alt Hacker NewsThe goal was "get a few humans on Mars". Not the insane goal of "a million in 20 years".
Firstly, there's no reason the trip can't be one-way, or at least, temporarily one-way.
Secondly, there's not a huge need to develop a new rocket. We've delivered lots of one-way cargo to Mars using the Atlas V; something like the SLS could deliver much more, plenty for a couple humans to get there and not die. We've already launched SLS uncrewed around the moon, there's no reason to think it would take decades of dedication to launch one again 1-way to Mars.
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We also haven't specified if we're sending live humans to Mars. Just shuck someone onto the next rover we send over and call it a night.
Sending a live human, or group of humans, on a suicide mission in the name of bragging rights as a species would be really bleak. I doubt you'd get much political support for a Mars mission without a return plan, or at least a sustainability plan.
I think you're imagining a limited mission that's pretty far outside the tradition of space travel up 'til today. Consider the public reaction to Apollo 13 or Vladimir Komarov. Certainly, we could deliver a one-way small number of people more quickly, but I didn't think that's what we were talking about (it's certainly not what the article is talking about).
Edit: I suppose I should have said "a few humans [permanently settled] on mars, [able to return whenever they like]" in 100 years.
>Firstly, there's no reason the trip can't be one-way, or at least, temporarily one-way.
This is the ultimate admission that it can't be done. Anyone sane would at least propose a free-return trajectory like Artemis 2. Even if you are crazy enough to sacrifice your astronauts on a one way trip, you would still need to practice a lot of free-return trajectories just to train your astronauts and test the hardware.
And Zeroly, there's absolutely 0 reason for people to go to Mars, AT ALL.
This whole idea is the stupidest thing I've heard people seriously discuss.
What would be the point?
If you want to experience "life on Mars", bury a cargo container in your back yard, and live in it for a year.
If there's some burning need to go live underground, as you would on Mars, why not just do it in Nevada? The grocery store is a lot closer.
The post at the top of this thread is correct in saying the logistics of supporting a colony on Mars would take decades, and cost billions (at least).
I'm an advocate of exploration and science, and in the modern world we have effective automation. There is NO need to send people to Mars, absolutely not in any large number.
> there's no reason the trip can't be one-way
If the crew includes elon, I am actually in favor of this...
Consider what it takes just to keep McMurdo Station (staffed by only 200-1000 people) running on Antarctica, and that's on our own planet. I don't know what the cost is, but according to [1] the budget for the US's Antarctic program overall was $356M in 2008. And it depends on reliable logistics to get people and things to and from it.
From there, step up to the ISS, which costs about $4B/year to maintain and operate, an order of magnitude more.
It's likely another order of magnitude (tens of billions/year) and probably more like two (hundreds of billions/year) to do the same thing on Mars.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Antarctic_Progra...