Martian dreams

Dennis Tito's mission to Mars

Martian dreams

Six decades later, on February 27th, Dennis Tito, an American investment manager and space enthusiast who, in 2001, became the world’s first space tourist, unveiled his own plan. Inspiration Mars is a more modest affair. If all goes to plan, in January 2018 a single, small spaceship, carrying two crew members, will blast off for a 501-day trip to Mars and back. If it arrives safely, there are no plans to land. Instead, the idea is merely to fly around the planet and then head back to Earth. Unlike von Braun’s project, little government involvement will be necessary. Mr Tito hopes to pay for Inspiration Mars with a mix of his own money, donations from the public and the sale of media rights.

That is not to say that Mr Tito’s plan is timid. On the contrary: it is eye-wateringly (or, as one colleague puts it, “bowel-looseningly”) bold. Although endless studies have been done on how it might be possible to ferry humans to Mars, no one has ever attempted it. Mr Tito’s launch date is fixed, for it is designed to take advantage of a rare period of orbital proximity between Mars and Earth. If he misses his deadline, another opportunity will not present itself until 2031. That gives the team just under five years to design the mission, specify a spacecraft, find a rocket to launch it on, select a crew and carry out all the necessary checks and double-checks. And, without the financial muscle of a nation-state behind him, all this must be done on a budget.

Correction: We originally said that Mars One's project was a "suicide mission". Although volunteers are expected to die on Mars, it will be of natural causes, so the description was not accurate. Sorry.

Comment

This news is a mission to Mars by Dennis Tito, he will do it at his own way with volunteers to be sent to Mars, given that if they go with the idea that they could lose their lifeline being there, NASA will have to wait until 2030 in order to re-plan a mission to Mars.

Personally I think it's crazy to travel to Mars and yet very courageous of Tito, because it goes with the idea that he will die, but with an ideology that if he dies it would be from cause’s naturals. He is brave because he risked his life just to give new discoveries to humanity

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