'Hundred-Year Starship' Would Send Space Explorers On One-Way Mission To Mars

"The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds," NASA Ames Research Center director Simon Worden said at the Long Conversation talk in San Francisco, according to Kurzweil AI.

With that goal in mind, writes PopSci, NASA and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are embarking on a "Hundred-Year Starship" program, which will bring space travelers to other planets and leave them there.

The first planet in sight? It may be Mars.

Worden expects the program to take off within the next two decades. "I think we'll be on the moons of Mars by 2030 or so," Worden said, according to Kurzweil AI.

So far, NASA has contributed $100,000 to the project, and DARPA has chipped in $1 million, according to Gear Log. That isn't nearly enough for blast-off, but Worden hopes to convince additional individuals to invest.

"[Google co-founder] Larry [Page] asked me a couple weeks ago how much it would cost to send people one way to Mars and I told him $10 billion, and his response was, 'Can you get it down to 1 or 2 billion?' So now we're starting to get a little argument over the price," Worden said.

NASA has few details on the program. The Huffington Post has contacted the organization for a comment regarding the initiative.

How feasible is a colony on Mars?

As PopSci points out, in the October-November edition of the Journal of Cosmology, a paper titled "To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars" explains that Mars's similarities to Earth make it an ideal site for human exploration and, possibly, settlement.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies, who co-authored the paper, argue that a one-way mission is favorable for two reasons. First, writes Science Daily, "because the greatest portion of the expense is tied up in safely returning the crew and spacecraft to earth." The second reason is that leaving people on Mars could lead to "long-term human colonization of the planet."

In their paper, Schulze-Makuch and Davis compared potential settlers of a Martian colony to the first Europeans who explored uncharted North America, Science Daily reports. They predict that a Martian settlement could be could be extremely useful to researchers and may even serve as a "lifeboat" in case a "mega-catastrophe" occurs on Earth.

Buzz Aldrin argued "we can be well on our way to Mars by July 20, 2019" and believes in building a colony on Mars. He told Vanity Fair, "I'm convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we're eventually going to run out of money. But what if we send people the first time and they don't come back? What if they stay there?"

See incredible images of Mars.

[via The Week]

Comments

[Visionary Excellence]

07:28 PM on 12/11/2010

I would imagine the best reason for a 1 way trip to Mars is Solar Sails. Solar wind blows one way. The latest solar sail technology breakthrough in Europe should lead to a 16 day trip to Mars. 1 way.

Costs? Space elevators are quickly coming of age (SPACE ELEVATOR - look it up). Microsoft just hosted an international conference on Space Elevators earlier this year. Two of NASA's millenium prizes are related to space elevators. Japan is investing 5 Billion into space elevators. Europe announced its own competition in space elevators for 2011. Why? They reduce the price of space launches by 95%. Rockets are so retro.

One side benefits of terraforming Mars is reverse engineering Earths eco system to create one on Mars. This process will greatly increase our knowledge and ability to stop and undo the damage were doing to earth. With 1000 one ton payloads we can do a lot toward this goal in a short time.

How to pay for it? Asteroid mining. Again, look it up. When the earth was formed, all metals were sucked into the core. All metals and minerals we use come from asteroid that hit the surface. A single asteroid can bring in $20-30 Trillion worth of precious metal.

[stanar]

10:28 AM on 10/30/2010

And also, I dont think we have to get into a space race. Similar to ISS, any future space exploration, especially planetary exploration/colonizing should be a joint venture and engage other countries. This will reduce the burden on any single economy and pool resources including brain and money.

[stanar]

10:19 AM on 10/30/2010

Here are my few cents on spending money on Space Exploration. Only a small percentage of the money spent goes out of the planet as a spacecraft and the rest helps R&D, new inventions/discoveries, jobs, economy, etc. Like someone pointed out, many of the by products (inventions/discoveries) are used here to make our life better and save the planet.

