On January 5th of 2018, Billionaire Dennis Tito (the first tourist to space) intends to launch a married couple to Mars. This space trip will take 501 days and involves almost too many risks to list. First and foremost, any ship that leaves the electromagnetic field surrounding the earth will be exposed to horrendous levels of radiation caused by solar flares and other solar activity. This couple will also be flying in a repurposed rocket salvaged from one space program or another around the world. Off the shelf, relatively inexpensive and "simple" electrical parts will comprise the ship's living and navigation systems. In short, this trip will lack almost all of the typical NASA state-of-the-art equipment and multi-check pretests. Additionally, according to many people, the entire project is being rushed and under-funded and fails to meet many measures of safe and typical space mission protocols...sort of like erecting a sail on a tiny boat and taking an ocean journey.
Would it surprise you to know that Dennis Tito's company has received a lot of interest and already has applications for the trip? To tell you the truth, it doesn't surprise me. The chosen couple, succeed or fail, will become instantly famous and members of a rareified historic group of first-doers. Add to that our relatively short lifespans and the fact that space exploration is at its absolute commercial infancy...and it's easy to see that some people might perceive this as their one and only chance.
So, again I ask you, would you and your spouse take this risk to travel to Mars in 2018?
The Guardian has a great article on this very topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/mar/01/mars-mission-risk-human-life-nasa
Would it surprise you to know that Dennis Tito's company has received a lot of interest and already has applications for the trip? To tell you the truth, it doesn't surprise me. The chosen couple, succeed or fail, will become instantly famous and members of a rareified historic group of first-doers. Add to that our relatively short lifespans and the fact that space exploration is at its absolute commercial infancy...and it's easy to see that some people might perceive this as their one and only chance.
So, again I ask you, would you and your spouse take this risk to travel to Mars in 2018?
The Guardian has a great article on this very topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/mar/01/mars-mission-risk-human-life-nasa
