Billionaire space tourist Dennis Tito outlines his plans Wednesday of launching a two-pilot manned mission to Mars on December 2017.
“It would be a voyage of around 800 million miles around the sun in 501 days. No longer is a Mars flyby mission just one more theoretical idea. It can be done. Not in a matter of decades, but in a few years,” said Tito when he testified in the House subcommittee on space hearing.
The flyby mission, known as “Inspiration Mars” will take advantage of the opportunity to have a shorter flight during a specific alignment of Earth with Mars. This will allow less time and fuel spent in space. The two astronauts will be on a 1000-mile altitude flight before they return to Earth.
Dennis Tito offered an alternative schedule for Inspiration Mars to allow additional four years of preparation. He mentioned that Earth will align with Mars again in 2021 but taking this option will add 80 days to the mission. Further there is more risk entailing higher radiation levels as the flight requires a considerable time in close proximity with the sun.
Aside from the time and radiation concerns, the flyby mission requires a lot of investment financing. Initially, Tito thought that a private rocket could be used with very minimal NASA contribution. However, he needs access to NASA’s “Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy launch vehicle being designed by the agency which will be tested in an unmanned flight by 2017 and another, a piloted launch by 2021.
In response to Tito’s proposal, NASA spokesperson David Weaver said, “Inspiration Mars’s proposed schedule is a significant challenge due to life support systems, space radiation response, habitats and the human psychology of being in a small spacecraft for over 500 days.
“The agency is willing to share technical and programmatic expertise with Inspiration Mars but is unable to commit to sharing expenses with them. However, we remain open to further collaboration as their proposal and plans for a later mission develop.”
The plan is to ask permission for NASA to lend the SLS for the Inspiration Mars mission, which will cost the government agency about $700 million on this project alone. According to Tito, the donations from private sectors may total around $300 million.
