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.
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?
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.
I agree with most of what you've said though. As for the moon and its minerals, I don't think it has any valuable ones but it's an excellent starting place for future long-distance space flights.
> While very interesting I don't see the point of not landing on Mars
You need a lot of propellant to escape from Martian gravity (versus, say, the moon or an asteroid).
Besides the possible problems with carrying it during the whole mission and being sure it will work in Mars after the whole trip, lifting all that propellant out of the Earth is in the best of cases extremely difficult and expensive. Its an enormous hit in the mass budget for your spacecraft.
You can try and do the math, it is not by any means the hardest part of rocketry:
You can manufacture fuel in-situ on Mars, something not possible (or significantly more difficult) on the Moon. This, coupled with the atmosphere of Mars that provides delta-V savings on the way down (with little drag on the way up) makes Mars somewhat more accessible, energy-wise.
Mars is interesting because it has the ingredients for humans living there: water, minerals for industry and agriculture, energy. The Moon has only solar energy, even that dampened by the 2 week long night.
The problem is we don't really know how we'd do that yet - we have no prototypes on Earth, so it would all have to be invented. I'd budget a decade for that, cautiously, since it has to work once we get there.
A much better plan would be an expedition with no set return date (other then intention) - if you were going to land people. A reasonably self-sustaining habitat could probably be set up if we could prove a few key things (namely - can you grow things in Martian soil if you provide an atmosphere, and can you find extra water while you're there?)
The big benefit of a fly by mission - the one we should take advantage of - would be to put people close enough that we could do more frequent rover moves since they'd have real time control for a period while in orbit.
You can get someone (ok, some couple) in a can and on their way by 2018, the next near approach. The following near approach will be enough time in the future to define a distinct mission, enough that current interests and abilities may no longer be capable (even multi-millionaires only live so long and/or retain mental capacity so long, or even possibly their money and influence), and enough time in the future that it will not provide the current boost and motivation that is intended.
TL;DR: This is in part the "just fucking do it" approach to manned space exploration including travel. Some people argue that it / a return to it are long overdue.
Trying to actually get to Mars will surely push technological advancement needed for space travel. It will also inspire people to get involved in space travel.
While this mission might not produce other results than getting better at space travel, I definitely see the point of it.
Its possible but I don't see how sending essentailly a flying camper van on a 1000 day mission will bring anything new to the table apart from seeing how crazy 2 people get in a confined space for such a long time.
Exactly my thoughts, other than the fact we've landed several times and not just once on the moon, but that's besides the point. It's been nearly 44 years (!) since the first manned moon landing and we have done practically nothing on the moon. 44 years is a HUGE amount of time when it comes to technology, and yet all we can do with the moon so far is talk about how we sent people there once (okay, a few times).
Frankly, it's hard to get excited about manned missions to Mars if we won't do a thing with the planet in the following 40 years.
> Do we actually have a method of propulsion apart from rocket fuel?
There are several alternatives (solar sails, tethers, nuclear), but the engineering details are yet to be worked out, and all of them still ultimately depend on the same principles as rockets: something has to go in the opposite direction for the vehicle to accelerate.
The idea on solar sails is that they don't need to send something in the opposite direction, they steal momentum (vectored in the travel direction) from the gases and/or photon radiation emitted from the Sun.
No. Electric propulsion works by bringing ions to very high energies/speeds. This isn't practical in a dense atmosphere, because ions make too many collisions with air molecules. Their energy is dissipated almost immediately, as heat.
Moreover, it's not useful for escaping a planet's gravity well, atmosphere or not. Ion thrusters are extremely weak. E.g. the Dawn probe has a thrust/weight ratio of 0.000007. At the earth's surface, the gravity pulling it down would be 135,000 times stronger than the thrusters pushing it up. It can't fly.
Hmm, maybe you can help with my math? (and keep an open mind)
Here's what I was thinking. Float an ion thruster powered ship tethered to a weather balloon with solar panels up to 53km altitude (world record) and fire up the thrusters gradually reaching orbital velocity.
Here are my calculations:
altitude = 53 km
Air density = 5.3 kg/m^3
max speed =7 km/s
Coefficient of drag = .02
Cross section area = 130 meters
I used this equation to calculate the drag:
(aird/2) * (speed2) * coeffdrag * area
And I got around 340 newtons of drag. If an Ion thruster could produce something greater than that, we might be in business.
