Well we have NASA has unveiled bold plans to send humans ‘one-way to Mars to colonise the planet as part of ambitious investigations to permanently colonise other planets in space. The multi-billion pound mission, titled Hundred Years Starship, is being spearheaded by the Ames Research Centre, one of Nasa’s main research centres, based in Moffett Field, California. Officials from the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are also heavily involved in turning the science fiction idea into a reality. Early estimates put the cost of such a mission, which has “just started” at more than £7 billion and could be achieved by 2030.
Such a space journey would take up to nine months with volunteers embarking on the mission knowing they would never return to earth. This is because the cost of returning astronauts to earth would make the project prohibitively expensive. Supplies would be sent to make them self-sufficient. Such a mission would be gruelling for humans with forbidding conditions including sub-zero temperatures and a thin atmosphere. It comes as researchers claimed such a human mission was technologically feasible and was cheaper returning astronauts to earth. Their new study, in the Journal of Cosmology, found the costs of safely returning a crew would eat up the majority of such a mission’s budget.
Dirk Schulze-Makuch, from Washington State University and Paul Davies, from Arizona State University, said four volunteer astronauts could undertake the first mission to permanently colonise Mars.
Wow, could you imagine being one of the first humans to be born and raised on Mars?
That’s a crazy idea! I mean, how many pairs of panties would a girl need to take!? lol
As many as one would need. Or take none at all!