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YES! I would sign up immediately

22 (19.3%)

Yes. I would go, but only after a successful colony already exists

20 (17.5%)

No, it's too expensive, even if I had the money

14 (12.3%)

No, I don't think it would ever be safe enough to travel there

5 (4.4%)

No, for other reasons.

21 (18.4%)

[Kobold Noises]

32 (28.1%)

Total Members Voted: 113

[Neonivek]

Yeah so I hope when you go to mars you have a team of people willing to hype you up to god levels. Or else you will end up like Not Buzz and Not Lance

[Frumple]

Yeah, I mean no-one even remembers the first guy on the moon do they?

Name ANY OTHER person from that team

Adding to that, I'd imagine the number of people that remember Armstrong would decline rapidly if we actually start sending folks up there with any degree of regularity. "First" tends to get less impressive when there's many thousands right after you on the list

Familiarity breeds contempt, heh.

Seriously though, I wouldn't because the chances of me being able to afford it are basically zero, or close enough trying to bank on it would be foolish to the extreme. I'd totally love to chip in to help shift population off the earth, though. Volunteer as a receptionist or paper-processor or somethin', y'ken? Help move things along and get those darn kids off my lawn folks up to the new frontier and away from my spice garden..

[kaijyuu]

Yeah so I hope when you go to mars you have a team of people willing to hype you up to god levels. Or else you will end up like Not Buzz and Not Lance

Lance Armstrong's a cyclist. You're thinking Neal Armstrong.

Though that might just be proving your point.




Anyway, "getting into the history books" isn't a very noble life goal to me, so I don't much care about that.

[nogoodnames]

By my rough calculations, at $5000 per pound (On the low range for launch costs, according to my source) and transporting underweight people with an average of 100 pounds, and making no additions for any life support or accommodations, the $40 billion would be just enough to get everyone into orbit (assuming they're compressed into easily transportable cubes first).

Yeah, I don't think that's quite enough to get people to Mars.

[10ebbor10]

Pychological problems in flight, the fact that you're are condemning more than 80.000 people to death if the project fails and Scientific outcry are reasons I don't see this happening.
Really, an improper set up base, (face it, the guys signing up for this are not trained astronauts) could contaminate the entire planet, voiding anything usefull we could learn about it.

Also, 36 Billion is extremely cheap for 80.000 people.  Assuming an average weight of 100 kg, that's a 8 million kg of launch weight. Or more than 8000 tonnes. With the cheapest launches to LEO(Ie nowhere near Mars) costing 4000 dollar /kg, you have 32 billion of launch costs in people alone.

So, using current tech I doubt he'd make money even if he just send them to suffocate in low Earth orbit using converted ICBM's.

Math ninjas.

Edit: Math's is wrong. Apparently wikipedia's build in sorting system things 3,700 is lower than 2,200  .

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah so I hope when you go to mars you have a team of people willing to hype you up to god levels. Or else you will end up like Not Buzz and Not Lance

Yeah, Lance Armstrong didn't visit any moons.

Regardless, "memorable" is not really related to "important", and I'm not seeing a whole lot more important than helping to establish a foothold for humanity on another planet.

[Leafsnail]

You might not have a recognisable name, but you could be remembered in a similar way to, say, the pilgrim fathers.

Except hopefully you wouldn't slaughter any natives

[Neonivek]

Yeah so I hope when you go to mars you have a team of people willing to hype you up to god levels. Or else you will end up like Not Buzz and Not Lance

Yeah, Lance Armstrong didn't visit any moons.

Regardless, "memorable" is not really related to "important", and I'm not seeing a whole lot more important than helping to establish a foothold for humanity on another planet.

Actually doing the job...

Going to Mars is extremely unimpressive and completely unimportant. We have the ability to do that now, we just don't want to.

[10ebbor10]

Yeah so I hope when you go to mars you have a team of people willing to hype you up to god levels. Or else you will end up like Not Buzz and Not Lance

Yeah, Lance Armstrong didn't visit any moons.

Regardless, "memorable" is not really related to "important", and I'm not seeing a whole lot more important than helping to establish a foothold for humanity on another planet.

Actually doing the job...

Going to Mars is extremely unimpressive and completely unimportant. We have the ability to do that now, we just don't want to.

We don't quite have the capability. Launch costs are to high, and our systems our not yet completely self sustaining. All problems throwing money at could fix, but yeah, the mission is nearly useless. Scientifically, a space colony on this scale would do more bad than good.

[Scelly9]

What about 80 billion? How much do you guys think it would cost to set up an 80 thousand person colony?

[GlyphGryph]

What, in your mind, would be important, then?

Most likely we simply have wildly different value systems. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing examples of the stuff you DO find important, but I have a suspicion I'd find them not-so-much.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Creating an enclave of humanity separate from Earth is important. Just in case.

[miauw62]

Depends on wether we have invented a way to have (not 500k ping) internet on mars.

[Elu]

500 grand? In my life i'll probably never see so much money so no, it's too damn expensive.
But most important, the people should be selected for their characteristic, not their wallet, no matter how much she can spend, i do NOT want a paris hilton anywhere near heavy machinery, let alone a spaceship...

I'll probably go if the participation is free. After all we are the guys being compressed, strapped to old icbm and hurled in space only to (maybe) land in a hostile planet and live the rest of our lives in a 2x1 inflatable box...

You might not have a recognisable name, but you could be remembered in a similar way to, say, the pilgrim fathers.

Except hopefully you wouldn't slaughter any natives

maybe

[GlyphGryph]

Also, if you read the article, the 500k is only the /per person/ costs, and doesn't touch the required infrastructure. As I expected, it is merely the cost-to-scale.