I am not assuming that we should be sending human beings to Mars. I am, however, posing a particular question about how a mission to Mars should be carried out if we choose to do so.
The question is simple: if we send a manned mission to Mars, should we try to bring the crew back?
If someone consents to go on a one-way trip, that’s their call. So long as there’s some plausible way that they could sustain themselves for the duration of a normal human lifespan, it’s just a lifestyle choice, not suicide. This means, though, that there’d have to be sufficient gear on their ship to keep them supplied with air/water/food for the duration. It doesn’t need to be guaranteed, of course, but I’d have qualms with sending someone to Mars knowing they would starve/dehydrate/asphyxiate in a few years.
Of course we should!
nudge nudge, wink wink
What are you talking about?
From a practical perspective, yes. Although you might get people that would volunteer for a one way trip, you’d never get it funded. It’s just too morbid of an idea.
Unless we are talking about a colony (which is kind of putting the horse before the cart) then I don’t see how this is even a question. I doubt that even the Chinese would send their astronauts on a one way ride to Mars to die gloriously for the good of the people. Hell, the propaganda value (negative for sending them on a one way ride, positive for bringing them back to bask in the public’s adoration) alone dictates the answer.
-XT
What would be the point?
I presume to save money or because it would be hard to bring the crew back…or something.
-XT
To save billions of dollars.
The OP is inspired by this article by physicist Lawrence Krauss.
I’d volunteer for it in a nano-second. Sadly, they are highly unlikely to choose a middle-aged long haired somewhat eccentric country lawyer for the job. 
This OP reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons ever. I couldn’t find the Far Side that this was from, but I remember the caption.
“Dear Henry: Where were you? We waited and waited but finally decided that…”
Huh, when did Krauss move to Arizona? I was kind of proud of him being a Clevelander.
Then why send them to Mars in the first place? That’ll save even more.
The purpose of a mission to Mars is the same as that for the moon missions - it’s an engineering challenge. The whole idea is to build a system that can bring someone to another planet and back, and then put the technology we developed to practical use. Not bringing them back would be doing half the job.
Plus, I wouldn’t want to be part of a country that sends its men off to certain death. America doesn’t employ kamikazes or suicide bombers, and it shouldn’t employ single-use astronauts, either.
I don’t entirely disagree - but would this necessarily be a suicide mission? I mean, say we sent a man in his fifties - and a reasonably fit man of that age could probably do this thing. Assume that he had equipment to obtain water and oxygen from the local environment, and the he had either sufficient food, or resource to produce food, to last him until he died of causes unrelated to being on Mars. Would that be a suicide mission?
I suspect sending the infrastructure to support a guy on Mars for 30 odd years wouldn’t be wildly cheaper then just sending a ship to get him back to Earth.
Don’t even think about it. I’m feeling guilty enough already about the Spirit rover.
In a more serious vein, if we do send an astronaut on a one-way mission to Mars, and we set him up with long-term survival gear and communications equipment so he can report back to us on all his experiences and experiments, and he lands on Mars fully intending to stay there for the rest of his natural life and knowing that we have no plans to bring him back…
…then what the fuck do we do if he changes his mind?
Listen to him begging us to please let him come home for the next several decades or until he commits suicide, whichever comes first?
Great PR for the manned space program all around, yeah.
There was actually a proposal like that during the moon race. They weren’t sure how they were going to bring someone back from the moon, so something seriously considered was to send people there and give them enough supplies to keep them alive until we figured how to get them back.
I don’t think so. I think it’s morally comparable to sending a colony ship to another planet. This just happens to be a very small colony. Also think it offers a number of benefits to “Major Tom” including but not limited to:
Yeah, if he slacks off and doesn’t do his exploration tasks, what are they gonna do, fire him? He already has supplies for life and I seriously doubt they would build in the ability to disable him from Earth. The most they could do is cut off his communications and if they’re feeling vituperative cut him off from any requested help in repairs and entertainment.