[ancientmarinader]

11:43 AM on 10/29/2010

I like the general idea. But what happens politically and financially if someone changes their mind and starts broadcasting, "get me outta here!!!" daily, while crying like a baby?

[wilray]

03:20 AM on 10/29/2010

Food for thought: The reason unobtanium is so expensive is the freight charges. Otherwise, it is cheaper than coal. But apparently Oakley obtained some unobtanium at a real cheap price.

http://www.oakley.com/products/5702/19148

[oxjr]

01:12 AM on 10/29/2010

would have been cheaper than the Iraq war.....

[MoreFocusLessEntropy]

09:30 AM on 10/28/2010

I know NASA's manned space program has it's fervent supporters, but the thing has reached the end of its natural life cycle and people are grasping at straws. If this nutty idea were ever approved, it would quickly morph into a two-way program -- it's just a way to get a foot in the door. NASA does great work... in *unmanned* space exploration. Leverage what you do best.

[ancientmarinader]

11:37 AM on 10/29/2010

It certainly hasnt reached the end of it's natural life cycle. it's as alive as ever as evidenced by the recent authorization act to create a new launch system based on shuttle boosters. Politicians will not give up the pork based jobs created by HSF.

And the idea that the US will sit on the sidelines while China revs up it's manned program? Not happening.

We do get more bang for the science buck with unmanned probes and telescopes, but manned isnt going anywhere as a practical matter.

[MoreFocusLessEntropy]

01:15 PM on 10/29/2010

Thanks for your insightful reply. Best regards...

[Just do the right thing]

01:24 AM on 10/28/2010

Successfully developing human habitable life on any other planet is going to take hundreds of years at best, and thousands if attempted in the kind of raw environment represented by the likes of Mars. A planet like Gliese 581g would be an ideal long-term choice with more livable, Earth-like characteristics. But we've still got to figure out how to get there, and this will likely take a couple of generations to develop, and a couple of generations to get there! Mars is a learning opportunity - a stepping stone, as was the Moon.

A prediction: The Chinese are going to aggressively push the bounds of space exploration with their newfound wealth and education before the Americans will. And with 1.3 billion citizens, and many more men than women with no hope of marriage, they'll have hundreds-of-thousands of volunteers for a one-way trip.

[Tunghoy]

09:14 PM on 10/27/2010

Colonizing other worlds -- and hopefully terraforming them -- is the only way to ensure the survival of the human race. Earth can comfortably support about a billion people, so we're several times over capacity. We need a bigger house. And with super volcanoes, meteors, gamma ray bursts, coronal mass ejections and other dangers, it's only a matter of time before an extinction-level event occurs.

(Sending Sarah Palin and other teabaggers on a one-way trip to Pluto is another way to ensure our survival. You can see the Kuiper Belt from Pluto.)

[SilentSolidarity]

01:02 AM on 10/29/2010

Fact free. Are you living in the 18th century? As far as I know you can't talk about overpopulation until we are 12 billion, and even at that level, you could provide enough for everyone (according to Greenpeace). The reason why people starve is simply because of supply and demand. Farmers grow food for the ones who pay the most. Not to mention the agricultural subsidies of wealthy nations that drive poor farmers out of business.

[Tunghoy]

06:28 AM on 10/29/2010

Food supply isn't the only issue. We are running out of fresh water, and the oceans are severely taxed as well. Many species of fish have been hunted to the brink of extinction. Waste products from manufacturing and energy production have over-stressed our land and air, while natural resource extraction and harvesting have made it more difficult for the earth to heal itself.

As for a world population of 12 billion, that's only several decades away. No matter what happens, I find it difficult to believe that we will be prepared for that.

[WaPoFan]

06:53 AM on 10/29/2010

Then you are asserting that the human race is doomed within the next few decades. Completely terraforming a planet the size of Mars is estimated to take about 500 years.

If people were willing to sacrifice and consume less, the Earth could support far more than 12 billion people. However, we love our lifestyles so screw the Earth, LOL. Long live the dolphin people who will inherit the planet after us.

