Don't worry i don't think NASA are just sending them there to abandon them. The main focus of this mission seems to be to colonise Mars, won't do this much good if the astronauts are corpses. :)
Yeah, i suppose as long as it's not too expensive. Remember that's the main or else the second main reason the astronauts won't return.
I think that possible the money side of it might be just a bit of a cover up on NASAs part. Maybe to make it seem as theres no choice but to send them there on a one way ticket. Maybe NASA just want this colonisation of mars ASAP and so they do this.
Food for though. :)
Eh? How? I very much doubt it would be a single nation effort to colonise Mars, it would probably be a joint effort with countries like China and/or Russia being the first to actually land on Mars and then bring those people back. The USA just want to chuck a man at Mars and have them claim a stake in the planet, rather than anything truely worth while (other than bury the first human being on Mars, assuming they have a robot up there controlled from Earth to bury the dead).
What many of you are failing to realise is that "returning" is actually a fairly new concept that has developed over the past few centuries. Prior to that exploration often did mean visiting a place and not returning, unless of course you were particularly wealthy. For example look at the colonisation of America, the people left knowing that they would never return. I don't think the fact that they aren't coming back is a major problem because it's the nature of a mission like this and it will be completely infeasible to offer a return journey any time soon and the potential rewards of it are actually much smaller, the point is to colonise Mars.
That said there are considerations that have to be taken into account such as, as people have mentioned, cancer in deep space and long term care. It's fine when someone is young and healthy but what about when the team grows old and is less physically and physiologically able? In terms of Space exploration 20 years is not a large amount of time and yet in terms of Human ageing it's a huge amount of time. It's certainly a tricky subject and one that I fear none of us will be able to think through and answer properly.
MrPinkpanther already wrote much of what i wanted to say to this, people back pre 1700s( even sooner for many) had to leave their homes and never return. But, if the USA are going there first then of course it's their name that's going down, just like the first man on the moon.
"Chuck a man at mars"you say, if they sent the men/women up there with no protection,food,water and without a plan to keep them alive then they'd be "chucking" them up there. What they going to be doing is trying to keep them alive to the best of their resources.
What they are doing is begining human history on Mars.
Where's the news about colonising it? Last time I checked, we lacked the technology to colonise anything in space. This mission is obviously an example of America trying to beat other countries to Mars, no matter what. As far as I see it, it's only a great mission if they can bring back the people they're shooting off to Mars. Until then, it's not an amazing feat.
Ah, so like leaving a hamster at home all on it's own with a full bowl of food to keep it alive for a couple of days. Perfect, that makes it all the more better :P
You mean this century? It's not been 100 years yet :P
1. As you see from my previous posts i disagree with this, How can an operation of this magnitude and expense not be an amazing feat?
2.Humans aren't hamsters, if you disagree with NASA doing this do you also disagree with the international space station?
3. All he was saying is that it was an idea developing over the past few centuries, i don't know why you are talking about it not being 100 years yet.
1. It's an interesting feat., but not amazing. Amazing would be bringing them back and forth, not doing what some people do and that is lick or spit on food to claim it as their own.
2. I honestly don't know where you got that comparison, so I won't answer such a silly question as the two are completely different. International Space Station workers tend to come back.
3. Don't make up stories. He obviously stated "returning" as a new concept, referring to moon landings and any other space adventures or experiments. If he was stating the idea as developing, he would of done. And it's not been 100 years yet, century = 100 years. Look it up. Last time I checked, man didn't go into space until 1961 (Russian interstellar space mission). It's not 2061, so it hasn't been a century and the prior to this with testing and so forth, the first tests weren't done in the early 1900s.
Actually he meant the concept of returning from anywhere in general. Was it not just a few centuries ago that America was founded? And the people left knowing full well that they were never going to come back, and there was a possible chance of dying on the journey. This is not THAT different, except it will be written in the books of history - therefore, I have no problem with it. The will know the consequences, they will know what they're getting themselves into, it's their choice and thus no one should say they can't if they want to.