Britain's first astronaut brands one-way tickets to Mars 'morally reprehensible'

Star man: Matt Damon in The Martian. He plays a stranded botanist who must fend for himself on the Red Planet
20th Century Fox

Britain's first astronaut has attacked a proposal for a one-way trip to Mars as “morally reprehensible” — but said she would think about signing up for a return trip to the Red Planet.

Helen Sharman questioned the ethics and feasibility of the multi-billion-pound Mars One project, which claims a colony will be established by 2027.

It has been dismissed as a publicity-seeking hoax, but its Dutch backers are adamant it will happen. Five Britons aged 21 to 35 are on a shortlist of 100 candidates for the mission. They would reach Mars after an eight-month voyage — then live and die on the planet.

Dr Sharman warned that humanity as yet lacked the skills to support itself on Mars. The 52-year-old from west London said: “It’s very exciting that people could actually live on another planet. I’m convinced [a Mars mission] will happen, and in my lifetime.

Pioneer: Helen Sharman
Glenn Copus

“But is a one-way trip to Mars ever really seriously going to happen? Surely that’s morally reprehensible. However old people are, however much they say they want to go on a one-way mission, people should be thinking about the possibility of returning. We need to minimise the risks and I would go on a return mission, I would not go on a one-way mission. I’d love to go back to space, I don’t know any astronaut who doesn’t want to.”

In 1991 Dr Sharman, a chemist, became the first Briton in space when she visited the Mir space station, after answering a radio ad saying: “Astronaut wanted, no experience necessary.” She said huge problems had to be solved before a human Mars mission — starting with protecting space travellers from deadly radiation.

Unlike movie The Martian, starring Matt Damon as a botanist stranded on Mars who produces food on a makeshift farm, as yet “we can’t grow our own food in space”, she added. “While we’ve taken seeds into space, and astronauts on the International Space Station have eaten lettuce they’ve grown, we haven’t produced fruit in space so we can’t pollinate something. [And] you need housing, life-support systems, some sort of contact with Earth.”

Dr Sharman is an operations manager at Imperial College’s chemistry department. She was 27 when she blasted off to Mir in a Soviet Soyuz capsule, and she conducted agricultural experiments on the space station.

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