The latest Space Review contains an article that repeats an idea that’s been around for a long time, but has always seemed to be a bit disreputable, for what seem to me to be illogical reasons: since a large part of any deep-space mission is the equipment and fuel to get the crew back home to Earth, wouldn’t it make more sense to make the trip one-way?
There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of a one-way space voyage nowadays, but I would argue that this is historically unusual. In the past, plenty of people took one-way voyages with only small chances of survival at the end. I would think that with the extra mass budget that a one-way trip allows, it would be perfectly possible to bring along enough supplies for one or two people to live out their natural lives on, say, Mars.
In my young and single days I often said that I’d be the first to jump at the chance of a one-way trip to Mars. Not sure what Andrea would have to say about that nowadays…
She might say something along the lines of, “Not a chance!”… :)
A two-way trip I could be talked into.
But you’ll have to annoy me a heck of a lot more than you do to make me open to a one-way…
You’re simply too fun to live with. That’s the problem. xoxo
Well, you could come with :-) Unfortunately, the time delay for communication between Earth and Mars ranges from 4 to 20 minutes, depending on their relative orbital positions, so social life might be a bit of a problem.