Should NASA Send Astronauts On Voluntary One-Way Missions?
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Yes, for any mission (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as simple as asking: "do you want to take that risk"?
There's plenty of people in the world willing to participate to something that will likely end their lives, as long as they perceive it as heroic. It's one of the freedoms I value in a civilized world.
With that being said, 15 years ago I would have volunteered, but today, for the sake of my family, I wouldn't.
One way missions are for robots (Score:2, Insightful)
Manned one-way missions are a desperation tactic. You know what you should be aiming for? Getting a man to the Martian surface and returning him back to Earth alive and well.
Space exploration doesn't need to take place in your lifetime. Solve the engineering challenges and the rest will follow.
Re:Yes, for any mission (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, at least in the extent to which survival at the end of the trip (be it one way or not) is not a reasonable probability. It's not as simple as "do you want to take that risk?" Risk implies probability, but planning for a one-way trip is a certainty.
An organization does not have the ethical right to ask for this certainty, especially when there is no chance that the asking could be done without some form of coercion (i.e. implicit do it for your country/honor/science/show you're not a coward/etc...). We don't even ask this of our armed forces. When people join, they know there's a risk (i.e. probability) that they may die - and in fact that they may later be ordered into a very bad situation - but those are situations (often in the heat) where plans went very wrong, or situations involving the kind of math where you spend infinity to gain infinity [wikipedia.org]. And even in that example, the action was voluntary by situation, not by designed plan. We have no such pressing desperation in scientific exploration.
We can design exploration plans that allow for something other than suffocation or starvation as an end point. I would say that exploration with pioneering and settlement are ethically reasonable places to solicit volunteers. Even sustained exploration where limited resources are not an assurance of death (i.e. "an ongoing mission to seek out...") could be reasonable. But I think any mission which involves planting a flag, running a few experiments, and then opening one's helmet is ethically flawed - especially when patience will let us solve the intrinsic survival problems.
Re:Yes, for any mission (Score:5, Insightful)
if NASA sent an astronaut on a one-way mission, the public outcry would be so deafening that the entire agency would be shuttered before the astronaut arrived at his destination. This is why I voted for "no, never" because I don't think the public will abide any disregard for life, even if it is volunteered.
Re:Yes, for any mission (Score:4, Insightful)
if NASA sent an astronaut on a one-way mission, the public outcry would be so deafening that the entire agency would be shuttered before the astronaut arrived at his destination. This is why I voted for "no, never" because I don't think the public will abide any disregard for life, even if it is volunteered.
I disagree, governments send people on way way missions all the time, they're called soldiers and they know flat out that some of them will die. Obviously it's not the same sending a bunch of guys knowing a percentage won't come back and sending a couple of people knowing they won't come back but I think if it's for a cause the public see as worthwhile not only will they endorse it but honour those who go. I'm thinking such things as first colonisers of Mars (after that we'll hopefully have the technology to get to other potentials like Europa etc pretty quickly and more importantly be able to bring them back), or to prevent a disaster situation a la Armageddon or whatever.
Re:Yes, for any mission (Score:5, Insightful)
Different situations (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's a permanent colony, then of course. That's one-way, but with a solid intent and good odds of dying only when old age catches up.
If it's a long-term mission, but with only X years of supplies and no plans for return, then there needs to be some strong benefit. Altering the course of an Earth-bound asteroid? Worth it. Perhaps some extremely useful science could also justify this - if we somehow get a sudden radio broadcast from Europa, sending a crew on a suicide mission to investigate might be worth it. But the xenogeology and such that we'd be doing on a Mars mission would not really justify a suicide mission, unless we can continually resupply them (but at that point, they're basically a colony without population growth).
If it's just a "put feet on the rock to claim it", hell no.
Survival of the Species (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, aside from science fiction, find me the worthwhile reason to go.
Survival of the species. It is an established scientific fact that there have been mass extinctions on earth associated with massive volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts and it is only a matter of time before there is another (although hopefully a long time!). Having a self sufficient human colony on a different planet is the best way there is to ensure that we survive as a species plus whatever species we take with us would survive as well.