Manned Mission to Mars in 2018?

[Byron In Exile]

A maverick millionaire obsessed with space travel vowed to send a manned mission to Mars, even announcing the date the rocket carrying one man and one woman would set off for the Red Planet: Jan. 5, 2018.

On that date, a preferably married couple yet to be chosen will enter a tiny space capsule for the longest date in history -- rocketing into the heavens and the record books, promised Dennis Tito, the brains behind The Inspiration Mars Foundation and the American businessman who paid about $20 million to visit the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian spacecraft.

Who will the couple be?

"This is humanity's first flight out to Mars, and humanity should be represented by both genders," Dennis Tito said.

"We hope that we can find a married couple. When you're out that far and the Earth is a tiny blue pinpoint, you're going to need someone you can hug. What better solution to the psychological problems you're going to encounter with that isolation?" Read more

After a trip of about 140 million miles, the brave couple will be the first humans ever to peer out a window at Mars -- but not set foot there.

Their spacecraft will not stop on the surface of the planet, instead orbiting around the Red Planet at a distance of 100 miles out before using the planet’s gravity to slingshot back to the Earth, he said.

“This will be a Lewis and Clark mission to Mars,” explained Taber MacCallum, CEO for space development company Paragon and one of the scientists working on the Inspiration Mars program.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013...ned-mission-to-mars-jan-5-2018/#ixzz2M9qPeVwl

...or suicide mission?

 

[RoryN]

They'll run out of supplies!

We'll find a way to recycle everything, and use cutting-edge techniques to keep them fed.

They'll burn up in the atmosphere!

We'll create a state-of-the-art heat shield.

It's a man and a woman in a confined space with one another for over 500 days!

We'll...................mission canceled.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Lol...!

 

[doctor_insanus]

I hope the qualifications for the mission are more than just the ability to hug.

This is ambitious, but it doesn't sound especially competent.

 

[cleaver]

dennis cannot buy his way into this one the way he did before...

he should take a pr tip or two from trump.

 

[MNGuy]

I want them to try.

 

[BotanyBoy]

It would be pretty sick if they did it....

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

I nominate Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

yikes Play out a sci-fi meme. Got out on a mission. Earth is destroyed. No communication. Marooned in space.

New Millennium adventure.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The first mission to Mars is gonna need a lot more than two people.

 

[neci]

i hope there will be live sex feeds while they orbit mars.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

...or suicide mission?

Probably a murder/suicide.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Probably a murder/suicide.

Mr Sudden Structural Failure might have something to say about that.

 

[StephenHawking]

absurd

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I see dead astronauts...

 

[kbate]

I noticed that they said, "married couple" and "both genders" - NASA bigots want their own bigot planet now.

 

[Adre]

Space Sodomy 2018

 

[MNGuy]

Just an idea. To help fund the mission, make it a reality show. Instead of a couple, send a threesome.