

Dennis Tito's mission to Mars - wiradikusuma
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/dennis-titos-mission-mars

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rdl
As crazy things go, this actually seems quite plausible. If you're ok with
potentially dying with higher odds than the Shuttle or ISS, and the mission is
scoped to just be a fly-by, you should be able to build a suitable mission out
of technology we have now.

The big pain is that you only get one launch window, so there's no chance of
sending an unmanned version first, etc. And the timescale is compressed
(although that also limits the budget helpfully -- it might be less efficient
from an engineering perspective, but a 5y drop dead launch date means there
will be less bureaucracy and inefficiency...).

I'd still prefer robots which stay and build stuff, and then send humans in
force later to colonize, but this can be done now and for low-single digit
billions, I don't see why not to do it.

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cpeterso
According to [1], there is an fly-by window in 2016.

[1] [http://io9.com/5987372/everything-we-know-about-dennis-
titos...](http://io9.com/5987372/everything-we-know-about-dennis-
titos-2018-human-mission-to-mars)

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andyjohnson0
I find it hard to see how this is anything other than an attention seeking
publicity stunt.

We're not going to learn anything about Mars that various orbiting satellites
and landers haven't already told us. The effects of long-duration spaceflight
have been explored using through Mir and the ISS.

The radiation exposure issue is important, but as far as I know solar
radiation cycles and intensity are well understood and modelled, as is the
effects of radiation on the human body.

I guess we might learn about the extreme pathological effects of confining two
people together for such a long voyage, but unlike Mars-500 [1] this is
unlikely to help with planning serious expeditions which would require larger
crews. Tito's belief that marriage will help his crew psychologically survive
the experience seems rather naive, and I wonder if he has consulted anyone
with knowledge of team dynamics or the psychological effects of isolation and
confinement.

Sorry to be cynical. I'd love to see a serious expedition to Mars within my
lifetime, but this isn't it.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARS-500>

Edit: Hey downvoters - how about you explain why you disagree? If I'm wrong
I'd like to know why so that I can learn.

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igravious
Perhaps it is that. Perhaps you are being downvoted for your cynicism, lack of
adventure, and because you come off like a bit of a killjoy.

> attention seeking publicity stunt

Perhaps it's not; how do you know inside this man's mind?

> not going to learn anything about Mars that various orbiting satellites and
> landers haven't already told us

How do you know? This mission will be manned, that in itself is different.
Maybe we will learn stuff. We learn by doing. Also, what did we learn by going
to the South Pole? That it was cold? Sometimes people are allowed to do things
_because they can_ and _because it has yet to be done_.

~~~
andyjohnson0
_"what did we learn by going to the South Pole?"_

We learned what was there. In 1911 there was no other way to find out except
to go there. Thats not true of Mars, where we have high-resolution mapping
data on most of the planet available to everyone [1] and a couple of active
rovers on the surface. I'd like to see humans go there to land, explore, and
do science. Something like robomartin describes [2].

You mention adventure. Apollo 8 was a real adventure: new hardware, the second
crewed US flight, the first to leave orbit, and _they took it around the moon_
when comparatively little was know about it. Titos's proposal is not the same
thing. The crew will apparently have little to do during the 500+ days of the
flight except for during a single brief swing around Mars. They won't even
orbit.

I suspect there is a good chance that the crew will come back psychologically
damaged for no real gain. Am I a killjoy for saying that?

[1] <http://www.google.co.uk/mars/> [2]
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5324850>

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bobsy
While very interesting I don't see the point of not landing on Mars. It seems
like a long way to go for a bit of sightseeing.

Humans have only landed on the moon once. I would have thought going to moon
more often. Establishing some sort of base on the moon and improving space
technology would increase the speed in which we do anything meaningful with
Mars.

I mean, surely there are minerals on the moon? Rare minerals perhaps? Metals?
It seems like a far better place to launch ships from due to the lack of
atmosphere and less gravity.

Do we actually have a method of propulsion apart from rocket fuel?

While this is a noble mission, I don't see why there is so much interest in
the red planet when we haven't even found a relatively efficient way to get to
and from our own moon.

~~~
dylangs1030
Mars gravity is much more powerful than the Earth's. If they landed with
current technology (especially considering the budget) they'd likely be unable
to reach orbit.

