Mission To Mars: Would You Sign Up For A One-Way Ticket? (VIDEO)

Hey everybody, Cara Santa Maria here.

Right now is a pretty incredible time to be alive. We live in an era when science fiction is becoming science fact, all around us, right before our eyes. And with the spirit of discovery, innovation, and progress, we have turned our sights upward--outward, and we see Mars.

We've successfully combed the surface of Mars, uncovering the mystery of its dusty landscape with the aid of robotic eyes and hands. Four unmanned rovers have gone to Mars. The most recent, Curiosity, blasted off from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011. It will travel 352 million miles before it finds the red planet, later this year.

We live on a fragile planet at a fragile time. We cannot discount the possibility of colonizing new worlds. And where better to go than Mars?

It would take around seven months to fly there, and that's if the intense cosmic radiation, freezing temperatures, and low gravity environment doesn't kill us first. Also, let's not rule out death by asteroid or some other interplanetary space projectile.

And come on, can human beings really withstand the intense psychological pressures of lonely, faraway travel to an isolated rock? Recently, six men completed the Mars 500 project proving that it is possible to live together, in cramped quarters, without losing your mind.

And if you can't empathize with anyone who would volunteer to live in a tiny windowless isolation facility for 17 months straight, can you believe that more than 500 people have already volunteered for a Mars to Stay mission? Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like: a one-way ticket to Mars.

See, the Journal of Cosmology says that we could be on our way to Mars in as little as 20 years. But skeptics say that the journey is too complex, too expensive, and of course, way too dangerous. Well, apparently, it's the return trip that's mucking up our plans. And if we take that out of the equation, the trip starts to look like it may actually be within our reach. But is this even remotely ethical? Would the Mars-To-Stayers be embarking on a suicide mission? Its advocates say no. They would be explorers, pioneers.

And today, we are closer than ever before to looking back over our shoulders and seeing that dot--that pale blue dot--that you and I call home, for what it is in the grand cosmic perspective, a speck of dust on the brilliant and expansive ocean of interplanetary space. This could happen within our lifetimes. And for those courageous souls, it would be the most incredible journey anyone has ever embarked upon.

Could you brave the impossible isolation of living on an alien planet? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me on Twitter, Facebook, or leave your comments right here on the Huffington Post. Come on, Talk Nerdy To Me.

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Comments

[srynmichael2]

12:17 PM on 03/17/2012

Get rid of that stupid ring.

[ms.understood]

05:07 AM on 02/07/2012

and besides, since humans seem to be dead set of destroying Earth, they'd do nothing but destroy any other planet they go to.

[ms.understood]

05:05 AM on 02/07/2012

i don't think that anyone should be going to mars. obviously, there's a reason we're on Earth and not there. we don't know enough about it, and not to mention, it could be very dangerous.

[sloop uk]

12:30 PM on 01/31/2012

Red/ Green/ Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is a thought- provoking fictional trilogy of books about just this premise- the colonisation of Mars and how it would be a one-way ticket for the majority of people.
Maybe obtainable from your library?

[mrrinmd]

11:29 AM on 01/19/2012

When Europeans first started colonizing the Americas in the 16th century, the majority of the colonists probably intended to return to their homelands one day, but for a variety of reasons, most of them never did. For the majority of them, it was a one-way trip.

I think that the biggest obstacles standing in the way of the colonization of Mars are not technical or sociological, but economic. The cost of establishing and sustaining a Martian colony would be enormous. In order to justify the expense and sustain itself economically, the Mars colony would have to export something back to Earth. The American colonies sustained themselves by exporting commodities that Europe greatly valued, but could not produce locally or at least not in sufficient quantity. These included sugar, tobacco, spices, furs, and wood products.

The Mars colony would be dependent on Earth for generations. It would need something to sell to Earth that was so valuable that it would be economic to transport it across space. And no, I don't know what that would be.

Having said that, would I go on a one-way trip to Mars? Hell, YES! It might mean that my life would be shorter, but it would be sooo worth it!

[oaoroho]

03:21 AM on 01/19/2012

Let's set our modern time ideal of ethics behind for a min. Did Columbus Really know he would be returning when he set sale? Our history as humans is full of explorers who risk all to be the 1st, to discover new places, to expand our civilization and why should this truly be any different? Yes of course they will be all alone as a group, but we can assist them by sending care packages with all forms of medicines, seeds and plants, or damn near any neccessity they may need within reason. I say if we have seriously willing, physicaly and mentally capable people who are wanting to go into the history books as the possable reason our species will carrry on past the indefinite destruction of mother earth then lets get this show on the road because the sooner we start the better. Lets progress towards terra-forming this potential planet! Lets make it our new world!

[Samson1]

07:39 PM on 01/17/2012

Think of the woman scientist with a life threatening illness in Antarctica last year, times 100. You would have inadequate (to say the least) medical care. Only the drugs and medications you brought with you (run out of tylenol?). Food you grow, some sort of deficiency? too bad.

