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Commercialization

Dennis Tito To Announce Private Human Mars Mission (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 26, 2013
Filed under , ,

The Planets are Aligning for a Once-in-a-Generation Space Journey
“The Inspiration Mars Foundation, a newly formed nonprofit organization led by American space traveler and entrepreneur Dennis Tito, invites you to attend a press conference detailing its plans to take advantage of a unique window of opportunity to launch an historic journey to Mars and back in 501 days, starting in January 2018. This “Mission for America” will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration. It is intended to encourage all Americans to believe again, in doing the hard things that make our nation great, while inspiring youth through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and motivation.”
How a millionaire spaceflier intends to send astronauts past Mars in 2018, MSNBC
New insights on that private (crewed?) Mars mission, NewSpace Journal
Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free-Return Mission in 2018, Dennis Tito et al, 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference
“In 1998 Patel et al searched for Earth-Mars free-return trajectories that leave Earth, fly by Mars, and return to Earth without any deterministic maneuvers after Trans-Mars Injection. They found fast trajectory opportunities occurring two times every 15 years with a 1.4-year duration, significantly less than most Mars free return trajectories, which take up to 3.5 years. This paper investigates these fast trajectories. It also determines the launch and life support feasibility of flying such a mission using hardware expected to be available in time for an optimized fast trajectory opportunity in January, 2018. … We used a mission duration of 500 days (d) in a SpaceX Dragon class of vehicle. Crew size is a primary driver so we compared crew sizes from one to four people, and determined that two crew is optimal given mass and volume constraints.”
Keith’s update: The mission outlined in this paper uses SpaceX hardware for analysis purposes. As outlined, this conceptual mission would depart Earth on 5 Jan 2018, reach Mars on 20 August 2018, and return to Earth on 21 May 2019. This paper will be presented at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference on 3 March 2013 at 9:50 pm. This paper has been widely circulated for several weeks by the authors and their associates within government, legislative, industry, and advocacy communities, and has been referenced online – in great detail – for more than a week. I cannot post this paper due to IEEE copyright policies. The press event will be webcast live tomorrow at 1:00pm EST. You can sign up at the Inspiration Mars website. There is a Twitter account at @InspirationMars that will become active soon.
Keith’s update: Update: this paper is now online at Inspiration Mars Foundation..

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

171 responses to “Dennis Tito To Announce Private Human Mars Mission (Update)”

  1. bwohlgemuth says:
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    Will be interesting to see which government entities suddenly jump in and try to prevent this.  

    • ken1g says:
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      No need for gov or anyone else to “prevent this”—technically, economically and politically AND HUMANLY impossible! Nuff said!

      • kcowing says:
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        Can you cite references to prove that this is impossible?

      • Matthew Black says:
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        NOT impossible!! Just very difficult. There are enough flat-Earth, negative naysayers in this world already, ken-stuck-in-1g. THINK BOLD!!

        Also, think of 2x Dragons docked to a central ‘Node’ module that has a life support system, at least 1000 cubic feet of habitable volume, internal ‘walls’ lined with water tanks and high-density polyethylene, lots of spare parts for the life support system, lots of rehydratable and canned goods… The back end of one or both Dragons is attached to a storable-fueled propulsion module with extra solar panels. Keep the crew down to two Astronauts and launch the stack of modules out of low Earth orbit with a ‘ganged’ set of LOX/kerosene propulsion stages.

        The above list of hardware would be good enough for a flyby Mars mission – perhaps quite close to the surface during at least a partial daylight pass to relay back high-definition television pictures and commentary from the crew. When the module stack nears Earth, the crew casts off for a high=speed Earth re-entry with the rest of the hardware discarded into solar orbit…

        Such a mission could be perceived as a stunt, yes. But it would also be a very bold and exciting mission, at least the historical equal of Apollo 8. To Mr Tito and his partners – GO!! Give this a shot. If it fails at least it will be a MAGNIFICENT failure.

    • kcowing says:
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      If they do not need government help then that may be hard for the government to do….

  2. Denniswingo says:
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    This changes everything. IF Tito or a consortium with Tito as the lead funds this, this is what separates the men from the boys in the Beyond Earth Orbit private space field….

