Dennis Tito's 2018 Mars Mission To Be Manned 233
Last Thursday, we discussed news that millionaire Dennis Tito was planning a private mission to Mars in 2018, but details were sparse. Now, reader RocketAcademy writes that Tito has provided more information about the tip, and that he intends the mission to be manned:
"Dennis Tito, the first citizen space explorer to visit the International Space Station, has created the Inspiration Mars Foundation to raise funds for an even more dramatic mission: a human flyby of the planet Mars. Tito, a former JPL rocket scientist who later founded the investment firm Wilshire Associates, proposes to send two Americans — a man and a woman — on a 501-day roundtrip mission which would launch on January 5, 2018. Technical details of the mission can be found in a feasibility analysis (PDF), which Tito is scheduled to present at the IEEE Aerospace Conference in March. Former NASA flight surgeon Dr. Jonathon Clark, who is developing innovative ways of dealing with radiation exposure during the mission, called the flight 'an Apollo 8 moment for the next generation.'"
Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Pissed (Score:3, Insightful)
Stories like this sort of pisses me off. There are a lot cool things we could be doing if, as a nation, America used it's wealth for good instead of evil. But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*), or on bailouts for the very rich and unscrupulous. What a fucking waste.
* http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/25/304113/chart-only-15-americans-died-from-terrorism-last-year-less-than-from-dog-bites-or-lightning-strikes/?mobile=nc [thinkprogress.org]
Re: Pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if you re-read his post you'll find he's actually on your side, numbskull.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you know we should have saved all the money on the whole Gemini program and Apollos 1-10 and just gone straight to the moon. This iterative approach to new discovery is for the birds.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
-- Robert Browning
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
Well, people don't live on top of Mount Everest. They come back home. Dismissing the significance of this mission is like dismissing the significance of Apollo 8.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
and however much money
Around a billion.
About the same as the average cost of a Shuttle mission. 1/18th NASA's annual budget. 1/3rd of what they spend on ISS every year. Slightly more than 1/3rd of what they spend each year developing SLS in the hope that they will, perhaps, be able to fly a crew of 4 around the moon and back in 2021 after 15+ years of development.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent policy. But why start with space exploration? Space exploration has some very useful applications for now and our future. Let's ban the spending of millions on films, tv, sports, music, entertainment, vacations, celebrations, art, fancy food and alcohol. All this non-essential crap that waste the Earth's resources and could be better spent on new energy technologies, food production and clean water preservation.
Sure, life would be dull and joyless. But I guess that's the price you pay when you get to ban use of resources on things you don't like.
Re:Very VERY stupid idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
The mission isn't supposed to find out anything new about Mars. It's about the problems associated with the trip itself. That's enough to be going on with. After the mission, I can practically guarantee there will be a succession of scientists and engineers giving presentations, saying "It turns out that...". There's no substitute for actually doing it - and if we want to reach the stage where we're regularly sending colony ships full of people to Mars, sending the first one just to loop round is in no way "a waste".