Your calculation is off by 10^6 -- I think you mixed up m/s with km/s? Also the air density should be far lower -- at your altitude (53 km) it's 7.2e-4 kg/m^3 or so. I don't think streamlining makes much difference at hypersonic speeds -- air molecules will hit your craft regardless of how it's shaped, there's no time push them out of the way. So a drag coefficient of 0.02 isn't likely; it's probably at least 1. You could look up stuff on spacecraft reentry to find more accurate figures.
Put together, I get something like 2 million Newtons or 200 tonnes force. This is about half the thrust of SpaceX's Falcon 9, so clearly this won't work.
Right, but helium doesn't just magically "go up". It provides lift in proportion to the difference in density between the gas in the balloon and the surrounding atmosphere.
As the atmosphere thins, the amount of lift capable of generated by a helium balloon decreases to the point where, at the altitude you've mentioned, it could lift a total of about 0.8kg (according to GP's calculations). The point being that you wouldn't be able to have much of a payload lifted to those heights.
They're mass ejection thrusters, so yes. But the amount of thrust produced is minuscule compared to a hydrocarbon burning rocket. So I don't think they'd be useful so deep into earths gravity well.
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.
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).
No. The escape velocity on Mars is 5 km/s, whereas on Earth it is 11 km/s. There is also a lot less of an atmosphere on Mars (though the atmosphere is smaller on Earth) and Martian gravity is significantly smaller than Earth's. It is far easier to leave Mars than it is to leave Earth.
We have no idea how to build a spaceship that can withstand the radiation in space; especially unpredictable Coronal solar events (as mentioned in the article.)
This mission would be an excellent test of building and using a long-haul space vehicle.
> We have no idea how to build a spaceship that can withstand the radiation in space ...
No, that's not true, we know how to build it, but we can't afford it. A fully shielded spacecraft is easy to imagine and draw on a piece of paper, but not so easy to build and launch.
In defence of my comment, we have never tested a human-carrying craft in non-earth-orbit-space, during a solar mass ejection event (or other unexpected radiation event). We may know how to guess at building one, but actually trying it is the only way to know if we're right (i.e. if our model fits the universe.) Maybe I was wrong to say "no idea" - but it's still not a solved, easy problem.
> In defence of my comment, we have never tested a human-carrying craft in non-earth-orbit-space, during a solar mass ejection event ...
That's true, but (a) we know exactly what radiation levels take place during such an event, and (b) we know how to build radiation shields. It's just not practical to launch an adequate shield.
> but actually trying it is the only way to know if we're right ...
No, we have enough experience with radiation to know our model corresponds to reality.
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!
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.
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).
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!
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?
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.
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.
Who has already spent more time in space than virtually anyone else who could bankroll this kind of thing (unless Richard Garriott decides to throw down), too.
I mean extensive training - veterenship. Someone who need not be famous but at least is well known for exemplary achievement within NASA for innovation.
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.
Another thought: Want to inspire kids of all ages? Put 1,000 robots on the Moon and make them remotely controllable via the Internet.
How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon.
Imagine what science class would be like? Comms delay to the moon is in the order of 1.3 seconds. That, for all intents and purposes, is real-time.
I can't imagine kids and adults not getting into this. Control my own time-shared robot on the Moon and go take some pictures? That would be amazingly cool.
How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon.
What's the cost for launch? What's the R&D cost? What's the specs?
Incidently, we already have people developing rovers and lander for the moon, thanks to the Google Lunar X Prize. Maybe by the end of the decade, we will be able to do what you want.
I know it's not cheap. That said, if someone is willing to spend gobs and gobs of money to send a middle-aged couple for a Mars fly-by this would surely be orders of magnitude cheaper and far more likely to generate far more revenue.
Which doesn't exclude you from making a back-of-an-envelope calculation of the cost and a little bit of research, such as figuring out how expensive is a falcon heavy launch, and so on.
True. I could. In this case, I don't think one needs to go that far.
I know, with near absolute certainty, that it would be far cheaper to land 1,000 little robots on the Moon than to send two people to do a Mars fly-by. There is no way a fully automatic (no humans, no life support) Moon mission could even approach the cost of a mission to Mars with everything you need to support life and bring them back to Earth.
Part of engineering is to develop a sense for these things. After a while you don't need to resort to constantly calculating things to have an idea of the relative degree of complexity or cost of a project. This, I think, is one of those cases.
I am not sure a mission to Mars would really inspire people to such an extent that it would be worth it.
