Some thoughts on one-way “missions” from Ed Wright:
The settlement of Mars (and space, in general) will entail a large number of one-way missions, by definition. Settling a new territory means people setting out on one-way trips, building new homes, and creating new lives for themselves in a new land.
Space settlement will not be accomplished as a “national objective.” If NASA tries, it will fail. History provides a useful comparison. Spain set out to colonize the New World as a national objective, under the direction and control of the Spanish Crown. Great Britain took a laissez faire approach to colonization, granting charters to private groups such as the Virginia and Plymouth companies. Spain controlled the most desirable portions of the New World, with most of the resources and milder climate. Yet, it was North America, under British control, that prospered, while the centrally planned Spanish colonies remained backward.
Colonel Behnken is correct in saying that NASA cannot undertake arduous missions except in pursuit of a national objective. NASA is the product of intelligent design. Its creators, Eisenhower and Kennedy, put that into their their DNA. But not everyone has that limitation. While NASA may play a role in space settlement, it will not play the primary role.
As I write in the book:
Unfortunately, when it comes to space, Congress has been pretty much indifferent to missions, or mission success, or “getting the job done.” Its focus remains on “safety,” and in this regard, price is no object. In fact, if one really believes that the reason for Ares/Orion was safety, and the program was expected to cost several tens of billions, and it would fly (perhaps) a dozen astronauts per year, then rather than the suggested value of fifty million dollars for the life of an astronaut, NASA was implicitly pricing an astronaut’s life to be in the range of a billion dollars.
As another example, if it were really important to get someone to Mars, we’d be considering one-way trips, which cost much less, and for which there would be no shortage of volunteers. It wouldn’t have to be a suicide mission—one could take along equipment to grow food, and live off the land. But it would be very high risk, and perhaps as high or higher than the early American
settlements, such as Roanoke and Jamestown. But one never hears serious discussion of such issues, at least in the halls of Congress, which is a good indication that we are not serious about exploring, developing, or settling space, and any pretense at seriousness ends once the sole-source cost-plus contracts have been awarded to the favored contractors of the big rockets.
For these reasons, I personally think it unlikely that the federal government will be sending humans anywhere beyond LEO any time soon. But I do think that there is a reasonable prospect for
private actors to do so — Elon Musk has stated multiple times that this is the goal of SpaceX, and why he founded the company. In fact, he recently announced his plans to send 80,000 people to
Mars to establish a settlement, within a couple decades, at a cost of half a million per ticket.
And this lack of seriousness is why we so obsess about safety.