Posted on 02/28/2013 12:11:49 AM PST by jmcenanly
nnis Tito, a billionaire financier who in 2001 became the first space tourist, has launched a project to send two civilians on “an historic journey” to the Red Planet in January 2018. “We have not sent humans beyond the moon in more than 40 years,” Mr Tito said at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. “I’ve been waiting, and a lot of people my age, have been waiting. And I think it’s time to put an end to that lapse”. The mission, a “return fly-by”, in which the spacecraft would fly around Mars rather than land, would last for 500 days. It is expected to cost between $1 billion and $2 billion, which Mr Tito is hoping to fund partly through television rights and by selling data to Nasa. His organisation, Inspiration Mars, is planning to select a middle-aged couple who may have already had children and would be willing to risk the potential risk to their fertility of being exposed to radiation for a prolonged period. They would be forced to spend a year and a half together in a 14ft x 12 ft Dragon space craft, accompanied by supplies ranging from more than a tonne of dehydrated food to 28kg of lavatory paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The mission, a “return fly-by”,
***Waste of time & money
I don't think so!
“We have not sent humans beyond the moon in more than 40 years,”
Did I miss something?
Did I miss something?"
Ditto. There must be a conspiracy in there somewhere - the failed secret Russian mission to Mars, etc. Or maybe Dennis Tito has been keeping time with Sheila Jackson Lee.
Gives new meaning to “Cabin Fever”.
Thanks jmcenanly.
I think he may have misspoke. We haven’t sent anyone further than 325 miles from Earth since 1972. This is just a little more than the distance between New Haven, CT and Washington,DC.
I would do it in a second, you would be as famous as Columbus, Sheppard or Armstrong!
Well, technically when the Apollo’s circled the moon they had to go “beyond” it....
I hope they don't pack anything sharp!!!!
Did you ever read “Think Blue, Count Two” by Cordwainer Smith? It’s like a proto-Event Horizon.
Definitely make me think twice about long space voyages....
Where is the tourist space travel that was promised to us a decade or two ago? This is idiotic to believe any myth about a tourist Mars trip when they can’t even take us to the moon.
Gives new meaning to mad cow disease.
PING
I would go...but I would be considered too old.
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