
Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars - Sambdala
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/16/mars-one-live-die-mars.html?cmp=rss
======
edw519
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.

~~~
danielweber
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.

------
Udo
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.

~~~
saalweachter
> 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.

~~~
Udo
> _the one-way plan isn't to send a ship-full of people with suicide pills_

Maybe I got caught up in the ridiculousness of the article's sensational tone,
but even so there is no technical reason to actually plan on never having
return flights. This relates directly to your other statement:

As I wrote in the parent comment, the presence of water on Mars allows for the
production of rocket fuel on site. This ties in to where I mentioned extended
infrastructure such as a space elevator and a Moon base, because those too
will make trips back and forth economical (instead of scraping everything
together for a singular "by the skin of our teeth" mission like this one).

I wrote about these points for a reason ;)

~~~
ams6110
While perhaps a return may some day be possible, the point is people are being
recruited without that promise. So that, e.g. they realize that if they get
sick, or seriously injured, or even just change their mind, there is no way to
get back.

------
n3rdy
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
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
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.

------
copx
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.

------
tokenadult
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.

~~~
rdl
Not me.

We mostly know the solutions to fixing the most oppressed or otherwise
defective parts of the world; we just don't find it worthwhile to implement
those solutions. I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for <$10mm and
a promise of immunity from prosecution or extradition by major world powers
(i.e. places I'd actually be, afterward). Scaling that up for other countries
is possible, too. For problems not requiring a ballistic solution, Bill Gates
is doing a seriously effective job of solving the polio problem, and major
headway into malaria.

The solutions to the most defective countries are all pretty straightforward
and widely known; it's figuring out how to turn decent but not ideal countries
like Pakistan into really stable first-world countries which would be hard, or
figuring out how to stem the long-term decline in the US. (Yes, there are
implementation difficulties in a place like Somalia, but it's because the
benefit isn't worth the expense in blood/treasure. The cheap solution is to
let the 1% of people who could make their lives a lot better by leaving do
so.)

The skills required to solve the harder sociological problems don't really
have much overlap with the skills to send people to Mars.

Bringing those places up to standard doesn't really give you anything new,
although it does help those people. Putting humans on Mars is something we've
never done before, and could lead to amazing technologies and opportunities
for humanity. Just like I'd rather be a medical researcher than a family
practice doctor, I'd rather push the limits of what's possible vs. contribute
to more widespread adequacy, although both bring up the mean. I'm glad there
exist both kinds of people, though.

~~~
shantanubala
> I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for <$10mm and a promise of
> immunity from prosecution or extradition by major world powers (i.e. places
> I'd actually be, afterward). Scaling that up for other countries is
> possible, too.

Oh really? What's your plan? How do you intend on ensuring that culture is
preserved while you implement this plan? Or do you believe that Western
culture is superior because it has been more successful in the last 100 years
(forgetting that segregation ended less than 50 years ago, if you must include
the eradication of entire populations as "successes," we can call it 500
years)? Even Bill Gates will admit that his solutions are imperfect at times.

The tricky part is a sustainable solution. Sure, you can throw money at
problems, but how is the solution going to last? Like you said, there is
_already_ a lot of money involved (e.g. Bill Gates) in philanthropy, yet the
problems haven't been solved yet. This indicates that the solution is trickier
than you think. And if there _is_ someone smart enough to engineer a solution,
I would like to think Bill Gates is very qualified for such a position.

EDIT: Mainly, if you don't account for the culture of a place, a solution will
likely not be popular enough to work (HIV prevention and treatment suffers
from this problem).

~~~
rdl
I don't think I could do a particularly good job running the country, and
wouldn't try (beyond a few weeks/months in transition). There are plenty of
other African leaders in other countries, particularly elected in the past ~10
years, who are far better. I don't think there's any reason why EG wouldn't be
able to come up with some domestic political leadership which was better than
what they have now. The problem is the nexus of oil wealth and foreign support
has allowed Obiang to remain for decades.

The less violent solution would be a trade embargo of the country (at least,
not allowing them to sell oil).

