This Is how Dennis Tito plans to send people to Mars
February 28, 2013
(Credit: Inspiration Mars)
If Dennis Tito has his way, two people will leave our planet in January 2018 and make a trip to Mars and back, with a quick flyby, SpaceRef reports.
The project is being spearheaded by a non-profit organization, the Inspiration Mars Foundation.
Tito’s mission will be facilitated by donors, not investors.
Tito and a group of coauthors from NASA and several aerospace companies have put together a concept study, “Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free-Return Mission in 2018,” to be presented at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference on March 3.
It will use an upgraded SpaceX Dragon capsule as the habitable volume for the entire mission. This spacecraft would be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and follows an optimized free-return trajectory to Mars and back.
The closest that the spacecraft would get to Mars would be ~100 km — and the crew would only spend 10 hours within that distance of the planet.
Sources report that it is the intention of Inspiration Mars to have a crew comprised of a man and a woman.
Some insight into the rationale for this mission can be found in the IEEE paper: “Sending humans on an expedition to Mars will be a defining event for humanity as well as an inspiration to our youth. Social media provides an opportunity for people to meaningfully participate in the mission, likely making this the most engaging human endeavor in modern history. The mission will address one of the most fundamental technical challenges facing human exploration of space, keeping the humans alive and productive in deep space.”
Comments (25)
by nobody
Miles O’Brien, haha. How’s Dr. Bashir doing?
by rhc
Am I the only person who thinks a flyby only mission is completely ridiculous?
by Grim
Recently the Russian 500 plus day Mars simulated mission with 6? men ensconced. in a fairly large structure. The “travelers”, during the mission, always knew that help was just a wall thickness away and that the isolation could be ended at any time. Despite this all, except one, suffered mild to moderate psychological and/ or emotional difficulties during the test. What chance do 2 people have in a much smaller space on a real mission such that once inserted into a Mars destination vector nothing can change for 501 days. You would become a “robot” even if you did manage to maintain your sanity. At the very least find out the cultural/spiritual philosophy that one person has that allowed him to get through relatively unscathed.
by Max
Wow, this is inspiring. I wish I have a couple hundred thousand dollars to give them ;D
by Joseph Hyde
Oh! One last question, what or who will be pointing the Antennae with an AE35 unit back toward earth for communications…? :-0
by Lloyd
The male astronaut has to control the remote.
by Rob
I’m in, nothing scares me….!
by Dr.NiRo
Exactly Rob, I would do it too!
Let’s Volunteer :D
by Joseph Hyde
As far as radiation is concerned one thing that may be known or not is a drug being developed primarily for the Military is called Ex-Rad which can protect before and after radiation exposure. The company that makes it is here: http://www.onconova.com/
Fox news article:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/16/ex-rad-militarys-radiation-wonder-drug/
by cacarr
“It will use an upgraded SpaceX Dragon capsule as the habitable volume for the entire mission.”
That image appears to show a Bigelow hab.
500+ days confined to a Dragon capsule? Ugh.
by Joseph Hiddink
Further to my comment, see the Patent at >One Terminal Capacitor<
Beware, it is lethal without advice. I almost killed myself with my very first experiment.
by Joseph Hiddink
Since Nasa rejected the technology of the Flying Saucer, which I discovered and patented, as it would make teh Rocket Industry obsolete, I can only shake my head in disbelief
A real Spacecraft, using the technology, will be built. Not by Nasa but by me, when I can get the capital neede, which will be much less than the rip-off Dennis Tito is going to get.
The Propulsion System of the Saucer, could have pushed a Shuttle to the ISS in one hour, the Moon in a couple of hours and Mars within one day.,
The Nasa Propulsion Engineers were sent a copuy of the patent with the urgent advice to contact me first befor experimenting as a disaster could occur. The decided to experiment afterthe Second Space Disaster, did not contact me, saved Nasa $30 Million (my Fee) and caused Billions of dollars in damage by starting ther big Black-out of 2003 in the USA and Canada. The the incompetents invented a tree as the culprit and got a Golden Handshke for making the USA a has-been.
by melajara
@Joseph Hiddink
I think many here would be delighted to see a demo of your invention.
Is it miniaturizable enough to have the propulsor embarked in a little drone?
But actually you just have to demonstrate what is the developed thrust for a given level of energy consumption.
If the energy is in some way “pumped” from the environment, this by itself could be the basis of a formidable weapon.
For more civil applications, your system has to be properly isolated (or operated in a desert) or many neighbours will complain again, LOL
by Erik
I wonder if they will bring a 3D printer
by Bruce Wright
It does make for an interesting technological tour de force, but I do kind of wonder why this is such a great idea – they won’t get all that close to Mars, and it would be much easier to do flybys with cameras and other instrumentation in that case. Producing technology for long space flights would be useful, but you could do a lot of that just in the Earth-Moon system.
It seems to me that for this to make sense, there need to be plans for some kind of follow-up mission, either to the surface of Mars or to the asteroids – and in either case, a more reliable funding model; I’m afraid that a model based purely on private donations may quickly lead to donor fatigue.
by beatriz valdes
You point rightly that if the humans making this trip are not going to land in Mars, better send just cameras instead. Humans should give it a try when flight time has perhaps shortened, and landing to stay some time and start a colony is feasible.
by Max
I think it’s great that they are just doing it even though there are better ways to get images, etc. since in the course of the project they will solve many problems and set us up for more specifically “useful” missions later.
by GatorALLin
..I like the idea that this could be funded with all donations. Setup a kickstarter or similar to let everyone who wants to be a part of the mission contribute (even 1 dollar, just to say it is also their mission).
..I did NOT like the idea to SELL the data to NASA….. if the mission is funded completely by donations… that data should be free to all future use and for humanity…. not sold. That would keep me (and I think others) from feeling good about donating.
by Camaxtli
I don’t personally have a problem with it. If NASA, and thus myself as a citizen, get good, valuable data for the money, then it is a fair deal. I will still be donating. And I believe this mission will provide a wealth of free information and benefit to us all. They are selling to NASA data from experiments they will be running for NASA, all the knowledge gained from this endeavor isn’t going to be locked away, if any. And I believe that any data NASA receives will also be available for free, since they are a tax payer funded agency. They certainly provide a wealth of data currently.
by Bruce Wright
Yes, since NASA is a taxpayer funded agency, any information that they produce that’s not a national security issue will be made public.
by MatthewQ
“and the crew would only spend 10 hours within that distance of the planet.”
LOL, you wouldn’t want to pick that day to oversleep that’s for sure.
by melajara
Sex will be forbidden the day before, but otherwise for the crew to stay healthy and happy, (safe) sex ad libitum!
by Bri
Why it looks like a giant……..errrr um….. Never mind.
by Kristof77
hahahahahahahahhahah
by Bri
Oh you nasty man!