If I were twenty years younger and had no family responsibilities, I'd be doing whatever it took to be in on this. Yeah, yeah, nine chances out of ten it'll never go anywhere. But that tenth... ah, to be one of the first.
It's a much farther trip than the moon was. At its nearest, Mars is 146 times farther away than the Moon. Assuming the fasted recorded space travel speed (New Horizons reached the moon in eight hours), that's 48 days, or roughly a month and a half. The spacecraft that makes this trip would have to be big enough to hold enough food and water for all crew and passengers for at least that long, as well as something that can be planted, grown, and harvested, and can survive the trip as well.
Now, I'm not saying it can't be done. But for something like this to succeed, we need to make some serious strides in space travel speed even greater than what's been done already, as well as a VERY big ship. I think that such a mission will not be cost effective for at least twenty years, based on how fast this field has advanced already.
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It's a much farther trip than the moon was. At its nearest, Mars is 146 times farther away than the Moon. Assuming the fasted recorded space travel speed (New Horizons reached the moon in eight hours), that's 48 days, or roughly a month and a half. The spacecraft that makes this trip would have to be big enough to hold enough food and water for all crew and passengers for at least that long, as well as something that can be planted, grown, and harvested, and can survive the trip as well.
Now, I'm not saying it can't be done. But for something like this to succeed, we need to make some serious strides in space travel speed even greater than what's been done already, as well as a VERY big ship. I think that such a mission will not be cost effective for at least twenty years, based on how fast this field has advanced already.
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