[holothuroid]

02:12 PM on 01/17/2012

Republicans, time to step up!

[SwiftJonathan]

02:23 PM on 01/17/2012

They already did. They voted to give the largest part of next year's NASA budget to the very same companies producing the very same tired space architectures that have kept us in LEO for the last 30 years. New technologies were severely cut... probably for no better reason than to not give the president a political victory. If Obama wins, again, you will see four more years of stalling in Congress. And if Obama doesn't win, you are going to see four years of turning back of clocks without the US space program going anywhere.

[holothuroid]

04:56 PM on 01/17/2012

I meant they should take the trip!

But for the record, I think we should stick with satellites for now and invest a lot more in EARTH science. Most of the oceans remain unexplored, and we haven't yet drilled even to the mantle. Space exploration is largely a nationalistic ego trip that isn't nearly what it's cracked up to be in terms of tech development.

[SwiftJonathan]

12:13 PM on 01/17/2012

The good news is, that with exception of space weather (like solar flares), most of the other physical stresses on spacecraft can be predicted either from first principles or from data gathered on previous missions.

The hard part is to keep track of every possible failure mechanism at once. This is especially difficult with mechanical and thermal design, since all successful mitigation strategies usually eat into the mass budget of the mission.

The plethora of successful space missions, some of them in their third or fourth decade, has proven that experienced engineering teams can cope with these problems very successfully, while operating very near the margins (to avoid designs that would be too heavy to even get off the ground).

The important thing to keep in mind is that no two missions are alike and that all engineering has to be centred around a full understanding of mission requirements and the stress profiles that are dictated by basic physics once those mission requirements are set. As long as the designers assure by design that the spacecraft can guaranteed survive the predictable worst case stresses, the mission is fairly safe. In almost all cases of technical failure, very obvious deviations from this design pattern can be found. "Design by hope" simply does not work in space.

[SwiftJonathan]

12:04 PM on 01/17/2012

Thermal stresses dominate electronics design in space. Since every part is exposed to a vacuum, the usual terrestrial convection mechanisms do not work. Radiation is usually not sufficient to cool electronics on the component level, so the printed circuit boards have to provide conductive cooling to the electronics enclosures, which have to be conductively cooled to the spacecraft structure, which has to connect to heaters and the radiator, often through quite elaborate and expensive heat pipes.

There is the problem of finding a suitable ground potential (without running DC currents through the spacecraft itself, which can lead to electro-migration problems), and robust designs are very often fully differential or use isolated signal pathways, where possible (especially for com-control signals).

Radiation induced latch-up WILL happen. It has to be controlled with SOI (semiconductor on insulator) processes, reduced by proper circuit geometry and, if necessary, caught by board level circuitry to avoid thermal damage of the integrated circuit with a timed automatic reset. ALL spacecraft electronics (technology) has to be tested in radiation facilities for resistance against destructive latch-up events.

And the list just goes on from here... NASA (and aerospace manufacturers) have extensive internal documentation about best practices and proper design procedures for many of these problems.

[SwiftJonathan]

12:03 PM on 01/17/2012

Electrical stress... oh my...

It starts with electrostatics. On the ground the problem has to be controlled very carefully by following correct assembly procedures. On the pad and during launch the rocket/spacecraft have to be designed to withstand the usual discharge events for any aviation design. During ascent, the rocket passes highly charged atmospheric layers (up to 250kV, I believe), so proper grounding of all metal parts is necessary). In space, a near perfect vacuum, there is always space charge build-up due to ionising radiation and photo-effect. Therefore all spacecraft parts that are isolated, have to be bleed with proper resistances to avoid potentially serious dielectric breakdowns (this is often enough a materials problem).

Then there is the issue of power supply, especially with solar powered designs. Careful orbit planning will set a limit on the length of time during which batteries have to power the spacecraft. The designer has to take battery deterioration into account and mitigation strategies (like turning off instruments or unnecessary backup systems) have to be developed. Spacecraft buses are usually DC, requiring chains of DC-DC converters. These devices have negative input impedances and there is always a stability concern that has to be solved by design, either by making bus impedances low enough (which is difficult) and by carefully chosen power sequencing.

[SwiftJonathan]

04:19 AM on 01/17/2012

Mechanical stress

In space mechanical stresses are the result of acceleration, which, of course, is a matter of spacecraft mass and the max. thrust of the engines. Both are design parameters, mass, of course being a variable based on the depletion of the propellants.

During launch the max. acceleration is given by the design of the launcher and the chosen launch trajectory, both of which are well characterised.

