Anyone up for a one-way ticket to Mars?
Over 200,000 people around the world have said “Yes” to the chance of a one-way ticket to Mars. A Dutch entrepreneur was planning a mission of 4 people to set off in 2022 and, when a request was put out for applicants, there was this huge response. The theme fitted neatly into our talk by member Charles Dixon who gave a wide-ranging survey of all things Martian. We were decidedly sceptical about the colonizing plan but perhaps it isn’t so crazy after all. After all, for centuries people have been setting off from their homeland for all sorts of reasons, into a very uncertain future with little, if any, hope or intention of returning. Most famously perhaps, the Pilgrim Fathers set off for America knowing very little about it. They suffered about 50% mortality in the first few months. Landing in the middle of winter probably wasn’t the best of plans but they did manage to establish their settlement from those unpromising beginnings. You could argue that crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1620 posed just as big a risk as travelling to Mars might nowadays. Certainly it was a huge step into the unknown with no hope of rescue.
There were a couple of other points from Charles’s excellent talk which stuck in my mind. One was about the possibility of life of Mars. We have through assorted TV programmes become quite used to the idea that life can develop and survive in some very unlikely niches on Earth, so maybe it isn’t that far-fetched to think that there may be a niche somewhere on Mars which could support life. Now what about that journey ? It’s obviously a long way but counter-intuitively, you make it even longer by aiming to rendezvous with Mars at a point on its orbit which is on the far side of the Sun relative to the launch position of Earth as this reduces the energy cost of the journey. (For more details, look up Hohmann transfer orbit).
And the best part of the talk ? Charles gave out free Mars bars at the end. Thanks, Charles !
Talk given by FAS member Charles Dixon
Post written by Katherine Rusbridge
Nov 2013