We have robots on Mars right now. Think about that for a moment: Humanity has robots on another planet this very second. How many kids are in awe of that? How many have thoughts about this on a daily basis?
The sad reality is that a lot of kids (and adults) are far more preoccupied with moving up the level playing Clash of Clans on their iPads than what's going on with space exploration. One is far more tangible and satisfying than the other.
An "Enterprise One" concept would have real continuing research benefits and an opportunity to, perhaps, elevate awareness and interest in the sciences. Missions to the Moon are far more tangible than a two year run to Mars.
I am all for inspiration. Not sure a dueling middle-aged married couple going to Mars would serve that purpose. The other problem is that all manner of things can happen during such a trip. Darwin forgive, if one or both of them die in transit they'll friggin ruin far-space travel for at least a generation.
The sad reality is that a lot of kids (and adults) are far more preoccupied with moving up the level playing Clash of Clans on their iPads than what's going on with space exploration. One is far more tangible and satisfying than the other.
When curiosity landed on Mars, Time Square was paying attention. The world was paying attention. That will sparks childhood dreams.
I believe that a flyover to Mars will do the same thing, but hopefully on a bigger scale. Plus, they will be communicating with the world constantly.
I am all for inspiration. Not sure a dueling middle-aged married couple going to Mars would serve that purpose. The other problem is that all manner of things can happen during such a trip. Darwin forgive, if one or both of them die in transit they'll friggin ruin far-space travel for at least a generation.
Inspiration and science are not the only reason to do space exploration, but also space colonization as well. How are we going to colonize the solar system if we never sent astronauts beyond low earth orbit and the moon?
> When curiosity landed on Mars, Time Square was paying attention.
And then they forgot. Seriously. That's our reality today.
I'll use my oldest kid as an example of this. He is a straight A (more like A+) student. So are all of his immediate friends. A perfect pack of nerds. I love them all. He is intensely interested in science. He loves it.
Do you know how much of his inspiration comes from the space program or the robots on Mars? Not much. Every so often we'll go to JPL for "ooh" and "ahh" moments. The problem is that these always seem like short hits of adrenaline rather than persistent boosts.
Where these kids get inspiration and constant drive at this point is at home and at school. We make it a point to take them to local (Los Angeles) and distant (San Jose) robotics events and other science-related activities. When he has a science project we dive right in. I've been teaching him how to approach such projects as a real engineer, doing research, modeling, estimating, constructing prototypes, testing, etc. We build and fly model airplanes and helicopters. We build giant soap bubble machines. We got rid of our dinning room table and built a (good looking) Lego FLL competition table right in the middle of our dinning room [1].
On top of that I am teaching him programming in various languages and generally exposing him to that world.
All of this takes time, dedication and, yes, some money. Without effort at this level the decay time of exciting events such as the Mars rover drilling into a rock is probably measured in minutes, if not seconds. These days kids have so many interesting and fun things competing for their attention that keeping them focused on what is really going to make a difference in their lives can be a full time job. Not easy.
That's why I am skeptical about this whole idea of a mission to Mars having any lasting inspirational value. It'll be an "Oh, wow! We did it!" moment for sure. Not certain that it will have mass value beyond a day or two, certainly not months later. Yes, a few people will be inspired. I think there are far cheaper ways to accomplish the same thing.
With regards to space colonization. I'm a Star Trek baby. Grew up watching the show. Love the idea. Also understand that it is as close to impossible as can be. Unless we make an absolutely astounding discovery on Mars the likelihood of finding a habitable planet within a distance measured in human lifetimes is very low. Mars might be the closest we can possibly consider for such an exercise. Even then, it is nearly an impossible task. Have you ever watched a show like Survivorman? Not so easy to survive and thrive with limited resources here on Earth. Exponentially more difficult on another planet.
This is why I think that developing and using a near-space spacecraft as I described would be worth it. We would learn a lot from this. It would be used to develop and test technology for far-space exploration. It would probably create long term financial benefits from near-space activities. And it could be a constant source of interesting activities for our short-attention span generation.
In another sense I am saying: Let's build a reusable no-reentry vehicle that can make regular trips to the Moon. Let's operate it and learn from it for a few years. Then, and only then, consider the idea of building a spacecraft that will take humans to far-space locations. For all we know our near-space ship could, over time, evolve into the far-space ship we would require. That would happen "organically", if you will, and over time.
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.