    • meekGee says:
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      Yes it does.  I did not see this coming at all.
      I generally tend to take a skeptical look at announcements such as Mars One, but for whatever reason, this one has a taste of credibility to it. 

      So without further ado, i will immediately set forth and start waiting for the press conference.

      • meekGee says:
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        But just to be clear, since I’m generally pro-mars exploration and pro manned missions.

        If this is a fly-by, which is what I think it is, then there’s no objective justification for putting a person inside. There’s maybe inspirational one (hence the name) but there are enough Mars-inspired people around even without this.  The downside of an unsuccessful mission is too large.

        I’d rather they send a craft full of instruments, maybe do some atmospheric sample return, but otherwise just test as much technology as possible for a follow-up manned ground mission, including testing life support, and testing the heat-shield after a year and a half in transit.

        If this is not a fly-by however, and they actually intend to land, then my mind is even more blown.  🙂

        • anonymiiustitia says:
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          It is a fly by to keep it simple and takes advantage of a rare orbital alignment that has the full round trip duration of 1yr 4m, only new variable is deep space radiation.  People have survived in space now for about the same duration, requires a lot of maintenance, but what else are they going to do.  I hope the designers pack a lot of spare hardware, workbenches, and tools – if anything goes wrong or a system goes down, it doesn’t sound like they will be able to send up replacements like ISS. 

        • anonymiiustitia says:
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          I hope they pack a lot of spare hardware, tools, and send mechanics, people have survived on ISS for long durations, but they had the luxury of bringing up spares when the system fails.  I also love Mars, and have become disheartened by all the claims from private industry as well as NASA. 

          The problems I’m seeing now is the frequency of grandios promises that end not in a catastrophic launch, but the inability to even get to a launch pad has made me lose faith in our get things done capability.  I hope that they can raise the money so that those that have complained that money is the only obstacle will be forced to get it done or shut up!

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            “people have survived on ISS for long durations, but they had the luxury of bringing up spares when the system fails”

            That’s a good point, but the ISS is far larger and more complex than a ship to do a fly-by of Mars would need to be.  And none of the hardware failures on the ISS have been so critical that the crew would have died if they hadn’t been able to fix them for a couple of years.  As long as you have dissimilar backups, you can survive having a lot of things fail.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Another potentially important difference is that on the ISS you can always look out the window and see Earth.  On a Mars trip the impact of not seeing “home” except as a distant light may have an emotional impact.

          • ProfSWhiplash says:
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            I think both you and Chriswilson68 are on the money.  “people have survived on ISS for long durations, but they had the luxury of bringing up spares when the system fails ….   the
            ISS is far larger and more complex than a ship to do a fly-by of Mars would need to be.”

            Yep, all true.  Although, when you think about it, for a 501-day (~1.4 year) journey, even for just two people (or maybe… ESPECIALLY for two people… with no third to keep the peace), a Dragon/Bigelow combo may still become over time too cramp for them…,  especially given the fact that they will have to share their internal space with all life-support and food/water (even assuming they can recycle 90++% water) for the entire journey.  But if they are going to go with Bigelow, maybe they ought to consider a slightly larger craft along the lines of a small Nautilus-X, (and with lots-n-lots of solar panels, given where it’s headed). 
             
            On duration, yes people have certainly survived long tours on the ISS & Mir, but to paraphrase your statement, those people had the luxury of being able to get whatever was necessary from Earth-side (or to send anyone back in medical situations).  This journey is going to be much longer than anyone has done so on either station (and with no help from home).  To date, only three guys (all Russians) have broken the 1-year duration (Valeri  Polyakov wins the prize, at 438 days on Mir); and the US won’t be joining that club until about 2015.   The two astronauts for this particular trip will be topping Polyakov by 2+ months.  This length of time will be a big challenge for them both physically and psychologically. 

            Personally, I would hope that Tito & Co. will be able to work out the transportation kinks to be able to do this fantastic voyage in much less than 501 days (acknowledging that a 2018 launch date is frightfully close, enough to limit new-tech shortcuts).

