(no subject)

[tithonium]

Dr Edward Weiler, NASA Space Science Administrator: "We are not ready to send humans to Mars right now. We gotta know a lot more about radiation and radiation mitigation. One of the Apollo flights barely missed, like by a week, a major solar event. If it had gone off when the Apollo astronauts were on their way back and forth to the moon, they would have gotten their entire lifetime radiation dose in that one mission. And that's just one solar flare."

Yes. And they STILL would have committed murder to have the chance. Just because YOU are afraid of death, and don't feel it's worth the risk does not mean others don't either. If you put out a call for volunteers, saying they had a chance to go to Mars, and the odds were 50:50 they would not survive the trip, you'd still get more people signing up than you could process, even after filtering down to /just those who were qualified/. Hell, 90:10 and you'd still be pressed to narrow the field sufficiently.

Comments

[dustin-00.livejournal.com]

I know you worked hard to put together your music list for your parties.

But Kansas wants to save you a lot of time this weekend by having you just play their online broadcast:

http://www.star102.com/

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I think what Weiler was trying to say, and I agree with him, is that it would be unethical even to ask for volunteers.

[tithonium.livejournal.com]

And I'm saying it's unethical not to. Not doing something because you're afraid people might be hurt? People are not only completely /willing/ to risk getting hurt, but will fight for the chance.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Not hurt, killed. The people who sent the Apollo astronauts up didn't believe as strongly as Weiler does of a Mars mission that they were probably ordering entire crews to their deaths. Whether any of the explorers are willing to take that risk doesn't matter.

[tithonium.livejournal.com]

Whether any of the explorers are willing to take that risk doesn't matter.

I disagree.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

90/10 and would it be the right people? If I'm dumping that kind of money into a trip, I'd rather have it staffed by pragmatists, thanks...

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

Even if people are willing to go, deaths in the space program tend to have a major chilling effect on willingness to fund further projects.

[tithonium.livejournal.com]

Which is part of what I'm railing against. The "Oh no, some people got hurt, we clearly shouldn't be doing this." mentality that seems to infect the populace, and /certainly/ cripples NASA. It melts very quickly into "Oh no, some people could get hurt, we clearly shouldn't be doing this.", and then nothing happens. We could have had people /living on mars/ two decades ago, if not for fear like that.

My point is that you don't have to make it Completely Safe™ before you do it. Don't take /stupid/ risks, don't send your crew out in an unshielded aluminum can in the middle of a solar flare; but don't hide behind the "Danger" when it *can* be mitigated to a level that is QUITE acceptable to the people /actually being put at risk/.