~~~
shantanubala
Practically speaking, how do you ensure that the new government doesn't become
corrupt in a year or two? Or more importantly, how do you restore the people's
faith in their government so that they participate?

Also, how would a trade embargo "fix" a country? Perhaps it would force a
dictator to lessen or hide civil rights violations, but it would not repair
the economy or necessarily give people more confidence in their government.

~~~
mistermann
> Practically speaking, how do you ensure that the new government doesn't
> become corrupt in a year or two? Or more importantly, how do you restore the
> people's faith in their government so that they participate?

Here's how I'd do it: pass laws specifically forbidding these actions by
government officials, the punishment being death. And then when someone
violates the law, you kill them. You wouldn't have to do this too many times
before the problem magically disappeared.

I think this would both fix the corruption problem as well as restore faith in
government.

~~~
columbo
> Here's how I'd do it: pass laws specifically forbidding these actions by
> government officials, the punishment being death. And then when someone
> violates the law, you kill them. You wouldn't have to do this too many times
> before the problem magically disappeared.

All that would do is wind up killing a bunch of 3rd party candidates and anti-
establishment types. You can't simply place a law and then expect it to be
100% accurate let alone the people determining guilt be 100% ethical. A
corrupt judge could kill a whole lot of people with this type of law.

~~~
rdl
My assertion is that there are different levels of corruption. If EG ended up
being just as corrupt as Nigeria after the eliminating of the current regime,
it would still be a victory for the people. They might even do better than
that.

And maybe structurally changing how oil revenues are handled; not allowing any
new leader to directly control them for personal benefit.

------
cryptoz
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.

~~~
dangrossman
> 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
> 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?

~~~
1123581321
We have already measured bone loss in low gravity environments.
[http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGen...](http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGeneralArchives/weakKnees.htm)

Gravity plays an essential role in bone maintenance. You can work this out
from first principles if you know anything about biology, or read about NASA's
findings.

This has been known for a long time, well before humans ever went to space.
For example, HG Wells' _First Men on the Moon_ described the very weak chests/
rib cages of the moon's citizens due to low gravity resulting in very low bone
density. When the explorers from earth struck them, their chests crumpled like
a beetle might on earth. Wells either learned this from other scientists or
worked out the logic himself.

~~~
danielweber
That's microgravity, or what other people call "zero gravity."

We honestly don't know how much gravity people need to survive. Your talk of
people's chests collapsing because you read it in science fiction is just
that: science fiction. HG Wells is great but he's not really a good source of
science for modern astrophysics.

Odds are, there are many bodily functions that work just fine in a little bit
of gravity, and others that scale up as you get more and more gravity.

We really need to get some spinning space stations set up to find this stuff
out. Unfortunately, NASA has a really big fetish for "let's spend money on
microgravity research" instead of just doing the obvious thing of seeing how
1/6 _g_ or 3/8 _g_ affects people and systems.

~~~
1123581321
I was hoping you'd see the Wells item as showing how straightforward and early
known is the connection between healthy human bone maintenance and gravity of
earth's strength, not science fiction. Certainly the rate of bone loss will be
slower in low gravity than in no gravity environments, but it will happen. It
_must_ happen to a degree just as surely as missing calcium and other
nutrients would harm our bones.

------
vitno
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.

------
handzhiev
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.

------
fjarlq
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
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.

------
vfl0
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
Really? You can't image why? The answer is simple and one word: adventure.

~~~
the1
pay me. i'll drop you off in the pacific, Pi.

~~~
jlgreco
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.

------
vwinsyee
Mars One did an AMA on reddit nine months ago:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/)

Personally, I remember being most astonished that their team only had one
technical person: <http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team>

~~~
skrebbel
I count three M.Sc.'s?

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

------
nnq
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
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.

------
desireco42
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.

------
SagelyGuru
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
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.

------
smoyer
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).

------
lumberjack
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
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.

------
lsc
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.

------
DocG
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?

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

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

~~~
randomchars
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.

------
eloisant
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
Because we don't want to.

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

------
frozenport
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
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
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
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
Good plot for a movie.

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

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

