Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

by Mary Roach

The tougher question is not “Is Mars possible?” but “Is Mars worth it?” An outside estimate of the cost of a manned mission to Mars is roughly the cost of the Iraq war to date: $500 billion. Is it similarly hard to justify? What good will come of sending humans to Mars, especially when robotic landers can do a lot of the science just as well, if not as fast? I could parrot the NASA Public Affairs Office and spit out a long list of products and technologies* spawned by aerospace innovations over the decades. Instead, I defer to the sentiments of Benjamin Franklin. Upon the occasion of history’s first manned flights—in the 1780s, aboard the Montgolfier brothers’ hot-air balloons—someone asked Franklin what use he saw in such frivolity. “What use,” he replied, “is a newborn baby?”