A scientist is suggesting we should send people on a one-way trip to Mars.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-mars-one-way-20101116,0,3966661.story

I would volunteer for this. It is my ultimate fantasy life....to explore strange, new worlds...to seek out new life...wow, I'm a nerd.

Anyway, I think we should treat Mars as we treated the west coast in the days of yore. People loaded up their wagon trains and headed west to build their new lives. It was a one-way trip. Sure, loads of mortality, sickness, etc. But, many would survive, helping to build the society of today.

Putting a modern spin on the old "Oregon Trail" concept, using our modern science and modern technology...I think we'd have a good chance at establishing a colony. And, hopefully the human race will survive long enough to actually need the extra real estate. On some other forums, my argument is that if we don't start exploring (and sending humans) now, we won't be ready to go to that new real estate when we need to be able to.

This is a bit more difficult than a trek across America. For starters, It literally would cost billions to send humans to Mars. Mars is a very hostile place. You would have to put together a survival kit that will have to last the rest of your life, in an environment that has no breathable air, no readily available water, no food, extreme cold temperatures way below freezing, exposure to dangerous levels of radiation, and have to bring along some kind of pressurized shelter.

Yes, of course it is more difficult. But the same type of nay-saying happened when people wagon-trained across America. Also, we're better prepared to go to Mars now than we were to go to the moon in the 1960s. A one-way trip would be cheaper than a round trip. However, to establish a permanent settlement, you would have to nearly continually send people to Mars in succession. We could send, say, 8 colonists on the first trip. Then whenever the next "short" window out came around, another 8, and so on. Each new group of colonists would bring materials and supplies that would help sustain the colonists. This would probably go on for a couple of decades before the original colonists could be sustainable. But eventually it will happen if the human race survives long enough.

And let's be realistic...we're not talking about a survival kit. We're talking about taking every single thing to Mars that makes life happen. From the air and water we need, to the shelter, to the pressurized environment, to the hydroponics and protein, to the fuel, etc. etc. In my opinion, that's not a survival kit.

Yep. Me too. I've wanted to go into space ever since I watched the first moon landing.

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It would be really interesting and cool. The only thing though is that it seems you would lose so much time just travelling, and once you take off you are going to remember something important that you forgot.

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