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            I agree with most of what you’re saying.  However, you say, “I would hope that Tito & Co. will be able to work out the transportation kinks to be able to do this fantastic voyage in much less than 501 days.”  From what other people here are saying, it sounds like that 501 days is dictated by the fact that there is a free-return trajectory that takes 501 days from a 2018 launch.  To get a faster trip you’d need a very different architecture because you’d need a whole lot more propellant.

            Someday, we’ll do faster trips to Mars.  But if we want to attempt this mission in 2018 we’re going to need to just accept the 501 day trip.

          • ProfSWhiplash says:
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            Sorry, this was an inadvertant duplicate of my above comment – but couldn’t remove it… so I just “edited” it out of existance.

        • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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          Inspiration is definitely the name of the game here (both positive and negative when it comes to politicians controlling purse-strings).  From what I’ve read so far about this concept, nothing other than the most minimal in-flight science would be possible.

        • Jafafa Hots says:
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           But but but… we need humans on board ready to fix the life support systems when they fail!

      • Paul451 says:
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        While I don’t think it’s very likely to succeed, the fact that people are making announcements like this and are expecting to be taken seriously says something about where we are right now.

        To be considered a well-meaning dreamer or believable conman, no longer can you just announce that you’ll build a brand new low-cost private launcher, nor a private mini-shuttle, nor a private space-station, nor robot missions to the moon, nor private space-telescopes.

        No, when it comes to unbelievable claims, that’s so last century. Today, you have to promise frickin’ Mars before anyone wonders if you’re maybe pushing things a bit far.

        • meekGee says:
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          Well they definitely do not have time to develop anything from scratch.  5 years to launch?  They’d better be planning on using something that’s already designed, largely built, and ready to start testing.

          I wouldn’t do a fly around with a person before I had a dummy module survive outside the Van Allen belts for 2 years and then perform successful re-entry.

          But the point is – a fly around in 5 years is a lot more realistic (and a LOT less useful) than boots on the ground in 10.

        • Denniswingo says:
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          The difference is that Mr. Tito does have a considerable fortune and from what I know, he is pretty determined once he sets his mind to something.  One thing that is interesting is that if he does put his money behind this, money attracts money.

          This one has several zeros worth of bank account and credibility behind it.

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            Also, keep in mind that Tito made his fortune *as a money manager*!  He’s an expert at finance.  He, more than nearly anyone else, knows what the realities of financing are.

            Also, as a money manager he has personal contacts with many extremely wealthy people whose money he has managed.  That can’t hurt.

            There’s really nobody else in the world with more credibility about raising private money for a mission to Mars than Dennis Tito.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            Imagine if Dennis Tito and Paul Allen got together…… or Dennis Tito and Bill Gates. If you look around at what Gates has been doing with his money, there are some interesting possibilities.

            One thing that I learned when we were doing things with a billionaire, money attracts money.  Never doubt that.

    • meekGee says:
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      I think I found one justification for a Mars fly around missions.

      Someone wants to see Mars, first hand, before he dies.

      It’s his dollar.

      • Denniswingo says:
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        I don’t think Tito is going to take this ride….

        • meekGee says:
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          I know nothing beyond what they said either.
          But it’s a possibility.
          “Space Nut Billionaire wants to see Mars before he dies and trailblaze the path to the Solar System”
          You know, you made a lot of money, you’re old, you want to leave a legacy….
          We’ll find out next week. It’s just a possibility as I said.

  3. ken1g says:
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    Ridiculous! Frauds of this magnitude guised as inspiring America’s youth should not be allowed to publicize! Humans to Mars and back in less than 6 years from now–dream on! gpurcell (below)  is right but being too kind! If they aim for 2028–they might have a chance–nahhhh!

    • kcowing says:
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      Rant much?

    • Dallas Schwartz says:
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      Ken1g;  It is people like you that would have us (Humanity) still cowering in caves afraid of shadows on the wall.  Everyone “knew” the Earth was flat. Everyone “knew” Earth was the center of the universe.  Everyone “knew” it was folly to attempt to fly to the Moon as we couldn’t survive the harsh environs of space.  (i.e. Astronauts eyes would melt)  See a pattern here?   You and your “Can’t do” attitude make you a perfect NASA Adminstrator. 

