Opinion: A one-way ticket to Mars

NYTimes.com : Updated 9/14/09: Lawrence M. Krauss, the director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University asks in the New York Times:

The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?

Update: Krause also appeared on NPR’s Science Friday to discuss some of the ideas in his editorial in more depth .