In honor of Halloween, I'm repeating here a proposal I made in the recent Slashdot thread on the idea of a one way mission to Mars.
We should start sending dead bodies to Mars. And, for that matter, to the Moon. I'm not the first to propose this. A company called Celestis is working on a very primitive version already. And I would guess that they'll get more ambitious as technology and infrastructure advance. But, like everyone else who discusses this, they assume that cremated remains are the way to go. In a world of more billionaires than most of us can count, I think that it's legitimate to start thinking through something far more ambitious with more than symbolic remains meant to accomplish more than symbolic goals.
Offer to "bury" people by having their bodies shipped to Mars, the Moon, or some other point outside the gravity well. The bodies can launch on low-fuel, high-g rockets and get there by equally low-fuel slow trajectories. Let's say delivery to Mars orbit within five or six years, depending on launch time. Then, when they get there, the bodies get placed within a mix of carbon compounds and inert martian crushed rock on top of which lots of microorganisms are dropped and used to kickstart a soil supply. One that we then *know* will have the right balances of nutrients, have a decent amount of water, and a wide range of microorganisms. Add fifty or sixty pounds per body of biodegradable packing material (i.e. straw) and a biodegradable coffin and you'll really be in great shape. Maybe if you include a translucent outer case with serious insulating properties you won't even need much of a greenhouse waiting at your destination. A job for aerogel, seems to me.
One approach would have multiple greenhouses, each of which is "seeded" with one body and then named after the person whose remains jumpstarted that ecosystem. If that were done, I guarantee that the families of people whose bodies had been part of this would continue to kick in money and other resources to see the "family" greenhouse enlarged, sustained, and, let's face it, publicized.
Personally, I'm not sure that I would be willing to eat food that included molecules from the bodies of, say, Bill Gates or Karl Rove but I suspect that Mars settlers would find ways to deal with that.
Betcha it would work, too. Get the cost down to two or three million dollars each and you'll have to barricade the doors to keep rich, elderly techies and plutocrats from signing up too fast. I figure at most a hundred million in development costs. Less than the cost of some marketing campaigns. If costs can be brought down to two million per corpus and the charge kept at, say, three million, it shouldn't take more than ten years or so at worst to be in the black and, by the way, have developed a kickass set of launch expertise, facilities, and rights to thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds of rich biomatter, all already delivered to Mars. If necessary, it could even initially be delivered to a Martian parking orbit to wait for settlement locations to be chosen.
Just think of the variations. Pet burial. The same technique delivered to a greenhouse on the Moon. Or at a laGrange point where a space station is planned. And so on.
Betcha it would work, too. Get the cost down to two or three million dollars each and you'll have to barricade the doors to keep rich, elderly techies and plutocrats from signing up too fast. I figure at most a hundred million in development costs. Less than the cost of some marketing campaigns. If costs can be brought down to two million per corpus and the charge kept at, say, three million, it shouldn't take more than ten years or so at worst to be in the black and, by the way, have developed a kickass set of launch expertise, facilities, and rights to thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds of rich biomatter, all already delivered to Mars. If necessary, it could even initially be delivered to a Martian parking orbit to wait for settlement locations to be chosen.
Just think of the variations. Pet burial. The same technique delivered to a greenhouse on the Moon. Or at a laGrange point where a space station is planned. And so on.
Many of the biggest concerns about settling space really come down to the logistics and cost of somehow getting supplies to wherever humans are trying to settle. And any vehicle carrying humans is mostly limited to one g or less of sustained acceleration, minimized transport time, temperatures inside the vessel of 15 to 30 degrees celsius, of a "proper" mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and so on. All of which means that you're shipping cargo at passenger prices. So, every kilo of mass that is shipped separately cuts costs. And, as I've pointed out before, by treating these cargo needs as opportunities for others to get what they want, they'll pay for the privilege of supporting the mission.
Do you think that this idea is morbid? Personally, I think that it's beautiful.
Are you afraid of those corpses spreading disease at their destination? We know by now how to sterilize damn near anything, and the simple mechanics of the transport process will freeze the cargo near absolute zero, which will kill off most microorganisms good and proper. There's not much that humans need to worry about that can survive two years or more at the temperatures of deep space. The bigger concern will be ensuring that payloads rotate so that they don't cook on one side and freeze on the other.
Anyway, that's it. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that this is one of the sanest and smartest ways to make the settling of space practical by cutting costs, reducing the time for a colony to become viable, getting wealthy and powerful people emotionally invested in the mission, and even creating more narratives that help make the process of human expansion beyond our planet into something that will inspire songs, stories, and, someday, even myths.
Have a great Halloween.
-Rustin
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