      Now, go away and let the adults get some work done.  BTW;  I and people where I work are working to develop the water/wastewater treatment systems that will allow manned missions to Mars, a Moon colony and yes, hopefully even missions some day to the Gas giants.  Some like SpaceX & Bigelow are working on the launch/crew hardware and some of us are working on the systems to make the missions do able once launched.   What are you doing? 

  4. TheBrett says:
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    Even if they had a guaranteed, significant source of funding for this, I’m highly skeptical that they can go from proof-of-concept to launch in under six years. Where’s the money?

    • kcowing says:
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      You do know that Mr. Tito is a very, very wealthy individual, yes?

      • ken1g says:
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        Oh, so Mr. Tito has about $100B lying around? Chump change to what it would take if it were technically possible! What is his real purpose other than publicity?

        • kcowing says:
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          Who said that this mission will cost $100B? Got a reference?

        • Dallas Schwartz says:
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          ken1g;

          Always what “can’t” be done with you.  Are you interviewing for the chance to be NASA administrator?  Seriously.   What “can” be done in your view?  

      • TheBrett says:
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        He’s not that wealthy. Tito isn’t even a billionaire. 

        • Dallas Schwartz says:
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          Mr. Tito may not (Most likely doesn’t) have “all the money” required himself but he is rich, and rich people have rich friends.  His wealth/experience is sufficient to attract the attention of others with deep enough pockets that together they could fund this.  Always: “The Glass is half empty” with the naysayer crowd.    Call me naive but isn’t part of what makes manned space flight so great is the “dreaming” aspect of where we might go and what we might do once there some day?

      • Luis Vázquez says:
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         Who could possibly be *that* wealthy? With a much better fiscal picture than the one today it took NASA longer to get to the moon, and that’s only a little over a quarter million miles away!

        • chriswilson68 says:
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          Yeah, it took NASA a huge amount of money to get to the moon.  But that was 40 years ago.  Things change.  Technology moves on.

          SpaceX has already sent its Dragon capsule to the ISS and returned it safely to Earth twice.  Each time, if people had been on board, they would have been able to visit the ISS and return to Earth safely.  All for well under $200 million per flight.  SpaceX is planning to make Dragon even safer before sending people aboard it, mainly by adding powerful engines to allow for aborts during launch.

          There’s an old saying that if you get to orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.  That’s because the energy needed to get from the surface to orbit is half what you need to escape Earth’s gravity entirely.  And, actually, once you’re in orbit things are easier in a lot of ways.  You can use slower-burning engines because you don’t have to worry about atmospheric and gravity losses.  You can wait for a fuelling tanker to be launched and refuel your ship.

          If you can get to the Moon, it’s really not much harder to get anywhere in the solar system.  It just takes time.  So getting to Mars orbit, and even back from there to Earth orbit, isn’t really a huge leap.  It’s mainly a matter of being able to keep people alive for a couple of years in space.

          Even landing on Mars isn’t all that hard.  Once Dragon’s LAS engines are installed, Dragon should be able to land people safely on Mars, without any further changes.

          The one part that really is hard is getting people from the surface of Mars to Mars orbit.  There are proposals for ways to do it, but it involves some significant new technological development.

          • Dallas Schwartz says:
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            When the U.S went to the Moon, we had never flown in space. Didn’t even know for sure if we could.  Certainly a huge amount of money went into makin that happen but as said, when doing anything the first time out it costs much more in time & $$$$ to do it vs. after a hundred + times.  (Well unless NASA is the one doing it, so maybe my point is mute)

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Who said they’re going “from proof-of-concept to launch in under six years”?  The non-profit organization is new, but they could have been working on this for years already.  Lots of people on the planet have been working on this.  Do you know who they have working with them?

      • Dallas Schwartz says:
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        Dennis Tito has most likely been working on this since he flew abourd ISS 12 years ago.  So to say they can’t do this in 5-6 years is a false and misleading/understanding comment.  Certainly if he had just flown to ISS within the past year then yes, I can see your point.  Plus I’m sure he and his team have studied the vast array of available data for the merriad missions flown by NASA-JPL to Mars; let alone other missions throughout the Solar system.   
        Just because ATK/Boeing/LockMart aren’t the ones doing this doesn’t mean it can;t be done.  Certianly it can be done if one has the resources and will.  THe above mentioned companies have the resources; they just have no will.  Three decades of wasteful cost plus do nothing contracts have them bloated like a cod fish left to rott in the sun.

