Chairman Smith Responds to NASA Administrator Bolden about Mars Flyby Mission “In comments before the National Academies, Administrator Bolden today misrepresented a Mars Flyby 2021 mission. The Administrator indicated that a Mars Flyby is not a worthy stepping stone to an eventual Mars landing because it doesn’t demonstrate technologies. That is factually incorrect. Experts have testified that a Mars Flyby mission would utilize the Space Launch System, architecture that will […]

The Spaceship to Everywhere, Dennis Tito, Huffington Post “SLS and Orion give us so much more than technical capabilities. They will allow us to open deep space to all humankind, to expand human knowledge beyond our imagination, extend human experience out into the solar system, forge global partnerships for a better world and inspire humanity to dream of and achieve a better future. To not pursue SLS/Orion is to retreat […]

Inspiration Mars Sets Sights on Venus/Mars Flyby in 2021, Dennis Tito, opinion, SpaceNews “Today, the IMF remains fully committed to its vision to help provide America with a viable, challenging and inspirational mission to Mars as a way to help accelerate our nation’s plans for space exploration. However, given the extensive use of NASA assets that are already funded and under development, the strategy to pursue the mission opportunity in […]

No one should really take Scott Pace & Doug Cooke seriously again on space policy if they push #NASA to do a mission w/ no known cost #tito — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 27, 2014 Doug Cooke's Truth in Testimony form makes no mention of work with Dennis Tito and Inspiration Mars http://t.co/cq5Up5LbPm — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 27, 2014 Doug Cooke has no answer for budget required for Mars […]

Statement of NASA Spokesman David Weaver Regarding Commercial Space and Inspiration Mars “NASA has had conversations with Inspiration Mars to learn about their efforts and will continue discussions with them to see how the agency might collaborate on mutually-beneficial activities that could complement NASA’s human spaceflight, space technology and Mars exploration plans. Inspiration Mars’ proposed schedule is a significant challenge due to life support systems, space radiation response, habitats, and […]

Subcommittee on Space Hearing – Commercial Space Nov 20, 2013 10:00am Panel I Rep Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Whip Panel II Patricia Cooper – President, Satellite Industry Association Stu Witt – CEO and General Manager, Mojave Air and Space Port Dennis Tito – Chairman, Inspiration Mars Foundation Prepared statement – Hearing Charter – Watch live – Inspiration Mars: Some Thoughts About Their Plan, earlier post – Inspiration Mars: Some Thoughts […]

Volunteers Line Up For Tito’s Mars Flyaround, Aviation Week “Doug Cooke, a recently retired top NASA manager who spearheaded exploration-systems development for the agency, has joined the private group’s board advisors, MacCallum said. … MacCallum said work has already started on ground facilities to test the life support hardware, which will be largely crew tended for simplicity, but will be designed effectively to give two-fault-tolerant redundancy comparable to NASA safety […]

Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free-Return Mission in 2018, Inspiration Mars, Future In-Space Operations (FISO) telecon colloquium Keith’s note: One chart in this presentation lists using SLS as an option. What are these people smoking? They cannot afford to buy one of these launches at $1 billion or more, NASA certainly is not going to give them one for free, and its not certain that SLS will even be […]

Keith’s note: After interaction with/pressure from NASA JSC and MSFC Inspiration Mars is now considering use of single launch of SLS for their mission. Of course, the use of SLS for Inspiration Mars is problematic if a 2018 launch is required. And even if the launch happens would NASA allow it to be used on on of the very first flights for a mission that many inside NASA think is […]

Inspiration Mars: Some Thoughts About Our Plan, Mike Loucks, John Carrico and Dennis Tito “Dennis Wingo provided some comments for us in his article Inspiration Mars: Some Thoughts About Their Plan. Dennis Wingo is a friend of ours. We welcome input from any source, especially visionaries like Dennis. Our IEEE Paper is an attempt to show the feasibility of the simplest possible Mars flyby mission. We chose a simple Mars […]