The Ethics of a Mars Mission

One thing that keeps flitting into my head when we talk about a human mission to Mars, is the ethics of it. Right now we don't have the ability for anything but a one-way mission, and still I know there are people who would jump at the chance. I seem to recall reading that women astronauts are required to go on birth control, primarily to eliminate their periods, and this already seems like such an invasion of personal choice. Imagine a trip that takes 3 years each way. In a situation like this NASA really will have to take steps to prevent pregnancies, or to be able to deal with them should they happen.

The one aspect that popped into my head today though upon reading the above linked article by Buzz Aldrin is the issue of consent. The standard for experiments performed upon humans (and you can't call a trip to Mars anything but an experiment) is one of informed consent: the participants must be made aware of the risks (and the risks must be below a certain level), and the participants must give consent. Moreover, the participants have the right to with draw consent at any point in time. Missions on the ISS and such are already seriously pushing the boundaries on this one IMO (does the screening of astronauts beforehand allow NASA to get around the ethics board? or is NASA not subject to an ethics board?). How much more questionable in terms of withdrawing consent is a round trip to Mars? What about a colonization trip?

On the other hand, the worry about consent is another incentive for mandatory birth control and/or sterilization: children are unable to give consent, and it would be unethical to put an infant into the situation of a trip to Mars. I wonder at what point in colonization we will determine it is safe enough to allow children. And will the requirements be different for children transported to the colony vs. children produced in situ?

Hubble Update

NASA has started the switchover process to Side B - it turns out I was a bit fuzzy in my understanding before. The two "sides" are not the power source, they're computers that interpret commands from Mission Control, and send data back down to the ground. Either way, Hubble can't take any data while this equipment is down. Because it's actually a computer, and the process of switching from one to the other is complex, they haven't tested Side B since it was launched - why mess with a good thing as long as Side A was working. So during the process of switching over, they hit a snag, though they haven't detailed what the problem is. Time will tell how easily they'll fix it. At the worst, the next Shuttle Servicing (I think it's scheduled for February?) could bring a whole new "side" up and fix the problems.

In the meantime, many astronomers are losing their time on the Hubble. It's my understanding that if you lose your time, you have to reapply for more time in the future, but you tend to get a high priority if that's the case. (This is a similar process to how it works if you're on a land-based telescope and you get clouded out.) There are a few projects that have guaranteed time, and they essentially get a percentage of the functional HST time, so for any time that the HST is down they just lose their time. The people/institutions who "own" that time can choose to reschedule as they wish.

Hawking survives Vomit Comet

That is such a relief. He did 8 of the free-fall parabolas, grinning the whole time. His motivation? Not just release from his everyday hum-drum life of a preeminent mathematician / theoretical physicist at Cambridge University, probably not even release from his wheelchair and MS, but to "encourage public interest in space". Life on Earth he says, is at risk from global warming and other threats, and "the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."