  5. kcowing says:
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    Do you have data to support your rant or are you just trying to get people to respond?

    • ken1g says:
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      Does Tito have data to support his dream or is he just trying to get people to respond?
      The latter no doubt—and just ask your self this–in five years will a US company even be sending crew to the ISS? Wanna bet?

      • Denniswingo says:
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        I will take that bet for $10,000.

      • chriswilson68 says:
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        I’ll take that bet too.  Seriously.  Just give me your real name and contact information.  I’ll put my money behind my judgement that a US company will be sending crew to the ISS in five years.

    • NonPublius says:
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      The lack of data doesn’t stop 2/3 of the posts here. Unfortunately I don’t have the data to back that up…

  6. bwohlgemuth says:
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    I could see a wide variety.  In the US alone…

    FAA, DoE (doubt that he would be able to pull off a flags and footprints without some sort of nuclear power), NASA…

    Then we start with State (you think the Chinese and Russians are going to stand by and let something like this happen) then DoD…the UN (“Mars is NOT for sale!”), the environmentalists (a’la Red Martians)….

    I WANT it to succeed but I only see that happening in a area with a carefree attitude towards government intrusion and an equatorial launch window.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      First of all, how could the Chinese, the Russians, or the U.N. stop such a mission?  There’s no way at all that they could.

      As to the equitorial launch window: launching from the equator gives you a small advantage, but no more than for any other launch.  Plenty of launches have been done from non-equitorial sites and been perfectly successful.

      DoE is only an issue, as you say, if they plan to use nuclear power.  I’d guess that they don’t.  And I don’t see any evidence to suggest that DoE would automatically block a commercial Mars mission that wanted to use nuclear power.  There would probably be a political fight with environmental groups about it, but that has been true of all recent NASA unmanned missions that have used RTGs, and the environmental groups have lost their attempts to block those missions.  I see no reason they would be more successful against a private mission to Mars, which would be likely to garner a lot of popular support.

      As to the FAA or DoD — what reason is there to think they would block it?  It doesn’t threaten them.  The only government groups likely to feel threatened by a private Mars mission launched from the U.S. are parts of NASA (MSFC and JSC in particular), and they wouldn’t have any direct say in the matter.

      Overall, I see no reason to believe any government will block this.  The only things that will keep this mission from happening will be a lack of money or technical mistakes.

      • bwohlgemuth says:
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        Really?  You don’t think government entities could stop a private enterprise from doing anything it really wanted to?  

        I think the possibilities of this happening are lower since it’s being proposed as  a fly-by mission, plant a flag or start talking land/mineral rights and I bet you see a number of countries to start brushing up on OST (and yes, private actors are a different class but you really think the groups I mentioned wouldn’t try to find a loophole for something?)

        I still think there is a possibility of someone filing a complaint once this gets close to fruition, but since it’s just a fly-by the land issues probably become unlikely.

        • chriswilson68 says:
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          ” You don’t think government entities could stop a private enterprise from doing anything it really wanted to?”

          What I think is that there are very few government entities that could stop this mission.  Those government entities that would most likely want to stop it wouldn’t be able to.

          There’s zero chance that any government entity outside the U.S. federal government could stop it, no matter how much they wanted to, short of an act of war.

          Private enterprises do things all the time that government entities hate and would love to stop but can’t.

  7. bwohlgemuth says:
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    I think we have the vehicles already in development in the private sector.  It’s now a matter of planning, coordination, and making it work.  

  8. DTARS says:
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    What if Mr. Tito Aims for 2018 and slips 2 or 4 years behind. Lolol

    That would just be terrible lololol

    The can’t do comments here are amazing.

    • kcowing says:
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      If they miss the window I suspect they won’t do the mission.

      • meekGee says:
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        Does anyone know what is special about the 2018 launch window?   Is it just a tad better than normal Mars transfer windows, or is there something profoundly different that is possible in 2018?

        • kcowing says:
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          There seems to be an optimal trajectory that is not that common.