[realitytrumpsbull]

07:51 PM on 10/27/2010

Mars has been the stuff of science fiction since the days of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and probably even before. People have dreamed and written about the Red Planet for generations, but the challenge of putting 'boots on the ground' on Mars is herculean, to say the least. As usual, the first step is the hardest, getting out of Earth's gravity, but from that point on, things don't get a lot easier. Where the trip to the moon only took days, the hypothetical Mars voyage will take months, one way. Then, safely descending to the Martian surface, and establishing habitable living quarters for people in an adverse, otherwise unsurvivable environment.

Colonization, establishing a permanent human presence on Mars? You're talking extraordinary people, and extraordinary amounts of money, probably rivaling current war spending, if not exceeding it. And, to send explorers there without a plan for their return or sustenance is to send people on a one-way trip to their deaths. I think the 'mars mission' will probably end up being the work of generations, if it is to ever succeed at all. And, given the number of problems we have on THIS planet, well...they will probably make several more movies about it, and write several more fiction novels, before anything 'real' ever happens. Until then, it's Mars-bots.

[jammerbirdi]

06:09 PM on 10/27/2010

Why can't we spend our money making sure the colony in NEW ORLEANS is freaking safe from EARTH STORMS. Va fru Napoli!

[Just do the right thing]

01:10 AM on 10/28/2010

No offense, but saving New Orleans is throwing good money after bad. We should be trying to save Detroit, American topsoil from being burned up in gas tanks, and our educational system.

Meanwhile, investing in the kind of research that would take us to Mars and beyond is the right thing to do.

[Orcas Island]

04:05 PM on 10/27/2010

A good friend of mine works for the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. She was involved with the Kepler project. Most of the scientists in her group were of the opinion that it was better to send robots on missions and that trying to populate the moon, Mars or Secret Planet X was pure folly and a waste of money.

[maslin]

02:58 AM on 10/28/2010

I don't agree.

The challenges involved in figuring out how to make Mars habitable can be applied at home if necessary, and that is a huge ace in the hole even if no extra-terrestrial colony is ever attempted.

Robot rovers are phenomenal value for money, but money is also well spent on securing the future of the human race, and of the Earth.

[ancientmarinader]

04:57 PM on 10/29/2010

Of course, Ames specializes in that. Do a poll at Johnson or Marshall and you'll get a different result. They get more HSF dollars.

[buzzcuts]

03:17 PM on 10/27/2010

Can we please send Glenn Beck?

[Layman23]

07:49 PM on 10/27/2010

I think the martians kicked him out from there and sent him here.

[buzzcuts]

09:41 PM on 10/27/2010

Oh gee...uh...I think you are correct.

[imperator prime]

03:07 PM on 10/27/2010

"Schulze-Makuch and Davis compared potential settlers of a Martian colony to the first Europeans who explored uncharted North America."

That seems like kind of an insensitive comparison for a couple of educated guys to make, considering that unlike Mars (so far as we know), North America was inhabited when Europeans arrived. It wasn't a place 'unknown' to man-- at least not to the men & women who already lived there. One can only hope that if we do send an expedition to settle Mars and they discover that it actually does harbor some form of life, we'll be less 'colonial' in our treatment of it.

In any event, talking about North America as though *no* human beings knew *anything* about the place until European smacked up against it is awfully chauvinistic for a couple of truth-seeking scientists.

[-beowulf]

11:20 AM on 10/27/2010

"I believe 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 the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
President John F. Kennedy, speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961.

Hmm, this one way ticket to Mars idea meets that happy medium between horrifying and pathetic. It sounds like this is budget-driven, which fits in nicely with the Obama Administration's catastrophically wrongheaded belief tha "we are out of money" (please check out Huffpost contributor Warren Mosler to read why that's quite impossible). Buzz Aldrin is quoted as saying, "I'm convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we're eventually going to run out of money".

Sure thing Buzz, good thing Kennedy wasn't a deficit hawk or you would have been left to die on Tranquility Base.