The worst short term stresses are caused by ignition and separation events, which are usually triggered by explosive devices. It is critical to fully characterise the wave propagation of these short events in the structure of both the rocket and the payload, as resonant phenomena and whip like action can greatly increase the amplitude of these mechanical waves and lead to severe mechanical damage. This requires non-trivial 3d simulations and measurements on actual hardware.

Minor mechanical stresses can be caused by operation of mechanical payloads, like rotating elements that create torque on the spacecraft and by gravitational gradients and magnetic fields that need to be compensated for by proper attitude control.

Thermal cycling can lead to strong mechanical stress on the spacecraft structure and on parts of the plumbing and electrical systems, especially in spacecraft in low Earth orbit, which experience a full cycle ever 90 minutes. Proper bends and loops can compensate for these stresses by letting materials expand and contract without causing stress points to fail prematurely. There are detailed manuals about effective design techniques to mitigate these problems.

[SwiftJonathan]

04:06 AM on 01/17/2012

Thermal stress continued...

Electric heaters are usually connected to the power buses with passive ptc or ntc thermal switch elements in such a way that there is reliable automatic temperature control for spacecraft electronics, even if some of the systems are shut down, e.g. due to a radiation event. The downside for spacecraft charged by solar panels is that loss of attitude control can only be tolerated until battery power runs out... after which the heaters fail and the electronics, especially the control and communications systems, will not be able to wake up.

Deep space probes can carry radioactive heaters, which are much more reliable than electric heating schemes... at the expense of non-trivial amounts of radioactive elements, of course.

[SwiftJonathan]

09:52 PM on 01/16/2012

For those who want to terraform and mine and grow tomatoes outside of Earth... you may want to consider Ceres. It is much more interesting than Mars, in my opinion. While a little further away, it actually happens to be in a prime spot between the inner and the outer planets.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

11:44 AM on 01/17/2012

Ceres is way to small to keep any kind of atmosphere.

[SwiftJonathan]

01:33 PM on 01/17/2012

Indeed, it is, but it seems to have plenty of water, at least in the form of hydrated soils and it might even have an internal ocean. The conventional scenario of habitat design on Ceres assumes that one can make large, pressurised caverns in this ice, maybe even with thermal methods alone, without having to do actual rock drilling. Working with dry rock in low gravity environments (asteroid mining) does not sound fun, to me, because the dust will be all over the place, making life very miserable. But if water ice can be used to cement dust and rock, it could make for a very hard and strong material. More importantly, if you have water, you have steam, which can be used as a tool to drill and cut (and glue). It's very hard to do any of those things, simple tasks like "dusting" included, if there aren't any volatiles worth mentioning.

Ice has very low thermal conductivity and if a nuclear reactor can be used to cut and melt a large cavern, it might even be possible to keep a fairly warm sea/lagoon kind of environment in these caverns going with energy demands that may not be much larger than that of large cities on Earth. I'd have to do the actual calculations, but it seems to me that, with proper reflective surface treatment to keep radiation losses low, a Ceres cavern might actually be a fairly liveable habitat on a rather low budget.

[SwiftJonathan]

01:33 PM on 01/17/2012

This is pretty far out, of course, and it is speculative, because we won't really know what the Ceres surface looks like before Dawn gets there in 2015 and we would need a century of space "civil engineering" research to figure out how to do these things right, if they can be done, at all.

What we have seen on the surface of Mars does not look any more inviting than what I do hope to see on the surface of Ceres. But if one wanted to do some large scale geo-engineering on any body in the solar system, it seems to me that one would probably start on bodies that have low, but still useful gravity (stuff on Ceres will not immediately leave its gravity field if someone gives it a good whack with a shovel). The interior of Ceres, if you will, could be the beginners project for budding terraformers, while Mars is certainly a much larger task and Venus, potentially the other crown jewel of the solar system, is a very harsh mistress, indeed.

Having said that, the polar regions of Mars could actually offer similar opportunities as Ceres, if my understanding of large ice deposits in some areas is correct.

As you can see, I do like to speculate a little bit myself... even though I am worried that the 300,000 or so space bucks for a Mars mission are just not in the kitty for now.

[SwiftJonathan]

01:51 PM on 01/16/2012

Let's talk, for a moment, about the real problem getting to Mars: money.

As long as Congress appropriates money to NASA based on WHO is supposed to get WHAT in WHICH congressional district, much of what NASA does is merely an exercise in tax dollar handouts and legal bribery through interest groups of the aerospace industry operating in Washington.

If your Congressmen are forcing NASA designers to strap solid rocket boosters on a new rocket because Thiokol has them in their pockets, nobody is going anywhere. It's basically all just a big re-distribution game with a sub-orbital money laundering scheme.

You seriously need to clean that corruption up or the US will never be able to grow into a nation with the kind of space access you are dreaming about.

[SwiftJonathan]

01:52 PM on 01/16/2012

Oops... sorry... that was meant to be "orbital money laundering scheme", of course.