the rest of their lives and end it with a lame pun.
Still, at least the Times got a qualified expert to write this article, right? I mean, if you want people to seriously consider such a radical proposal, then you'd have to find an author with a great deal of credibility in the academic community, right?
Lawrence M. Krauss, the director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, is the author of "The Physics of 'Star Trek.'"
Oh. Okay then.
Comments
If we could send unmanned followup missions with food after the first mission, couldn't we just send the fuel we weren't able to fit on unmanned followup missions?
Posted by: Ragnell | September 8, 2009 11:56 AM
Oh, wow. I have to say, I'm feeling a little ashamed that that man is from my university. Believe me, none of the professors I've met have been that crazy. Many have been charmingly quirky, sure, but no one has ever gotten close to that "Let's murder people for SCIENCE!" level of insanity.
Posted by: Stilts | September 8, 2009 12:25 PM
Screw the radiation shielding. Reed Richards didn't bother, and look how that turned out. Maybe the astronauts could get themselves home if they got superpowers.
Posted by: Ostrakos | September 8, 2009 1:45 PM
Wait a minute! Shouldn't you all be for this? You're a bunch of supervillains after all; isn't stranding people on Mars one of the great past times of supervillainy?
Posted by: Matthew | September 8, 2009 1:49 PM
Matthew beat me to it. You guys are goddamn supervillains, right? Then start fucking acting like supervillains and stop being a bunch of pussies on this website. You should be celebrating this shit, you dumbasses. This article was funny, sure, but stereotypical. The humor and novelty of a website with this name is that you're supposed to EMBRACE evil and cruelty.
CHANGE YOUR GODDAMN NAME, YOU PEDESTRIAN LAME ASSES.
Posted by: LEANDER | September 8, 2009 3:10 PM
Ha, ha! What a fine joke! People thought you were seriously posting an emo rant!
Of course we should make fun of the author's "credentials" (I have a PhD in pain.), but seriously, this would be a fantastic opportunity for aspiring super villains.
Set up your own puppet regime. Perform crazed experiments. Search for unclaimed riches, aliens, etc. All far from the "authorities" or "heroes" or whatever.
Someone, possibly me, needs to get to work making these awesome one-way rocket Arks as soon as possible!
- Operative Rache
Posted by: Operative Rache | September 8, 2009 3:53 PM
Sorry that this comedy article on a comedy site wasn't evil enough for you.
I promise that my next article will be nothing but a graphic description of me skullfucking a kitten. You know, comedy!
Posted by: Doktor Puppykicker | September 8, 2009 5:49 PM
Remember, Puppykicker, it's not about how funny you are -- it's whether you keep up someone's idea a fictional pretense for a website they don't have anything to do with and can read for free.
Posted by: King Oblivion Ph.D. | September 8, 2009 5:53 PM
But don't supervillains live for the chance to strand old people in space?
Posted by: Ade | September 9, 2009 11:10 PM
Jealousy, one assumes.
Like Doom helping out on 911 just because he was pissed that terrorists killed more people than him that day.
Posted by: Baron Von Evilstein | September 10, 2009 11:42 AM
Is the kitten skullfucking article coming soon?
Posted by: Skullmaster | September 10, 2009 2:44 PM
The kitten skullfucking article has been postponed due to the lack of available kittens. This is of course because the ISS had entered into a prior agreement to distribute kittens to orphaned children. The good news, however, is we will soon be distributing our backstock of kittens to orphanages nationwide. Via cannon.
Posted by: Reverend Rogue | September 14, 2009 1:29 AM
The reason the ISS argues against this is obviously because people on Mars might mean that someone would actually escape enslavement.
Also, I have dead kittens for sale, if that is your preference.
Along with dead monkeys, dead dogs, dead Mars astronauts and undead crows.
Posted by: Voffvoffhunden | September 14, 2009 11:35 AM
"Blah blah blah we should change our name to International Society of Supervaginas b/c we're giant fucking pussies."
The irony of your kitten skull-fucking comment is that it piqued interest...probably more than some of the other amorphous shit on this website as of late. You guys used to have it. I don't know what happened. I'm just saying you have a golden opportunity with a website name like this to present something wholly unique and fitting for the Internet (a place that thrives on misanthropy) and most of the time you guys puss it up by ranting about shit that's bad in the world. Maybe if you'd celebrate evil in humorous ways instead of attacking it (and remember, most of the stuff you guys attack is stuff that would be considered "evil" for a number of reasons) then you'd do yourselves justice. But as it stands you cunts have lost your mindset.
Posted by: LEANDER | September 16, 2009 2:38 AM
Thanks for caring so much about a pretense, guy!
Posted by: King Oblivion Ph.D. | September 16, 2009 7:01 PM
So, anyone else here not realize that the whole Supervillain thing was a flimsy pretense to have fun psuedonyms?
Posted by: bg | September 18, 2009 3:31 AM
I'd just like to point out that this is my actual name, and I really am a supervillain.
- the OR
Posted by: Operative Rache | September 18, 2009 2:24 PM