It turns out the hard problem is getting a man back from Mars, not sending him there. The return trip could cost hundreds of billions extra. It turns out Lawrence Krauss had the same idea I did:
If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to
leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several
informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One
of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and
engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field
trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a
one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand.
…We might want to restrict the voyage to older astronauts, whose
longevity is limited in any case. Here again, I have found a
significant fraction of scientists older than 65 who would be willing
to live out their remaining years on the red planet or elsewhere. With
older scientists, there would be additional health complications, to be
sure, but the necessary medical personnel and equipment would still
probably be cheaper than designing a return mission.
Let's take bets on that happening.
Elsewhere on the health care front, consider Massachusetts:
State-subsidized health insurance for 31,000 legal immigrants here will no longer cover dental, hospice or skilled-nursing care under a scaled-back plan that Gov. Deval Patrick announced Monday.
Meanwhile in Planet Earth stupidity is rampant. In relation to Mass health care, the NYT says
“Because of its three-year-old law requiring universal health coverage, Massachusetts has the country’s lowest percentage of uninsured residents: 2.6 percent, compared with a national average of 15 percent. The law requires that almost every resident have insurance, and to meet that goal, the state subsidizes coverage for those earning up to three times the federal poverty level, or $66,150 for a family of four.”
That reminded me of the first report on the Cuban economy prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America (in 1977). The report argued that the unemployement rate was close to zero so they were doing much better than other LA economies. In a footnote the report mentioned that in Cuba there was a “Ley contra la Vagancia” that made a crime not to be employed!
What can we expect from the outgoing leg? Tangamucil?
Every member of the group raised his hand.
Well, yes, they say that *now* …
I can just see the footage of the crying whimpering scientist begging to come home, the inevitable TV coverage — it would be better than the OJ trial.
It’s interesting that he cites Zubrin on how to manufacture fuel for the return trip, but doesn’t cite his rather convincing answer with regard to radiation.
Life on Earth is actually exposed to constant background radiation; as such, humans actually require some radiation to live. For example, someone living near sea level in the United States is exposed to roughly 150 millirem (where 1 rem is the standard unit of radiation measurement in the US, a millirem is one thousandth of a rem, and 1 Sievert, the European measure of radiation, is 100 rem), per year and those living in high-elevation locales such as parts of Colorado receive 300 millirem annually due to the smaller amount of atmosphere shielding them…
…In total, radiation doses of 52.0 and 58.4 rem taken on conjunction- and opposition-class missions, respectively, are well below dangerous thresholds — even were they to come all at once, instead of over the course of years.
Krauss goes on to make the point that a one way trip would be very difficult to sell to the public
You’re right to sell it as a base, but you left out the crucial part: “MARS – The Reality Show.”
If we can get the comm quality high enough, this will make “Survivor” look like peanuts.
Then we have a contest show for who gets a one-way ticket to wed a single astronaut at the base: “Who Wants to Marry a Martian?”
This expedition could pay for itself!
I think Tom Wolfe wrote about this in ” You can’t go home again.”
I have observed (and perhaps observed incorrectly) that conservative people are in favor of grandiose space missions, such as a manned mission to Mars. I’ve never seen anything even remotely worthwhile from a cost-benefit analysis. Manned martian missions (if you’ll excuse the alliteration) don’t seem very conservative at all.
@James.
Thats because you see it as , “oh lets go to mars” the way someone would say, “lets climb mount everest.” To many conservatives its not that at all, its the progression and expansion of civilization and life into space on a permanent bases that matters.
what if there were men and women on the crew, and the woman ended up getting pregnant and delivering the baby, past the point where the ship could get home on remaining fuel. would that necessitate trying to get the vessel back to earth?
David C,
Russian space legends are awesome, regardless of the source. My favorite is about the suicidal “KGB Dwarf” who supposedly manned the Lunokhod 1 rover:
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/kgbdwarf.htm
The Luna, Phobos, Deimos, and Ceres are more likely candidates for early permanent human extraterrestrial habitations. Planetary gravity is too costly to overcome in any cost/beneift analysis for extraction of resources and construction of habitats by comparison to non-planetary environments. Utilizing the interior of Ceres alone offers more land area than presently available on Earth. Energy and water resources combined with the effects of low gravity are the principle problems with the development of habitats in asteroidal and planetissimal bodies. However, the water and atmospheric needs may be satisfied by water ice mined from the asteroids. Establishment of a base on/in Phobos and/or Deimos would provde a less expensive and safer means of conducting manned and robotic explorations of the Martian surface.
The 21st century will be the century of the robot. Within the next few decades robots will be sophisticated enough to do human tasks. We could then send these robots to mars on a one way mission with the purpose of building an infrastructure for future colonization by humans.
The point is that this is what the actual “death panels” would be like. Sure, it is not worth it to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a return trip for old astronauts. This is pretty fairly obvious.
And it is probably not worth it to spends millions of dollars on a 90 year old patient with alzheimers. As you move down the dollar ladder, it becomes less obvious where the cutoff is, and panels will have to decide the cutoff using formulas or bureaucratic judgment. Neither of which is very appealing.
“I have observed (and perhaps observed incorrectly) that conservative people are in favor of grandiose space missions, such as a manned mission to Mars.”
I don’t get it either. All I can figure is that at least the money isn’t going to welfare moms in D.C. So, yes, there will be ‘some’ good from the boondoggle.
But, seriously, people seem to like the government spending on things they are interested in. Perhaps it makes them feel like they are in control.
the flaw in this article is that the calculations are all done in fixed dollars whereas the martians have a floating, fiat currency. what is the exchange rate these days? how is the carry trade going?
Anderson,
Thank you for the two comments. I am still laughing.
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