Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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One-Way Trip to Mars
March 06, 2008 4:02 PM
For now, NASA openly says the prospect of sending astronauts to Mars is out of the question -- too complicated and expensive.
But a retired NASA engineer named James C. McLane III says a Mars mission is doable, and would unify the world as never before.
Just a couple of details: McLane would send only one astronaut. And it would be a one-way flight.
“There would be tremendous risk, yes,” McLane is quoted by Nancy Atkinson on the Universe Today website, “but I don’t think that’s guaranteed any more than you would say climbing a mountain alone is a suicide mission. People do dangerous things all the time, and this would be something really unique, to go to Mars. I don’t think there would be any shortage of people willing to volunteer for the mission. Lindbergh was someone who was willing to risk everything because it was worth it."
McLane, whose father was a NASA engineer in the Apollo days, has been pushing the one-way-ticket idea as a way to recapture Apollo's spirit. In 2006 in The Space Review, he wrote, "Americans forget that Apollo succeeded in large part because the country knew that sending humans to the Moon within the short time frame of ten years would be exciting, difficult, dangerous, and perhaps even impossible."
Difficult and dangerous, yes -- but no return trip? Past explorers he cites -- Columbus, Lindbergh, Armstrong -- knew they were taking chances, but believed they had a decent chance of coming home.
McLane insists that for now, one-way is the only way.
"Return to Earth from the Martian surface is a daunting technical problem for which current technology offers no obvious solution," he wrote in 2006. "Realistically, there aren’t even any schemes based on futuristic technology that are likely to be perfected within the next 20 years. When we eliminate the need to launch off Mars, we remove the mission’s most daunting obstacle."
Soon enough, McLane argues, the first mission would be followed by others, and a colony might grow. The story spread to Wired, Gizmodo, Slashdot and other sites -- overwhelming, at times, the Universe Today servers.
Do take a look at Nancy Atkinson's piece. Is McLane's idea crazy? Or are there people crazy enough to make it happen? McLane writes, "From our global population of over six billion, it will be easy to find suitable astronaut candidates."
(Above: artist's conception courtesy NASA.)
March 6, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (183)
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I agree, there will be many willing to go on a one way trip, but how many of us would be willing to send someone knowing that it is a death sentence?
Posted by: Quietman | Mar 6, 2008 4:21:22 PM
moronic - worthy of a Dilbert cartoon.
Posted by: chris | Mar 6, 2008 4:42:52 PM
I would think that someone in the early stages of a terminal illness would be happy to volunteer actually--isn't it the dream of every person to be able to do something that could benefit all mankind?
Let my kids get grown up and I'd volunteer in a minute w/no regrets.
Posted by: Jim | Mar 6, 2008 4:43:29 PM
Like the movie "Capricorn One"?
Posted by: Mike | Mar 6, 2008 4:44:44 PM
There is a difference between planning to make it back and not being able to do so (like Lindbergh, who had many predecessors who didn't survive) and knowing you won't come back. Certainly there would be people willing to go, for the anticipated adulation if nothing else, and the Middle East is full of them blowing themselves up every day in the name of a cause. But people would want to remember a manned trip that was successful from launch to splashdown on Earth.
Posted by: Publius | Mar 6, 2008 4:46:10 PM
If there was some way of guaranteeing them food and oxygen supply on Mars, then I could see this to be much more likely. Then it's not a death mission, it's more of a permanent colonization.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 6, 2008 4:47:57 PM
NASA should be scrapped from government funding and supported solely by private investors.
Posted by: Phil | Mar 6, 2008 4:48:41 PM
Thanks for that. Now I am embarrassed to be a human being.
I volunteer!! Send me to Mars ASAP !!!
And please God, when I die; could you reincarnate me into a species more intelligent; perhaps a mushroom?
Posted by: chris | Mar 6, 2008 4:51:28 PM
First, we would have to pass progressive legislation supportive of humane and swift assisted suicides, (besides enlisting for a HUMVEE mission.)
Posted by: ric properties | Mar 6, 2008 4:52:49 PM
I think this was framed wrong. We already have proven technology to send objects to safely land on Mars. A person who took a one way trip could potentially (albeit expensively) be sustained from Earth throughout his/her lifetime and even joined by other astronauts. It would be more like a colonization than a death trip.
Posted by: Jesse | Mar 6, 2008 4:53:40 PM
I mean really...you want to use the premise of a suicide mission to mars....to..umm..unify the world.
Posted by: Robert | Mar 6, 2008 4:54:43 PM
Hey Robert - the writer of the article didn't come up with the idea! Read the thing through again. It's NOT his moronic, repugnant idea. But it is news.
Posted by: Douglas | Mar 6, 2008 4:57:38 PM
I nominate George W. Bush!
Posted by: Karen Uh-Oh! | Mar 6, 2008 4:57:39 PM
Jesse
More importantly - WATER. If you can get a supply of water you can use a fuel cell to provide all your power and heat, assemble a greenhouse to create more oxygen and food supply. But first you have to have a large supply of water (liquid or solid does not matter).
Posted by: Quietman | Mar 6, 2008 5:01:09 PM
Send a few male and female kids out of college to colonize. Keep sending replenishment supplies. How cool to have the first baby on the martian surface.
Beam me Up!!
Posted by: Charles | Mar 6, 2008 5:01:22 PM
Before we consider the human mission we need a successful robotic sample return one. This would allow to test the lunch from the Mars surface at much smaller scale. And find this sort of mission as exciting and imagination capturing as anything else.
Posted by: Timur | Mar 6, 2008 5:02:42 PM
Um...I see his point but I don't think listening to an astronaut describe the beauty of the Martian surface right before he unlatched his helmet and died of exposure would make ANYONE feel good.
Posted by: Hwatney | Mar 6, 2008 5:05:17 PM
Wouldn't that set an ominous prescedent for the United States if we said that we were willing to sacrifice human beings in the name of progress? Isn't the purpose of progress to improve life, not destroy it?
Going to Mars wouldn't act as a unifier any more than the lunar mission was. And aside from some scientific research that can just as easily and much more cheaply be done with unmanned probes, there is no reason that we need to go there. Lets not put the carriage before the horse and let technology reach a level where travel to Mars can be done safely and efficiently.
Posted by: the Harlequin | Mar 6, 2008 5:05:46 PM
A friend of mine, a Ph.D. in Geology, had this idea 5 years ago, and told me that when he asked his unmarried colleagues if they'd sign up, about 1/3 of them said that would be fine with them. Being the first person on Mars was worth it, they said.
I don't doubt that NASA could find someone to do this.
Posted by: Dave J. | Mar 6, 2008 5:06:38 PM
I nominate Hilary then she can be President of Mars and won't have to worry about those 3 AM calls.
Posted by: tomsea52 | Mar 6, 2008 5:11:21 PM
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