Mars: should we go?

It'll be a one-way ticket if we do, says Lord Martin Rees, Baron of Ludlow

“I hope that some people now living will walk on Mars. But I don’t think they will go there NASA-style. Indeed, there is little practical or scientific purpose for sending them. The kind of robots and fabricators that we’ll have by mid-century will be able to do essentially everything that people could do – and at far less cost.

Until the very recent announcement about its plans for the heavy-lift launch vehicle Space Launch System,  the US had downgraded the priority of manned space flight. The main impediment for NASA is that it is constrained by public and political opinion to be too risk-averse. The Space Shuttle has failed twice in more than 130 launches. This represents a level of risk that astronauts or test pilots would willingly accept, but the Shuttle had been promoted as a safe vehicle for civilians. Each failure caused a national trauma, and was followed by a hiatus in the programme, while costly efforts were made (with very limited effect) to reduce the risk still further.

I do not think future manned expeditions into ‘deep space’ will be politically and financially viable unless they are cut-price ventures, spearheaded by individuals prepared to accept high risks – perhaps even ‘one-way tickets’. And these may have to be privately funded; no Western governmental agency would expose civilians to such a hazardous venture.

The first people to land on Mars will be driven by the same motives as those who explored distant continents 500 years ago – the spirit that drives test pilots, round-the-world balloonists and the like.

It is now US policy to encourage private companies
to undertake launches, rendering NASA more like an airport authority and less like an airline. The Falcon 9
rocket, developed by the Space X company led by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has successfully launched a payload into orbit.

The involvement in space projects of Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others in the high-tech community with credibility and resources is surely a positive step. And Google has offered a prize for whoever can build and launch a robotic lunar lander that can carry out specific tasks on the Moon. This is another stimulus
– leveraging far more money than the prize itself offers. It is not unrealistic to envisage private sponsorship, spread over several years, exceeding the $10bn level. At present, that wouldn’t even fund a one-way trip, but the cost will come down as technology advances.

It will be dangerous. Remember, Mars offers an environment not even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest. It is foolish to claim, as some do, that emigration into space offers
a long-term escape from Earth’s problems.

A century or two from now, however, small groups of intrepid adventurers may be living on Mars. Whatever ethical constraints we impose here on the ground, we should surely wish such pioneers good luck in genetically modifying their progeny to adapt to alien environments. This might be the first step towards divergence into a new species: the post-human era would then begin. And machines of human intelligence could spread into the cold regions of the outer Solar System. Whether the longer-range future lies with organic post-humans or with intelligent machines is a matter for debate.

Would it be appropriate to exploit Mars, as happened when the pioneers advanced westward across the United States? Should we send seeds for plants genetically-engineered to grow and reproduce there? Or should the Red Planet be preserved as a natural wilderness, like the Antarctic?

The answer surely depends on what the pristine state of Mars actually is. If there were any life there already – especially if it had different DNA that testified to quite separate origin from any life on Earth – then Mars should be preserved unpolluted. Long before the first people go, let’s hope this scientific question has been settled by robotic probes.”

Martin Rees is Master of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He is Britain’s Astronomer Royal, and from 1992 until 2003 he was President of the Royal Society. He holds honorary degrees and fellowships in no fewer than 26 universities and has authored more than 500 research papers and eight books. He is also a prolific guest lecturer and presented the BBC’s prestigious Reith Lectures in 2010 on the challenges facing science in the 21st century. In 2005, he was appointed to the House of Lords and given the life peerage of Baron Rees of Ludlow.