Colonizing Mars: Must or Bust?
For the better part of the last century, the thought of landing man outside our planet has been an inviting target for international space agencies, distinction seeking engineers, grandeur adventurists, and dreamers of all ages. Carrying on the momentum from the Space Race and mankind's giant leap towards the moon, the next great phase in our mission to colonize outer space has been the Red Planet, Mars. The fact of the matter, however, is that the amount of resources that went into the Apollo moon missions were enormous in pre-2000s costs. A modern, significantly larger mission to Mars would be beyond reasonable scope. More importantly in a morality sense, should such a task be undertaken when the cost would …show more content…
This is not to refute the potential technological or cultural benefits of colonizing Mars, but to enlighten on the highly inevitable weakening of social infrastructures because of both …show more content…
As a researcher for one of NASA’s top research laboratories, Brent Sherwood of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory strongly feels “the benefits of a manned Mars mission may not justify its enormous costs” [1]. It is instinctive of human nature to initially consider this risk only in terms of monetary cost. This is just a small sense of what some members of the political, science, and internal communities feels that “NASA's overarching goal of sending astronauts to Mars may not be worth the time, money and trouble”. Sherwood added that "our rationale for exploring Mars, I think, is perhaps fatally weak". Sherwood stated this during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group. As the pressures for completing different stages of the mission continue to pile on, the weight felt by those working directly on the mission will be more than just mental stress. As engineers, there is a moral duty to the public and its safety and welfare. While astronauts are essentially sent to their deaths, how are we fulfilling our moral duties? Despite being expected to demonstrate a professional and loyal manner to the welfare of the companies or organizations we work for, we are also obligated to protect ourselves and others from harm. If history has not already proven this in cases such as the Challenger accident, it is
For the better part of the last century, the thought of landing man outside our planet has been an inviting target for international space agencies, distinction seeking engineers, grandeur adventurists, and dreamers of all ages. Carrying on the momentum from the Space Race and mankind's giant leap towards the moon, the next great phase in our mission to colonize outer space has been the Red Planet, Mars. The fact of the matter, however, is that the amount of resources that went into the Apollo moon missions were enormous in pre-2000s costs. A modern, significantly larger mission to Mars would be beyond reasonable scope. More importantly in a morality sense, should such a task be undertaken when the cost would …show more content…
This is not to refute the potential technological or cultural benefits of colonizing Mars, but to enlighten on the highly inevitable weakening of social infrastructures because of both …show more content…
As a researcher for one of NASA’s top research laboratories, Brent Sherwood of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory strongly feels “the benefits of a manned Mars mission may not justify its enormous costs” [1]. It is instinctive of human nature to initially consider this risk only in terms of monetary cost. This is just a small sense of what some members of the political, science, and internal communities feels that “NASA's overarching goal of sending astronauts to Mars may not be worth the time, money and trouble”. Sherwood added that "our rationale for exploring Mars, I think, is perhaps fatally weak". Sherwood stated this during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group. As the pressures for completing different stages of the mission continue to pile on, the weight felt by those working directly on the mission will be more than just mental stress. As engineers, there is a moral duty to the public and its safety and welfare. While astronauts are essentially sent to their deaths, how are we fulfilling our moral duties? Despite being expected to demonstrate a professional and loyal manner to the welfare of the companies or organizations we work for, we are also obligated to protect ourselves and others from harm. If history has not already proven this in cases such as the Challenger accident, it is