General

Suicide? Maybe no. But all of the people who sign up for this stuff have a ton of passion for what they do and confidence in their decision, and if it is suicide, more like a one-way trip, then dying while doing something you absolutely love is a fate that doesn't seem so bad.

@bobr k. I had just heard they were one way, never really looked into it.

@xdwow Most of the current proposals would mimic the Moon landing mission, with an orbiting "mothership" module used to travel between the Earth and Mars (and back) and a relatively light-weight lander module that would have an integral ascent stage, like the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) did. The upper part of the lander would lift off and return to Mars orbit, dock with the mothership and return to Earth.

The main difficulty of the previous unmanned Martian landings has been that the delay in radio transmissions to and from Mars is about 14 minutes.
It takes 14 minutes for a command sent from Earth to reach a spacecraft on Mars, meaning "real time" control of landings (and anything else for that matter) is impossible.
With the Curiosity landing, the often publicized "Seven Minutes of Terror" meant that the final stages of the landing, from Mars orbit to the surface, took only 7 minutes.
The radio delay was approximately twice as long, meaning no course corrections or "emergency maneuvers" could be performed from Earth.
The spacecraft had to land on its own, with pre-programmed operations and relying on sensors for speed and altitude corrections. It was seriously a miracle that it worked successfully.

With a manned landing, the Martian astronauts would take over landing manually to apply course and speed corrections just like the Lunar astronauts did to avoid boulder fields and find level landing areas. Since they'll be right there it will allow them to exert much finer control than the "Rube Goldberg" landing methods used by the rovers.
Mars of course presents additional difficulties to a landing, mainly the higher gravity and presence of an atmosphere, but compensating for those is mostly a matter of degree.
There have been a lot of different ideas for lander configurations, from Lunar Module style, direct descent setups to aerodynamic "gliders".

Space exploration IS dangerous and there are a million things that could go wrong, yes.
That's why they try to think of everything that could happen and plan for it. And for the things they don't think to have a plan for, they have duct tape and ingenuity.
But just because it's dangerous doesn't mean they won't do it anyway.

@charlieaq Uhhh.. which missions exactly had "failed spaceships that lost orbit and sent the astronauts to the void and died there slowly"...?
On TV and in movies maybe, but so far fatalities in the Space Program have consisted of accidents on the ground (Apollo 1), parachute failure on landing (Soyuz 1), accidental decompression (Soyuz 11), launch failure (Space Shuttle Challenger) and re-entry failure (Space Shuttle Columbia). There've been a few Earth-bound training failures involving test setups and training aircraft also.
Any others are the realm of tin-foil hats, (such as missing cosmonauts and secret CIA sponsored spy missions).

And a dog to the moon..? Maybe in cartoons and Marvel comics, but again... what mission was that "first attempt to Moon, a dog was sent... She died"..? And what was the dog's name exactly..?
The Russians used dogs (and other animals) in its early space program but only for Earth orbital missions

@fradddd SpaceX has never announced their Mars Program is to be "one-way". Elon Musk's first proposal was tourist travel "flybys" of mars for rich thrill-seekers (round trip). His newest plans involve colonizing Mars with permanent colonies which would presumably involve long term commitments to staying on Mars, but there's nothing about the missions not having any return capabilities.

ALL of NASA's programs involve return flight capability as an integral part of mission planning and development. They too have long term colonization proposals, but the first missions would of necessity need return capability because there would be no way of sustaining life long-term, and that would violate NASA safety requirements. NASA doesn't DO "suicide missions".
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin among others (Mars One) have proposed "One-Way" Mars missions in an attempt to get there sooner, but those are private proposals, not part of NASA.
The outside groups have been trying to get NASA to change it's safety restrictions, and perhaps rely on all-volunteer crews willing to go on a suicide mission, but so far NASA has said no.

[quote=charlieaq]The first attempt to Moon, a dog was sent... She died.

As well as there been lots of failed spaceships that lost orbit and sent the astronauts to the void and died there slowly.

So yeah it would be a suicide mission.[/quote]

Might as well just give them cyanide pills so they can take their own life less painfully.

