Since the 1960s – and following the Nuremberg trials – it has been standard practice for researchers to follow certain ethical standards in the treatment of human subjects. These rules include the requirement to submit research proposals to an ethics committee for prior approval, clearly explain clearly the risks of any procedures to potential research subjects, before obtaining their informed consent. Since Mars One now admits to planning research on the colonists themselves, the mission becomes bound to these same standards.
Mars One may not meet these conditions. As far as we know, no ethics committee has considered the Mars One plan or the risks it poses to the colonists. These risks will need to be communicated clearly before volunteers are recruited to take part in the mission.
I’ve previously expressed my own concerns, but I don’t agree that having it done by government space agencies instead is the solution, or that a disaster will inhibit human migration into space.
The book is currently listed at 132 thousand or so at Amazon, but it’s number five on this specialty list (number three, really, since the books ahead of it are only two, in different formats).
Note the implicit but not necessarily valid assumption — that in order to do space activities, you have to launch from your own soil. For instance, I’d bet that Kodiak would be happy to lease some real estate to them for high-inclination launches.
Jon Goff has an interesting blog post. Also, scroll through recent entries for a lot of useful speculation about utilizing Venerian resources. In many ways, Venus is a more interesting candidate for colonization than Mars is.
I didn’t expect the book to be available for purchase at Amazon for another couple weeks. This is the first thing in this project that happened ahead of schedule.
This, like opening space, is something that the government isn’t going to do, for the same reason. There are too many powerful interests invested in the status quo.
is currently listed at 132 thousand or so at Amazon, but it’s number five on