Billionaire Dennis Tito has revealed his scheme for dispatching two astronauts to the red planet as early as December 2017, saying that ‘rare alignments’ of planets should be exploited as the context of the project.
‘Inspiration Mars’ would be a 501-day US mission to the planet
without landing on its surface and would take the opportunity of
a rare alignment of Mars and earth so that the mission would
require minimal rocket fuel, according to a report released on
Wednesday.
Two separate trips would be necessary for the Mars Mission – Tito
proposed that the first launch would involve a NASA rocket
delivering the vehicle into orbit that would actually go onto
Mars, and the second would take the astronauts which would later
be united with their spacecraft.
“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.
NASA is producing a new rocket to be used in the mission. The
Space Launch System (SLS), which is expected to be finished by
2017. However, it has not yet issued a response to Tito’s
proposal.
Tito’s organization would also use the Orbital Sciences
Corporation’s new Cygnus capsule which finished its first mission
to the international space station in October. He rejected NASA’s
new Orion capsule, stating that it wouldn’t meet mission
requirements.
Tito later testified before the House Science Subcommittee on
Space, stating: “The work of this subcommittee … gave NASA the
Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion program, and new commercial
capabilities. We propose to combine all these elements, as we
have explained in (the) Architecture Study Report.” He added that
“the United States will carry out a Mars flyby mission, or we
will watch as others do it – leaving us to applaud their skill
and their daring.”
The window of opportunity for takeoff is very narrow, and to
maximize it the rocket would have to launch between Christmas Day
2017 and January 5 2018. This could prove difficult as delays in
space travel are notoriously common. “Even the very movement
of planets seems to be saying ‘Go’,” the report states.
NASA has recently launched its ‘Maven’ orbiter into space, which
is expected to reach Mars by September. The spacecraft will have
to travel millions of miles and enter Mars’ atmosphere which
could never happen – out of the ten orbiters sent previously by
NASA, only seven have been successful.
Russia plans to land a rover on Mars in 2018, rehabilitating its
space program after the embarrassing failure of its Phobos-Grunt
survey mission. There is also collaboration between Finnish,
Russian and Spanish participants on a plan to deliver several
dozen landers to Mars to form a meteorological observation
network on its surface.
“Given Russia’s clear recognition of the value and prestige of
accomplishments in human space exploration, and their long-time
interest in exploring Mars, my personal belief is that in all
likelihood the Energia super-heavy rocket revival announcement
signals Russian intent to fly this mission in 2021,” Tito
told the committee.