[lbryce]

I'm trying to wrap my brain around this cockamamie, hare-brained scheme of his that sounds like something Algore would come up with after sitting out in the sun too long. Details of how he expects to get it done some of which are provided in the links below. He's proposing to use a NASA rocket that NASA is working on, talks about using Orbital Sciences Corp new Cygnus capsule, describing the mission with this outlandish statement.

"We propose to send a spacecraft bearing two astronauts, a man and woman, to the far side of Mars and return them to Earth, a voyage of 314 million miles in 501 days, in collaboration with NASA, in the name of America, and for the good of humanity,"stated the "Architecture Report Study" released by the Inspiration Mars team."

Can anyone really take this at all seriously? I can't see how any of this is realistic. So, who is actually financing this thing? The impression is that he's going to be financing this himself yet somehow talks about a Mission for America, for Humanity".

Inspiration Mars:A Mission For America

Wikipdia:Inspiration Mars Foundation

Washington Post: November 20, 2013-Going to Mars: Billionaire Dennis Tito Plans Manned Mission With Possible 2017 Launch

[bert]

-——to the far side of Mars and return them to Earth,-——

Hmmmmm does Mars have a farside?

[Kartographer]

He could build himself one of these!

[Mamzelle]

"In the name of America"--he wants the US taxpayers to fund his fantasy, he doesn't give a damn about the US.

Why one billionaire? Why not Elon Musk, and all the other billionaire babies who count this obsession with space as part of their pathological grandiosity?

They all want to claim space glories, but their all work on their own projects, dividing up the resources they have between them. If they combined them, it might actually work, but the poor dears have that ego to contend with.

[knarf]

And, of course, I question ... why ?

In the Kennedy 60's, space exploration for the hell of it was more than acceptable.
We had yet to reach the electronic pinnacle the 40's, 50's and 60's scientists KNEW was just around the corner.

So ...
Here we are in the 2000's and our planet (NOT the climate ! ) needs attention to it's psychological health and well being.

In such a modern and .. hmmmm ... advanced? ... stage, we should, as a race, have reached some higher level or plane of consciousness by now.

Instead, we're digressing back into the mentality that God destroyed nations for.

Maybe that's it ...

Come quickly .. Lord.

[onedoug]

Without landing? What’s the point?

[cripplecreek]

Financing aside, this is the way to do it first just like we did with the moon.

[winodog]

I would like to see them go to the moon and back, prove they are capable, maybe land there and drive a dune buggy around, smack a few golf balls around.

It would be good practice for a Mars mission even if they don’t land on Mars or the moon

[Brown Deer]

Is 0bama going back to Mars again?

[EternalHope13]

Let him. When it fails with the loss of all lives, maybe that will put the kibosh on OTHER such schemes which are no more viable than the video-game city of Rapture, before too many people with more money than brains get themselves and their support staffs and anyone with them killed.