[RightWhale]

Try joining an existing thread where this topic might be discussed rather than posting a vanity.

[BallandPowder]

Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!

It has been done

Re: Australia also see "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress".

[r9etb]

Well, for one thing, I think you'd have a hard time finding convicts smart enough to make this work.

[Izzy Dunne]

The thought of an angry convicted murderer with nothing left to lose behind the steering wheel of a rocket ship with 20,000+ pounds of explosive fuel on board is not a pleasant one...

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[Prime Choice]

Not exactly a good idea. Long-term missions cooped up in a spacecraft require discipline and a sound, well-adjusted mind. I doubt you'll find a criminal with such a critical qualities.

Besides, do you really want society's worst to have a greater chance of making that ever-remote "first contact"?

[Jonah Hex]

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", tovarisch.

[thoughtomator]

#1... can't trust em, nobody's going to send one up with billions of dollars of high-tech equipment

#2... there are a lot of non-convicts who would jump at the chance, even if there were no coming back! It's almost a reward, to get a chance to be a space pioneer. No rewards for criminals!

[bobjam]

Didn't they make a science fiction movie about this? Something alnog the lines of Escape from New York meets Planet of the Apes.

[camle]

how about those who cannot walk? they'd function better in zero grav.

[JohnGalt]

We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America.

First we abolish NASA and strip the pensions for every phony that works there. However, I would support your plan so long as we send the politicians first.

[smith288]

I would bet 40% of those people in NASA JPL lab would be willing to do this for free. LOL.

[Lee Heggy]

Exploring the edges of the galaxy is quite another thing from a mission to Jupiter. In either case you would probably end up with an insane crew

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Well, first off, your post proceeds on an incorrect assumption, IMHO. "Finding willing participants" is not the problem; there are literally hundreds if not thousands of people who would willing volunteer for space missions. The problem is funding and equipping the spacecraft to actually reach the nearest planets, let alone planets outside of this solar system, without killing the people on board.

Figure that one out, and you've got something.

[brbethke]

If you mean a novel idea as in "strikingly original," it isn't. Sci-fi writers have been rehashing this one for at least 70 years, the most recent example I can think of being Brute Orbits by George Zebrowski.

If you mean a novel idea as in you're writing a novel about it, I would try to discourage you, for the same reason.

If you're serious about this, I see two problems: 1.) lifers and death-row prisoners are generally drug-addled homicidal idiots, and 2.) the sheer physical mass required to provide a person with "40 years of food and water" is mind-boggling. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to put such tonnage in low Earth orbit, much less accelerate it to escape velocity?

On the other hand, if your objective is to provide the Moon or Mars with lots of organic compost for the benefit of the sane colonists who will arrive later, then you may be onto something.

[waterstraat]

Exploring the outer reaches of our galaxy would be a fantastic voyage. They could land on planets, explore, and then return to the mother ship. Pack enough food water etc for 40 years.

1. We dont know of any planets out of our solar system that could sustain, or even allow landings of humans.

2. Our galaxy is 100,000 light years wide.

They would die of starvation at 40 years before reaching anything out of our solar system.

Even the space ship Enterprise in the Star Trek series, which could speed up to warp 10 or so, only explored a very very very tiny itsie bitsie portion of our galaxy during its multi-year voyage.

[theDentist]

Won't work. Too many Dems just love the Clintons too much to allow them to be sent away.

OK. Nope, I'd rather we save the money and send them to an uninhabited island in the Pacific, leave 'em with a book on survival, a bag of seeds and a knife.

[boris]

"Your thoughts?"

Quite simple. We cannot even reach 5% of the speed of light. In fact, 1% is unattainable at present. To reach the nearest star at 1% of lightspeed would take 43 years; the news would take another 4.3 years to get back.

So the answer is: we're locked into a (mostly uninteresting) solar system for a very long time--if not forever.

Mars? Seen one red desert; seen 'em all. The only bodies that have interest for me are Jupiter, Saturn and a few of their moons.

--Boris