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rdl
Mars gravity is weaker (so taking off again is easier), but the atmosphere is
much thinner, so landing is actually harder. It's relatively easy for
lightweight/robust things, but not particularly easy for humans. Parachutes,
low-angle aerobraking, etc. all don't work so well. Expending rocket fuel in a
retro burn is very expensive (since you have to carry it with you all the way
from earth -- a lot of the "take off again" plans involve fuel either cached
on Mars or made on Mars).

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rowanseymour
As others have said, just flying to Mars isn't going to teach us much that we
don't already know from probes, but...

"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"

Maybe this is going to be the first space-based reality TV show. Could be
worthwhile just to get the general population excited about space travel. I
can't wait to watch this!

~~~
bfwi
You're right, it's not going to teach us much about Mars. But it's going to
teach us how to get humans from Earth to Mars. That's pretty valuable in my
opinion.

~~~
XorNot
Also, first man and women to orbit Mars, first married couple to embark on
long-term spaceflight...

There's a lot of notable firsts to be had from this, and we know from ground
missions that people can certainly deal with being isolated for 500+ days (and
not even being in space).

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cryptoz
The world's billionaires are racing to Mars. This should be very interesting!
It will excite humanity and inspire millions of young people to become
scientists and engineers.

Tito is planning for 2018. Elon Musk around the same time, maybe a bit after.
And Bezos will pick up the pace too. We really do have a new Mars-focused
space race with multiple billionaires competing. Amazing!

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tocomment
I think they talked about using a dragon capsule for this. How can I get a
sense for what the inside of that is like? Is it actually livable for a year
or more?

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andyjohnson0
The proposed mission website is at <http://inspirationmars.org/>

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dylangs1030
I'm happy someone is finally _trying_ to make this expedition. I've always
believed space exploration should be a top priority, even if it's decades
before we reach any practical uses for discoveries.

That said, I'm worried about it. The Moon landing was a highly planned and
comparatively efficient expedition. This is being bankrolled by a man who will
likely have some control over things _despite not having training._ I don't
think just anyone should be able to plan monumental journeys through space
without the official sanction of NASA - at least not until space travel
becomes as ubiquitous as driving or riding the train. There are safety
protocols to follow.

And choosing 40-50 year old astronauts seems a bit naive. Why wouldn't you
choose younger, more fit astronauts? And why not two who have a demonstrated
history of working together? Marriage doesn't automatically mean a
frictionless relationship.

In any case, I hope whoever they choose has the good sense not to start
reading from the Bible. Maybe another scripture, or something less
denominational.

~~~
kiba
_This is being bankrolled by a man who will likely have some control over
things despite not having training_

What the hell do you mean? He's a former JPL aerospace engineer!

~~~
andyjohnson0
According to his wikipedia page [1] he got his BSc in 1962 and then got a
masters. Since 1972 he's been running an investment management consultancy. So
his time as an engineer was at most nine years before 1972.

So he was a JPL engineer, but for a short time 40 years ago.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Tito#Life_and_career>

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robomartin
At some level manned missions to Mars feel like a complete waste of resources
to me. Money would be far better spent on enhanced robotic missions. You don't
have to provide life support, radiation will not threaten anyone's life, they
don't need to be returned to Earth, etc. Besides that, investing serious money
on advancing artificial intelligence and robotics would potentially have
significant real revenue potential on Earth --probably far greater long term
than media rights to watch a middle-aged husband and wife fight for two years
while traveling to Mars.

What I think might be worthwhile would be the construction of what I am going
to call "Enterprise One". This would be a large spaceship (crew of 20 or more)
built in orbit. Enterprise One would never be capable of re-entry. That would
be the domain of smaller (two or three occupant) capsules built for that
purpose.

Ideally, Enterprise One would be an international effort.

The goal would be to construct something far more substantial (and safer) than
one could launch from Earth at one time. If it takes ten years to build, so be
it.

Once completed Enterprise One could start regular runs to the Moon and back.
It would carry Lunar lander modules that would take people to the surface and
back. We can learn a lot by having such a spacecraft conduct near-space manned
missions with regularity. We could certainly use it to test all manner of
technologies, including more advanced robotics.

While perhaps not as sexy as going to Mars, I would do this way before even
considering manned missions to Mars. Humanity could benefit from Enterprise
One in many ways. I see little benefits from sending a married couple for a
Mars fly-by.

~~~
kiba
But the whole point of this mission is "inspiration".

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melling
You wouldn't be inspired by 10x the number of robots moving about the solar
system beaming back video, etc?

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sp332
True, especially since video is all most people would get out of a manned
mission either.

