One-Way Trip to Mars

[Sarcasm]

Basically, if you were offered an opportunity to travel to travel on the first manned mission to Mars with, say, 10 strangers and start a human colony, would you take it? You would have to leave behind your family, friends, pets, and life as you know it. On the other hand, you would be one of the first people to go to Mars!

Personally, I'd definitely go, as a huge space nerd, and the fact that I would finally be able to do something useful and make a difference. To be brutally honest, nobody would really miss me, and most people would be happier if I was 225 million km away from them.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Sarcasm

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

I would stay on Earth, simply because the drawbacks outweigh the benefits for me, in this particular situation. 

 

Benefits: 

 

• I'd get to be one of the first people on Mars! 
• Visit space and set foot on extraterrestrial soil. Most people don't get to do either one in their lifetimes. 
• Do something that makes a difference for the world. 

 

Drawbacks: 

 

• I'd leave Bruce behind. 
• Not to mention the Shard, since you didn't mention anything about Mars having wifi connections to Earth. 
• Ten people isn't a lot to start a colony. We would depend on one another for everything, and our very survival might depend on our getting along. If there was one person I didn't get along with, our entire mission could very well be doomed. 
• What if the colony fails? It could succeed, true, but it could also fail. I could be one of ten people who bravely blazed a trail for those back on Earth….or I could be one of ten people tragically stranded on a distant planet when tragedy struck. If the colony failed, I imagine others on Earth would be extremely reluctant to send up another team, meaning a failed colony could actually set the space program back rather than moving it forward. 
• No Earth. That seems obvious, but think about it: No sunsets. No gentle breezes that smell like water and birch trees. No grass. No dandelions. Mars has its own stark beauty, but Earth is a work of art. Imagine never seeing any of that again….ever. 
• Doctor Who. Tenth Doctor. "Waters of Mars." That's all I have to say about that. 

[Voidus]

No new cosmere books = no chance I'm leaving earth.

[Delightful]

Aside from the emotional aspect, look at it from a view of self preservation.

What if you break a leg? Have a heart attack? What if someone has the flu badly, everyone gets it on the same day cause you're living on top of each other, no one is available to operate machinery needed to survive?

I mean sure you get to be the first person on Mars. But it's also a kind of suicide mission.

[Seonid]

I would love to go to Mars. But I'm married, with a son who is not even 2 yet. Missing all of his growing up years wouldn't be worth it. And leaving my wife behind is also not worth it. As much as I would love to go to Mars - as much as it is one of my biggest dreams, my family is worth more.

[kaellok]

I have a hard enough time with airplanes (couple hundred hours flying, and every second has been spent in stark terror and irrational confidence that the plane will crash and everyone will die).  I'm not sure that I'd be able to handle leaving the atmosphere.  If my choices are a one-way ticket to Mars without my friends, or death, then I'd die every time. 

 

Bless all those that actually do want to explore the solar system and galaxy and make it possible.  They're needed for humanity to survive.  But I am not one of them.

[SmurfAquamarineBodies]

It would be so ridiculously boring after the first year or so.

[Kobold King]

No. Not even a chance. It might be one thing if Mars were a habitable planet with a blue sky and lush greenery and squirrels in every tree, but with Mars as it is, a colony would be a bunch of people rattling around inside an airtight bubble till the end of their days. If you hate being trapped inside due to bad weather, like I do, Mars would be Hell incarnate.

 

On top of that, to even get there you have to move through space, which is a terrible, terrible place full of cancer-causing radiation that permeates through ship shielding. A lot of astronauts come down with cancer, and I don't want to be the first person on Mars to have a space tumor.

 

If I get there with my genome intact, what exactly am I going to do, bottled up as I am in the deadlocked facility? Carry heavy things for people smarter than me? Help grow potatoes, maybe some tomatoes so we can have ketchup along with them? What am I going to do with my free time? Listen to disco music I suppose, if The Martian is anything to go by.

 

 

But here's the big thing. A colony to Mars is helping the people of Earth in precisely one respect: making uninhabitable land habitable. That's what I do every day. I live on a stretch of the driest, deadest, most arid acreage in central Texas, land that was killed decades ago by cotton plantations that pulled every last nutrient out of the soil. I work tirelessly to add more nutrition to the land, composting every bit of organic matter I can get, and slowly making this land as lush and fertile as it can possibly be. What's the difference between what I do here and what I'd be doing on Mars?

 

I'll tell you what the difference is: here, I have my family laboring by my side.

 

 

You guys can have Mars. I'm staying here, on the green Earth I was put on, because that's where I'm needed most.

[+Slowswift]

Kobold, that was beautiful.

 

Anyways, as for me...

1. Has terraforming (a la The Doctor's Daughter) been invented yet? If so, sign me the heck up!
2. The Martian was a great read. I count it as a point in favor of yes (as it shows that one could survive in a worst-case scenario). But the reasons expounded upon above all count as no.

And it's not like the colony's never gonna grow.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Slowswift

[Delightful]

If I get there with my genome intact, what exactly am I going to do, bottled up as I am in the deadlocked facility? Carry heavy things for people smarter than me? Help grow potatoes, maybe some tomatoes so we can have ketchup along with them? What am I going to do with my free time? Listen to disco music I suppose, if The Martian is anything to go by.

I object. You're plenty smart.

I have no idea if you're nuclear scientist smart, but you're far from being a schlepper.

[Mestiv]

It would depend on who I'll be going with.

 

First of all, 10 people would not be enough. I want at least 100 people with me. Both male and female so there is someone to... talk to 

 

The problem with "what to do with free time" wouldn't be that bad if they allow us to have computers, some games and good internet connection

 

So I'd go under those conditions: more people and better communication with Earth.

[Dark_Eyes_12]

What LIES are these? Trust me, people would miss you! Seriously.