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.
I'd agree, except that it is a privately-funded expedition with "very little government involvement". I can't complain that someone in the private sector is pushing exploration of space further (even if the exploration part is limited), with no (or "very little") cost to me.
From a psychological point of view I think they should be profiling naval submarine crews. They are in confined spaces for a few months at a time. Granted a little bigger space but not that much.
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.
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?
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.