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The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
Would You Accept a One-Way Ticket to Mars?
September 4th, 2009
This is the question that Lawrence Krauss asked few days ago in a New York Times op-ed. He suggested that quite a lot of engineer and astronaut types would be willing to take a trip to Mars, to stay, without expectations of a return voyage home.
This plan has two significant merits.
First, it makes the mission simpler and cheaper, at least when it comes to some hard physical constraints involving radiation shielding and fuel. We can gamble against the sun on a short trip to the moon, but a longer trip to Mars is a bad bet.
Second, the manned space program is sold, at least philosophically and long-term, as a step to colonizing other worlds and getting our eggs out of only one basket (Earth). So, why not start having people try to live on other planets? The Apollo-style program of visit, leave, and stop returning is in some ways worse than not going at all, at least for this long-term goal.
Krauss worries that the public may not have enthusiasm for a manned Mars program if the astronauts are not expected to return. Whether or not they successfully live any length of time on Mars, it may feel like a death sentence and be bittersweet rather than triumphant. I agree that this is a worry.
I’ve given some thought to applying for astronaut in the past, and one of my college professors actually did become an astronaut, so these issues are not too unfamiliar to me. My first novel Star Dragon featured a space voyage so long it was in some respects a one-way ticket into the future, with little expectation of the ship’s crew returning to a familiar world ever again.
Personally, I think I’d need something extra like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five, when the aliens who kidnap him let him pick the woman of his dreams (Valerie Perine, in the movie version) to share his exile from Earth.
So how about it? Would you go?
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September 4th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I’d want to know a lot more about the mission details. Partly because we have an atrocious record for long-term maintenance even of really important stuff (like where we live now) let alone trivia like a few people at the wrong end of a 30 minute time lag; and because I don’t think Mars is or ever will be a habitable place for homo sapiens, so there’d be a lot of life support required… all of it fallible machinery.
Given a reasonable chance of living for, say, twenty years once I got to Mars even if there was no further support from home I’d be willing to go. That would require something like a manned moon base being ten or more years old, not a warranty from the manufacturer and the best wishes of the prime minister.
But realistically I’m not the right person to send. I’m unskilled and antisocial, for starters. You’d want a bunch of pragmatic PhD types like the non-US Antarctic scientists (no slur on some of the US ones, but they do get their hands held rather a lot so Darwin doesn’t get a chance to teach them much).
September 4th, 2009 at 9:20 am
This is so funny. I just watched Robinson Crusoe on Mars last week. It was made in the late 1960’s and I guess most people actually thought you could survive on Mars. There was probably water and plant life and enough oxygen for a wooly monkey. (And large bursts of random fire that I guess didn’t need oxygen. Hmmmm.)Made it seem kinda nice. Like a mildly hostile vacation spot…maybe a bit like Brazil.
I like Earth, I haven’t seen the whole thing yet, so I wouldn’t go. Would there be a Starbucks on Mars?
September 4th, 2009 at 10:14 am
[...] Would You Accept a One-Way Ticket to Mars? [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Not just “Yes” but “HELL YES.”
September 4th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Definitely an interesting concept and I’m personally in the maybe pile, I just need to know more about the mission parameters. Seriously a lot of details need to be ironed out and overall this probably is the best solution especially if we want to colonize beyond Mars and beyond Sol.
Just as long as we begin to establish a permanant settlement with three boobed hookers, I’ll definitely go. haha!
September 4th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
“mildly hostile vacation place, like Brazil”???
anyway, it would suck the innability to play online games ever again (unless we are talking about other Mars base personel).
the lag would be 10 minutes!
I wonder how I would access the internet. I guess the base would have some really broadband link feeding a server with a few thousands of complete websites. After all, the “talk” of your computer with Earth´s internet would take a long time… click the button, signal takes 5 minutes to arrive on Earth and 5 min more to arrive back on Mars…
September 5th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Maybe!?! Depends???!!! Need to know more!!!!!!!!!???????????!!!!!!!!!!!
What is wrong with you people? I’ll take a frickin one way ticket to orbit even if the destination was death by asphyxiation.
There have been two space missions which have had virtually the entire world watching: Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. 11 was novelty and adventure (with some danger). 13 was ALL danger. If the threat of people dying in space is what it takes to get people interested and involved, then I say - more suicide missions!
September 7th, 2009 at 3:06 am
That’s a tough question. I’d like to say “Yes” immediately, because going to space has been my wildest dream since I was a kid. And it still is. But I don’t know how I’d react if I had to face the real decision. Leaving everything and everyone behind is a tough call.
Plus, since after 50 years of regular martians invasions it is now clear that Mars needs women, there are probably no hot chicks up there, so it makes it even harder. Any way we could bring our own supply of extra hot, geeky female scientists with us ?
On a more serious level, I think Kim Stanley Robinson made the one way trip scenario sound possible. If the number of colonists sent there is enough to build a basic embryo of society, why not ?