[FPSPACE] A One-Way, One-Person Mission to Mars

[LARRY KLAES]

Quoting from Edwin Cameron's post produced in full below:

"One way to Mars?  Not likely today!  World opinion regarding space 
conquests
is not what it once was.  Perhaps the Soyuz 1, Apollo 204, Soyuz 11, 
Challenger
and Columbia disasters have quenched any willingness to send a space 
explorer on
such a suicide mission."

While I do not advocate recklessness in space exploration, I also do not 
advocate
hiding under the bed every time something goes wrong, because there will 
always
be problems and accidents no matter how hard people try to keep them from
happening.  To stop venturing into space is more of an insult to those who 
died
in past efforts than to keep going.

50,000 people are killed on US highways each year in automobile accidents, 
but
you don't see the government banning cars.  Same for airplanes, though I 
don't
have the figures on accidental deaths with those vehicles at hand, though I 
am
sure they are a lot less.

"If we die, do not mourn for us. This is a risky business we're in, and we 
accept those risks. The space program is too valuable to thiscountry to be 
halted for too long if a disaster should ever happen." - Gus Grissom, three 
weeks before he was killed in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967.

http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/systematic/Faculty/Kendall/rakfavorite.htm

Larry


>From: Edwin Cameron <nodin at sbcglobal.net>
>To: friends partners <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
>Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] A One-Way, One-Person Mission to Mars
>Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 00:08:33 -0800 (PST)
>
>Jim McLane is by far not the first to advocate one-way missions to an 
>extra-terrestrial orb.  Despite common beliefs and statements to the 
>contrary, both the Soviets and Americans were prepared to forego a safe 
>return to the mother planet just to be first on the Moon.  I believe it was 
>just that attitude that most likely put two men aboard an N1 to attempt to 
>beat Apollo 11.  As I have said and written in the past, there may never be 
>conclusive proof that cosmonauts were atop the N1 on 3 July 1969, but that 
>launch attempt makes absolutely no sense otherwise.  Especially if there 
>was a catastrophic failure on 21 February, as first reported in 1989, just 
>over four months before N1/L3-5L was launched.  Video long since released 
>shows that the SAS worked and pulled the LOK away from the falling 
>behemoth, but what of the LOK after the video/film ends?
>
>   I believe there are two primary challenges remaining to fill gaps in the 
>N1 story.  What happened to the Zond capsule that was launched on 3 July 
>1969?  And, where is there video showing the configuration and launch of 
>6L?
>
>   The film that we thought for so long showed the demise of 3L, may in 
>fact be film from two later flights, 6L and 7L.  So, did 3L actually fail?  
>If so, why show failure of two other N1 flights in the documentary titled 
>(in English), "First Launch, N-1, 21 II 1969g"?
>
>   Aside from the numerous other questions regarding the N1, there remain 
>questions about the circumlunar plans, and the whole Soviet manned space 
>program between mid-1967 and 1973.  And, I do not believe the Kamanin 
>diaries tell the whole Soviet manned space story as it really happened -- 
>we know they do not -- simply look at the periods of December 1968, 
>February 1969, and then just before and after 3 July 1969!
>
>   One way to Mars?  Not likely today!  World opinion regarding space 
>conquests is not what it once was.  Perhaps the Soyuz 1, Apollo 204, Soyuz 
>11, Challenger and Columbia disasters have quenched any willingness to send 
>a space explorer on such a suicide mission.
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