[quote=xdwow]I am more concern about how they are going to GET OFF Mars when they arrive there. For example, can a return rocket be sent along with the transit rocket to Mars? If so, can the rocket withstand atmospheric entry on a rocky surface without sustaining damage? From what I seen in the past, and in fact most recently, even the slightest damage or malfunction to a rocket's internal systems could mean disaster. Don't forget, atm even NASA isn't confident about atmospheric entry on Mars since they've only have numeric data gathered from distance. and altitude sensors, as opposed to proper visual data.

The reason why I say it's a suicide mission, is because there's too many uncertainties that could might as well kill everyone on the mission, and this wouldn't be the first time NASA did something like that; I remember watching a video where one of the scientist who participated in the first Moon mission said they didn't know whether Armstrong and his buddies would've made it back.[/quote]

They aren't concerned about getting off because they don't really expect to. Even the private SpaceX thing that @bobr mentioned is just a one-way trip. Some people just want the opportunity to be the first humans to go to Mars. It's pretty freakin epic if you think about it. Yeah, of course it's risky, but some people think it's worth it.

[quote=bobr]NASA has been planning Mars missions for a long time, but not in detail and not with any kind of actual schedule.
They've all been along the lines of "proposed research projects for future development."

Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX has lately been talking about funding a private mission to Mars to get things moving more quickly.
But again, no immediate, definite plans.

And no, none of the really serious proposals are "one-way" missions.
The time it would take to transfer from Earth orbit to Mars orbit depends on WHEN you go (which determines how close the planets are) and how FAST you go.
Currently proposed manned-mission speeds would result in about 7 months travel time.
And the return to Earth would take about the same amount of time.

The biggest problem is that all supplies such as food, water and air for the entire mission both there and back would have to be carried along and back because there is no easily available source of any of that once they get to Mars. Same with the fuel for the return trip.. This increases the weight and size of the ship needed, as well as the overall cost.

Some mission proposals include sending unmanned "supply ships" on ahead for the mission astronauts to recover and use while they're on Mars and on the return trip.
Others include sending equipment which could concentrate oxygen and water from the Martian atmosphere or underground deposits to provide supplies that way.

But no one is proposing a "suicide mission", that would be rather pointless.[/quote]

I am more concern about how they are going to GET OFF Mars when they arrive there. For example, can a return rocket be sent along with the transit rocket to Mars? If so, can the rocket withstand atmospheric entry on a rocky surface without sustaining damage? From what I seen in the past, and in fact most recently, even the slightest damage or malfunction to a rocket's internal systems could mean disaster. Don't forget, atm even NASA isn't confident about atmospheric entry on Mars since they've only have numeric data gathered from distance. and altitude sensors, as opposed to proper visual data.

The reason why I say it's a suicide mission, is because there's too many uncertainties that could might as well kill everyone on the mission, and this wouldn't be the first time NASA did something like that; I remember watching a video where one of the scientist who participated in the first Moon mission said they didn't know whether Armstrong and his buddies would've made it back.

[quote=xdwow]A manned mission to Mars. But honestly speaking, if this mission was real, isn't it a suicide mission...?[/quote]

NASA has been planning Mars missions for a long time, but not in detail and not with any kind of actual schedule.
They've all been along the lines of "proposed research projects for future development."

Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX has lately been talking about funding a private mission to Mars to get things moving more quickly.
But again, no immediate, definite plans.

And no, none of the really serious proposals are "one-way" missions.
The time it would take to transfer from Earth orbit to Mars orbit depends on WHEN you go (which determines how close the planets are) and how FAST you go.
Currently proposed manned-mission speeds would result in about 7 months travel time.
And the return to Earth would take about the same amount of time.

The biggest problem is that all supplies such as food, water and air for the entire mission both there and back would have to be carried along and back because there is no easily available source of any of that once they get to Mars. Same with the fuel for the return trip.. This increases the weight and size of the ship needed, as well as the overall cost.

Some mission proposals include sending unmanned "supply ships" on ahead for the mission astronauts to recover and use while they're on Mars and on the return trip.
Others include sending equipment which could concentrate oxygen and water from the Martian atmosphere or underground deposits to provide supplies that way.

But no one is proposing a "suicide mission", that would be rather pointless.

It's a one-way trip to Mars but it isn't happening anytime soon.

They've been planning to do that for a while. And yeah they won't necessarily get to go back to Earth.
My brother is very interested in that, which worries my parents lol

maybe not suicide, more like a one way trip.