        • Spaceman says:
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          I believe, though I can’t find the information to confirm it at the moment, that 2018 allows for a free-return trajectory (namely once you are there, gravity ensures you come right back to earth without further propulsion). Apollo 8, 10, and 11 all initially used a free-return to ensure they would get back to earth in the event of a propulsion failure in the SM. After the Apollo 13 failure, it was also put into a free-return, though later pushed along to shorten the return time. Obviously an inter-planetary free return is a bit different, but same basic principle. I’m not certain how “close” to earth a free return from Mars puts you.

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            “I’m not certain how “close” to earth a free return from Mars puts you.”

            It depends only on how accurate your data is.  If you had perfect information, you’d never have to fire an engine again after leaving Earth’s vicinity.  But small uncertainties about the initial conditions, effects of the solar wind, etc. lead to large errors in final position, so practical speaking you’d need to do some small burns along the way to correct your course.   These course correction burns don’t have to use much fuel.  NASA has a lot of experience flying probes around the solar system, so they can probably do the modelling quite accurately, minimizing the amount of correction needed.

  9. BeancounterDownUnder says:
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    This is very interesting.  Let’s consider just who would be interested in this voyage. 
    Well firstly Mr Tito with enormous personal wealth and able to network with other very wealthy individuals. 
    Then we have Mr Musk who possesses a launch infrastructure and launch vehicles and who is developing both the Falcon Heavy and a crew capsule based around his existing flight-proven Dragon Cargo. 
    Then we have Mr Bigelow who is flying 2 prototype space habitats and is well into designing a larger version the BA330.

    Seems to me like the private sector stars are aligning.
    Cheers.

  10. Nassau Goi says:
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    It’s about time. I’m willing to quit my job and make this happen. There are too many naysayers at the agency to the point that there is no govt owned manned launch vehicle let alone active plans (SLS) that are not prone to cancellation and failure.

    It’s really not that difficult to plan for a Mars mission at this point, provided the agency does not get in the way.
    The launch vehicle could consist of3 Falcon Heavy flights 3x $130 mil as a start.

    Far cheaper than anything else on the table

  11. nasa817 says:
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    I wish these folks all the luck in the world, but a mission to Mars with today’s technology is a suicide mission.  It has not been demonstrated that humans can survive microgravity for that long.  The on-orbit record is a little over 400 days and I”m pretty sure he didn’t walk away under his own power, though he did make a full recovery with no apparent long-term affects.  Radiation would be another issue.  One significant CME and the crew could die without protection.  It is a long shot that it could be done, but to not build up to a full mission to Mars like we did with Apollo when we went to the Moon would be risky.

    With that said, their chances of pulling this off are infinitely greater than NASA’s.  If we ever reach Mars, NASA will not be involved. 

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      “It has not been demonstrated that humans can survive microgravity for that long.”

      It also hasn’t been demonstrated that they can’t survive that long.  Decades of experience with the ISS and other stations suggests microgravity for a couple of years would be hard on people, but that they would survive, and recover pretty well afterwards.

      Anyway, a lot of Mars mission designs include artificial gravity so the crew won’t be in microgravity for long.  It’s pretty easy.  Just take two vehicles, put a tether between them, and rotate them about their common axis.

      “Radiation would be another issue.  One significant CME and the crew could die without protection.”

      It’s true that radiation is a health issue, but the evidence suggests it’s most likely to lead only to a moderate increase in cancer risk.  The other risks of being the first human crew to visit Mars are likely far, far greater than the small increased cancer risk from radiation.

      Most Mars mission designs include some sort of emergency “storm shelter” in case of a CME.  This is an area of the ship with extra radiation shielding on one side where the crew can hide for a few days during the storm.  Since they need to carry a lot of water for the trip anyway, the storm shelter can just mean putting all your water between you and the sun.

      • Denniswingo says:
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        If the mission flies in the 2018 timeframe it will be Cycle 24/25 solar minimum.

      • Paul451 says:
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        “Since they need to carry a lot of water for the trip anyway, the storm shelter can just mean putting all your water between you and the sun.”

        Can’t say I’ve ever really got the logic of this, make your radiation shield out of something that you will be consuming?

