Mars - One Way Trip?

[airbolt]

An ex-astronaut was interviewed recently and put forward his idea that the Mars manned flight would initially be a one-way ticket. In other words the astronauts would carry enough with them to establish a self-sustaining colony.

My questions are
* Would this make it easier to build the ship if a return was not needed?
* Would anyone volunteer for such a mission?
* Would the public of that nation accept it?

[ACtheTROLL]

1 yes
2 yes
3 we accept big brother ...

[jake-the-peg]

This actually means that you'd need to create a self sustaining colony on the first attempt.

In some ways that makes it harder.

If it's for scientific research this means that it becomes harder to return samples to Earth for proper analysis.

You still have to answer the question "Why are we spending gigantic amounts of money to do this in the first place"

Is there a real need or is it just to fullfill the unfullfilled Star Trek fantasies of the Apollo Generation?

So here's a budget

Do you want to spend it putting some Robinson Crusoe figure on Mars?

Or do you want to put it into the fusion program to create clean sustainable energy?

Or maybe cut taxes?

[rojash]

"Do you want to spend it putting some Robinson Crusoe figure on Mars? "

It's already been done:

http://www.dvdtown.com/reviews/review-of-robin son-crusoe-on-mars-on-dvd/5228

:-)