NASA is studying a one-way Mars mission, which would send astronauts to Mars to establish a permanent base there, without a return mission. This is of course much easier and less expensive than a full round-trip mission. But the announcement that a one-way mission was being considered has brought a good deal of criticism from the public, as being inhuman and unthinkable.
Now it happens that I have gotten interested in genealogy in my old age, and have been tracing my family roots back into the very early days of settlement on this continent, and then to the immigrants who left the Old World to come here. I can’t help but think that to many of these early immigrants and settlers, theirs was a one-way trip into an unknown wilderness probably about as deadly as Mars. Yes they had air and plants and game to live off of, but they also had hostile natives, unpredictable weather, unknown geography, and a myriad of other unknown and unfamiliar things to deal with, and they did (enough of them, anyway) survive and plant their civilization on this new continent.
Before them, of course, there had been all manner of peoples – Vikings, Chinese traders, Polynesian explorers, Spanish and Portuguese adventurers , etc – who had set off on one-way trips to the unknown. Many didn’t survive, but some did, and prospered in new lands. To any sane person, Cortez’s invasion of the powerful civilizations of mesoamerica with a pitifully small army would have looked like a one-way trip, and a short one at that.
I would hope that the spirit of adventure that founded our nation hasn’t dried up to the point that we as a people aren’t willing to undertake risky adventures to expand our horizons. Going to Mars on a one way trip isn’t everyone’s burning desire (I wouldn’t choose to do it), but there will certainly be some among us who are motivated by the spirit of adventure, the thrill of being the first, or burning scientific curiosity. I would hope this nation wouldn’t deny them the chance simply because some of us are a little squeamish.
Stephen Hawkings is correct, we do need eventually to spread off this planet if we are survive as a species. There is ample geological evidence that mass extinctions happen periodically on our planet, from asteroid strikes or other causes, and there is no reason to believe these processes have stopped. Mars is only a small step in this endeavor, but it is a necessary first step, and we ought to take it.
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