        • Nassau Goi says:
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          What logic made you think all of it would have to be consumed to the point of no efficacy?

          Even if not the case, the Sun will be in Solar minimum anyway with little to no chance of CME and SPE.

          As far as the GCR goes, cancer risk years into the future is accepted for many types of people from smokers to industrial workers.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Let’s not forget that solar minimum is a statistical tendency only, not a guarantee of anything.

        • chriswilson68 says:
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          That’s a fair point, but you probably want pretty fat margins on your consumables.  I’d hate to go on a two year trip in space with only just barely enough water to survive that long!  So I get lots of shielding in the earlier part of the trip, and still a fair amount on the way back, though not as much.

    • kcowing says:
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      Microgravity will not be an issue. The record is 437 days. Radiation can be handled with shielding. All Apollo missions had glaring lack of redundancies. People went. We cheered. People took greater risks to settle Oklahoma. Next.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Micro-g is only an assumption.  Tethering two spacecraft spinning around their mutual CoG is low tech, but it works.

      Oops! Chris already said this. Sorry.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I wonder about ‘it works’. Has there been an in-space demonstration?

        How is such a contraption guided? What about course corrections? And separating two vehicles that are mutually spinning so that one could orbit? Probably simple to the smart people here.

        • chriswilson68 says:
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          Most of the way to Mars you’re probably coasting.  You fire the Earth Departure stage for at most a couple of weeks on the way out.  Then you spend many months with the engines off.  Even if you had to stop the rotation before doing a mid-course correction burn, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          The first experiment that I know of was on Gemini 11, which was temporarily connected to an Agena target vehicle by a 100-foot tether.  They were spun around their mutual CoG to produce artificial gravity.  It was not a full 1g, just a smaller value, but it worked as expected and was easy enough to cancel.

          The late Dr. Robert Forward worked out all of the theory and the math for AG and several other techniques using tethers, and no one in the Physics and aerospace worlds is likely to dispute Dr. Forward’s work.

          One of Dr. Forward’s associates designed a multi-braid tether system that retains its tensile strength should parts of it be damaged by an asteroid collision.

          Tethering is real.

    • Spaceman says:
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      Another critical issue will be crew mental health.  Suddenly the recent Mars 500 experiment becomes very relevant.  The long term isolation will be much harder for a smaller crew (Mars 500 had a crew of 6).  The Mars 500 folks had the benefit of knowing that rescue was immediately possible. A much smaller living space will also put a signigicant strain on the crew.   On the other hand, the fact that they were only participating in an experiment rather than a real life mission left the Mars 500 crew more at risk of asking “why am I doing this?”  I talked several times with one of the Mars 500 crew members and the isolation challenges were very real.  Can they be overcome?  Probably – but this mission certainly cannot be open to just any volunteer.

      • chriswilson68 says:
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        Very good points.  And you’d better be able to get along really well with your crew mate if there are only two of you locked in a Dragon for 500 days.

        • DTARS says:
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          It would be bigger than just a dragon.

        • Spaceman says:
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          I’ve been thinking about the ideal crew makeup.  I’ve decided – without a psychology background, of course! – that there are two types of crew that would likely be able to handle this:
          1) Married couple together for 30+ years.  Have lived through all the ups and downs; know how to be together for long periods of time; likely have no dependents to worry about; can argue and make up.
          2) “Big brother” cast members who are guranteed to fight the entire time (as long as TV is watching!) but that they’ll do anything for ratings and potential fame.

          I know a number of studies have looked at exactly this issue, (crew makeup, personalities, all male, all female, age, military, odd vs even number, etc).  But I’m not certain if anyone has studied the challenge of a very small crew.

  12. Ian1102 says:
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    Reading the announcement as carefully as possible, it isn’t explicitly said that this would be a manned mission (eg. it could be an unmanned biological mission similar to the one Elon wanted to do before he started SpaceX). Is there any other information that makes it explicit that this would be a manned mission?

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      It’s true, this announcement doesn’t explicitly say it will be a human mission.

      But keep in mind that this isn’t the announcement of the mission — this is an announcement that there will be a press conference to make the announcement.  If you explicitly say everything in the announcement about the press conference, there’s no news left for the actual press conference.

