This is not exactly the right forum place for my post but the closest one. If it should be posted under general chat, please mister moderator transfer it there!
If you are interested in space exploration like me, you certainly heard about the Mars One project.
Details on
So what I'd like to discuss with other forum visitors, is there a realistic chance of success for shipping humans to Mars within 10 years time? And what could the benefits be?
Or will we be just sending suicide explorers to a far-away planet to no avail?
Mars is a dune-like planet with no humus nor much of an atmosphere, some mineral resources for sure, but consider the cost of bringing them back here.
And what about ethics? Should we allow a private company to send people into their doom? Of course, the candidates are not being forced to take this one-way ticket, but nevertheless they are doomed to die on another planet, the company is not legally bound to bring them back. Will we have an obligation as a society to invest large amounts of cash and resources to organize a rescue mission afterwards?
Aside from all doubts and fears, isn't it great to live in a time where we soon will have the opportunity to set foot on another planet! It must have been similarly exciting for people who were born earlier to see the first human on the moon (in monochrome, but live!).
The austrian adventurer and stratosphere-jumper Felix Baumgartner will bite his ass if only eleven years after his record-jump some other guy or girl will be the first human on mars. But he also thinks that some mild dictatorship would do us all some good. Strange fellow, there must have been some synaptic malfunctioning when he hit the sound barrier.