"...besides, it's cold as hell"  (That simile always bothered me - hell is supposed to be hot.) 
I see your point about setting up an outpost or settlement; that'll probably happen someday.  I just figure picking the first guy could be a little troublesome.  You're probably right about a lot of the westward expansion people not expecting to come back - the same is probably true for many of the early trans-Atlantic sailors.

The mission would not be to strand the astronauts, but to give them enough resources to start a new outpost.  Humans have done this on faith for generations.  It's likely many who went west during the U.S. expansion thought very little about returning. 

Think too of the opportunity to start all over again, another common theme in history. 

Still, I get your point. 200 million miles is a lot of road.   And Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid. 

The mission would not be to strand the astronauts, but to give them enough resources to start a new outpost.  Humans have done this on faith for generations.  It's likely many who went west during the U.S. expansion thought very little about returning. 

The mission would not be to strand the astronauts, but to give them enough resources to start a new outpost.  Humans have done this on faith for generations.  It's likely many who went west during the U.S. expansion thought very little about returning. 

Think too of the opportunity to start all over again, another common theme in history. 

Still, I get your point. 200 million miles is a lot of road.   And Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid. 

Well, one might wonder as to the mental health of someone who is willing to travel 200 million miles to be stranded on some cold, little planet.  It's a little beyond what test pilots do.

Hell you'd never go. No baseball.

I was listening the other night and there was someone talking about a one-way flight to Mars.  This is not the same segment I heard, but echoes the ideas.  The speakers argument was that there have already been people who were willing to risk to fly on a shuttle known to be highly dangerous so there will be people willing to go on a one way mission to Mars.
 
Unfortunately Nasa and the government look at it as a suicide mission rather than scientific exploration and would probably never do it.

It would certainly encourage settlement on Mars. 

Going back to the age of exploration... did many of those sailors harbor hopes of returning home?  Columbus' first adventure certainly was not a sure thing, what with sailing over the edge of the world.  Yet people did it. 

With the right incentives, I'd consider it.  

I remember Apollo 11 and watching it on our Black and White TV. And cutting the record of that landing off the back of my cereal box and listening to him talk about walking on the moon.

I was listening the other night and there was someone talking about a one-way flight to Mars.  This is not the same segment I heard, but echoes the ideas.  The speakers argument was that there have already been people who were willing to risk to fly on a shuttle known to be highly dangerous so there will be people willing to go on a one way mission to Mars.
 
Unfortunately Nasa and the government look at it as a suicide mission rather than scientific exploration and would probably never do it.

Kirk is probably laying the green chick in the cargo bay.

Kirk is probably laying the green chick in the cargo bay.

I remember Apollo 11 and watching it on our Black and White TV. And cutting the record of that landing off the back of my cereal box and listening to him talk about walking on the moon.

Most of the lead cast is there. So were the hell is Kirk?

Any green chicks missing?

I shared Coaxial's link with a few people here at work and one of them sent me this photo.  Thought I'd share. Gene Roddenbery came to our highschool in 1976 when I was a freshman.  He screened a blooper reel from Star Trek and fielded questions about the upcoming (rumored) Star Trek movie (it was still three years away).

Still haven't figured out how they arranged for him to visit our dinky school.  My graduating class only had 120 kids in it - I don't think we had more than about 500 total.

It was a highlight though and he was a nice guy.  He stuck around and spoke to people in the hallway after the presentation.

Wow.Just wow.We should stagnate as a nation and a race in order to squander our resources on being world cops and bombing other countries that haven't done a frigging thing to us,rather than try to advance ourselves?

I vaguely remember that - I was about 12 or 14 at the time and filtered news accordingly ;)  A fitting name though and cool that Ford made it so.

It's great that he recognizes the massive cost and (some of the) failed promises surrounding the Shuttle program, but it's too bad he doesn't connect the dots to realize what others have regarding the increasing pointlessness and wastefulness of manned space flight.   As Bob Park has pointed out, we have two NASAs:  The glamour NASA that sends humans into space to mug for the cameras and do "science" that does nothing to advance scientific knowledge, and the "other NASA" that is focused on doing real science, quietly and without fanfare expands the boundaries of our understanding of the universe through technological advancements utilizing unmanned exploration of the solar system, and beyond.   The retirement of the Shuttle program should be seen as an appropriate time to reassess our national fixation with continuing manned space flight at all costs.   It makes for stirring speeches by politicians, and great movies like Apollo 13.   But we shouldn't let our reality be driven by fantastical notions, especially in financially pressing times like these.