      If you look at all the people listed as being involved in this mission, everything points to a human mission.  The wording of the announcement also suggests a human mission.  If Wednesday comes around and they announce a robotic mission, it will be very anti-climatic.  They’d have to have pretty lousy PR people to set expectations high a week before the press conference and then not meet those expectations.

      • Paul451 says:
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        “They’d have to have pretty lousy PR people to set expectations high a week before the press conference and then not meet those expectations.”

        Heh. Must work in the space industry.

  13. chriswilson68 says:
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    It’s not clear to me from the wording of this announcement if they intend to land on Mars or just go into Mars orbit and back.

    If they’re intending to land a human on Mars then get that person back to Earth, all in 501 days starting in January 2018, I’d say they’re overly-ambitious.  There’s just too much technology development to do to get a person back from the surface of Mars to Mars orbit.

    However, if they’re talking sending people to orbit Mars and then come back to Earth, that is entirely doable in that time frame.

    The question then becomes one of money.  It won’t cost anywhere near $100 billion, as some posters here are claiming.  That’s what it would cost if NASA were doing it.  With private industry, the cost is probably on the order of $1 billion.  That’s still an awful lot of money.  I really hope they announce they’ve secured full financing.  Otherwise, it’s just another dream.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      Even if they are planning to send humans to orbit Mars, not land, this is still an incredibly exciting mission, and it pushes the boundaries of human exploration by a huge amount.  It also paves the way for a future human landing by demonstrating that getting to and from Mars orbit is doable, so we can focus on the landing and return from the Martian surface to orbit.

      Assuming they actually have, or will get, funding.  The fact that Tito is involved lends a lot of credibility to this organization, but it doesn’t guarantee they’ll actually get the money.

    • Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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      Sounds like a fly-by to me ALA the Apollo Applications Program.

      Think riding Skylab to Mars and back.  I suspect it will be BA 330 based.  I hope it has a hella robust life support system cause spare parts are going to be hard to come by.  Quick, somebody develop a fully 3D printable Life Support system for a BA-330!

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        A Skylab-sized dedicated hab module would really only be needed for a large crew (3 to 4, like Apollo) in a way that they are able to carry out science and other duties throughout the flight.  If you shrink the crew down, you can use a much smaller vehicle.  If you are willing to endure discomfort and a serious lack of amenities, you can make it even smaller (and cheaper).  Reducing the science mission to health monitoring and photography during the fly-by then you can push it down even further.

        It really depends on just how small, Spartan and cheap you are willing to go.

        • chriswilson68 says:
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          I’d volunteer to go no matter how small the living space.  Just give me a laptop and I can keep myself entertained for a couple of years to and from Mars.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Are you assuming internet connectivity for those couple of years?

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            Not normal internet connectivity, but I’d hope for a delayed-connectivity system.  I’d like to be able to send and receive e-mail and to be able to type a URL into a browser, do something else for a while and eventually come back to it when the page has loaded.  And I don’t see any reason I shouldn’t be able to download movies and TV shows and watch them.  I’m a software developer, so I’d have plenty of uninterrupted time to create software, and it would be nice if I could upload it.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Assuming that we’re going to succeed in expanding our manned space activities past ISS, I think setting up this sort of “internet” connection (maybe we can call it supernet or spacenet or something different) would be a very worthwhile project in itself.  Not only would it be a functional asset, it would help greatly in addressing the psychological concerns about long-duration activities.  It should be set up as a generic system for anybody in space rather than a mission-specific or spacecraft-specific system.  I mention that because we know how NASA thinks (or sometimes doesn’t).

          • chriswilson68 says:
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            Even with no data connectivity at all, I could load up the laptop with reading material before leaving and then spend my time reading and writing software.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            True enough, but then you run the risk of becoming out of date, day-for-day, with your subject matter.  You could spend 6 months creating something that someone else captured the market for when you were half finished.  If you’re doing contract work you’d want private communication with your “customer.”  My feeling is that once we’ve become accustomed to “instant connectivity” it’s very painful to go back to being without it.  I think HSF BEO flights are going to need something akin to an internet connection.

          • chriswilson68 says: