Whilst I find the one way prospect beyond frightening, I think we do need to be brave and do such things.
That said, I don't think we are technologically ready to do it though and I think there are more risks than there need to be.
However it is a very exciting mission - I think we're just trying to run before we can walk.
Give it another 100 years, or even several hundred before attempting something like that.
Ahem...What?
We have the capabilities now, just not the political desire, financial return or enough data to go ahead.
During the initial project announcement I honestly thought it was (could it still be?) a reality show whereby they do a Truman Show, just on Mars of course
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Ahem...What?
We have the capabilities now, just not the political desire, financial return or enough data to go ahead.
Ahem...what? We don't have the capability though do we....
We can can fly people there, but we can't fly them back.
We do not have the ability to build any sort of adequate permanent structure that can house people comfortably. In order to build such a facility we would need to load all of the construction materials on to the ship as well as a trained 'space' construction crew. I'm sure the ship cannot carry the weight of all of that.
If we were capable of the above then we could actually continually explore mars as much as we like. As it stands we can't do this. All we have is a bunch of social loons that want to be flown to mars.
What, prey tell, is the advantage of a Mars base over a Lunar base? Mars isn't habitable either, but is a hell of a lot further away...
Pretty much, just without the reality show, all hush hush government stuff.
oh and of course the development of a new breed of human with some weird scifi super powers...episode three got odd.
No you do not need to carry all the construction stuff with you. Like the earth mars has most of what we need.
Also return trip is likely to be possible in the coming decade or two. Again it uses resources on the moon to refuel a spaceship.
SpaceX falcon 9 reusability will pace the way forward for this.
Of which tonight they might make history of landing the first stage back on a drone ship after launching a space satellite.
It is far from a bunch of loons.
I might have the wrong end of the stick here.
You're saying for newly inhabitants, or to set up a new base, it would be easier to mine resources, then make construction resources, then build whatever needs building over just taking it with us?
Wouldn't we need to then take machines that do the mining, smelting, etc. etc.
No you do not need to carry all the construction stuff with you. Like the earth mars has most of what we need.
Also return trip is likely to be possible in the coming decade or two.
It is far from a bunch of loons.