MAIN ARTICLE: A One-way Ticket To Mars.
Paul Davies at Mars Daily.com has an interesting proposal, a one way trip of exploration to Mars.
Poll Results: The poll yesterday had a lower than average turnout with just over half believing dirt is the answer.
Star Trek: In the News. Triage technology with a Star Trek twist.
Yesterday's Comments: "Legos!" - shpilk
Today's Poll: One way trip to Mars - is this even an option?
A TICKET TO NOWHERE:
With America's aversion to risk, when it comes to space exploration, is a one way mission to Mars even possible? Even if it was privately funded would it be given a green light by politicans?
A One-way Ticket To Mars
"I'd like to talk about how to cut the cost of going to Mars. And there's one very obvious way, which is a one-way mission. Isn't this a crazy idea, a one-way mission to Mars? Who could possibly volunteer for such a thing? Isn't this a suicide mission? Well, the answer is: no, this is not a suicide mission.
Going to Mars on a return journey obviously involves a high level of risk. It shortens your life expectancy. Where does the risk arise? Well, as we know from the two Shuttle disasters, takeoff and landing are the most vulnerable times. By eliminating half of these, you would extend your life expectancy.
Radiation in space is also a serious factor for a Mars mission, and during the journey there and back you'd be exposed twice, for many months each time, to cosmic rays in space. It's true Mars is also a high-radiation environment, but it's easier to shield yourself once you're on Mars. The zero G during the journey is also bad news. Again, by cutting out half, your life expectancy increases.
A lot of people think: if you don't come back, you cut the costs in half. But actually you save very much more than that. By sending supplies and material ahead and using as much as you can on the surface of Mars, you would cut much more than 50% of the expenditures. It's hard to know how much but I would reckon at least 80% could be cut."
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Davies is not the only to suggest one way exploration trips. Bill Stone of Stone Aerospace has suggested one way trips to Luna. Land, and then find and process fuel for the return trip.
Texas Firm Draws up Plans for Orbital Gas Station
"A Texas-based firm has drawn up plans for a manned expedition to the Moon to seek out the raw ingredients for what amounts to an orbital gas station for future spacecraft.
Under the plan, from Bill Stone of Austin's Stone Aerospace, Inc, a vanguard team of industrialists would explore the Shackleton Crater at the Moon's south pole to determine how much, if any, frozen water and other materials sits locked beneath the lunar regolith [image].
If enough resources are found, they could then be processed into spacecraft fuels and hauled into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for propellant-thirsty spacecraft at one-tenth the cost of launching them from Earth, according to the plan.
"Once initial funding is received to initiate the detailed planning effort, we expect to be open for business in LEO in the 2015 timeframe," Stone said in a statement, adding that the ambitious plan would likely cost about $15 billion and require significant international partnerships. "Only by operating commercially will this enterprise be successful."
To that end, Stone has formed Shackleton Energy Company (SEC). He discussed his plan in a March 10 presentation at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California."
Will this be the way space exploration finally takes off? 21st century pioneers trailblazing their way across the solar system.
POLL RESULTS:
Triage technology with a Star Trek twist
Boldly going where no medical response has gone before
"Triage technology comes with a Star Trek twist, at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate (DHS S&T).
Determining who needs medical care at the scene of a disaster is still pretty old-fashioned: emergency responders bent over a victim, checking body temperature, heart rate, and muscle movement. Up close and personal, the entire process can take 3-5 minutes per person.
"Human nature is to pay attention to those who are screaming and bleeding, but someone with a less obvious internal injury may be the real top priority," said Greg Price, Director of S&T's Tech Solutions, whose office is managing a new DHS S&T project. "In the case of large-scale triage, it is not always the squeaky wheel that needs the grease," he says.
In partnership with the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), Boeing and Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis, S&T's Tech Solutions group is developing the Standoff Patient Triage Tool (SPTT), a device that classic Star Trek fans will recognize for its resemblance to the medical diagnostic tool known as the tricorder."
--end quote--
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
Magnifico - "From the pyramids to the moon landing Martin Reese, Britain's Astronomer Royal since 1995, has up an essay at The Guardian, "What the future looks like". In the essay, he writes:
The Apollo programme now seems a remote historical episode: young people all over the world learn that America landed men on the moon, just as they learn that the Egyptians built the pyramids; the motivations seem almost as bizarre in the one case as in the other. The race to the moon was an end in itself - a magnificent "stunt", driven by superpower rivalry. Thereafter, the impetus for manned flight was lost."
"How about this how about starting out using the blankets to start the outpost, and after time start to dig down. That way the astronauts would have some cover while creating the new outpost in an oxygen atmosphere. Instead of in their space suits, and the difficulties in motion that entails." - cyberpuggy
"There are a few restrictions on what life MUST look like.
The first and foremost is that it must contain self replicating molecules. The great thinker Stuart Kaufmann made this point in the wonderful book, The Origins of Order.
From my point of view the restriction for having liquid water - possibly at high pressure and not necessarily at earth-like pressures - is also essential. It is hard to imagine a self replicating molecule without hydrogen bonding.
Because of its richness and diversity and its position in the periodic table, I think that carbon is also an important feature of life. No other atom has as rich a chemistry.
It's a very common element however, so that's not a giant restriction. Amino acids in deep space are well known.
I think some kind of radiation shielding is also essential, although there are many types of such shielding is possible.
I would argue, conversly, that the presence of short wave length radiation (at least for some period) is also necessary, maybe in balance.
I actually believe in panspermia - with something like viruses or other semi-inert forms being at the main mechanism - but I don't actually believe that multicellular life is all that common. I don't think we need to originate RNA on earth. It may be widely distributed.
I believe that cognizant life is very, very, very, very rare, and everything we see confirms this.
Recently several points have been raised suggesting that earth is far more unique than advertised.
That's why it is our moral responsibility to protect earth, not that we're particularly moral beings." - NNadir
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Submitted to the comments section by JekyllnHyde.
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