A friend just sent me this video about the Mars mission:
How to Get to Mars. Very Cool! HD - YouTube
How to Get to Mars. Very Cool! HD - YouTube
Both methods are engineering marvels.
But we could have had manned landings in the 80's if we had had the will.
Now the U.S. has no manned spaceflight capability at all.
I recently listened to Packing for Mars on audiobook. It's about the various difficulties of maintaining human life in space, even for brief periods, never mind the (IIRC) more than a year in each direction required for travel between Earth and Mars. It's hard for me to imagine any way to test people in advance to determine whether crew candidates (individually and as a group) are able to tolerate the conditions of a flight to Mars and back without going nuts or killing each other, or both. It might be more feasible to develop remote control of landers and virtual reality equipment to a degree that would enable people to "walk" on Mars and interact with the Martian surface without actually having to go there physically.Both methods are engineering marvels.
But we could have had manned landings in the 80's if we had had the will.
Now the U.S. has no manned spaceflight capability at all.
I recently listened to Packing for Mars on audiobook. It's about the various difficulties of maintaining human life in space, even for brief periods, never mind the (IIRC) more than a year in each direction required for travel between Earth and Mars. It's hard for me to imagine any way to test people in advance to determine whether crew candidates (individually and as a group) are able to tolerate the conditions of a flight to Mars and back without going nuts or killing each other, or both. It might be more feasible to develop remote control of landers and virtual reality equipment to a degree that would enable people to "walk" on Mars and interact with the Martian surface without actually having to go there physically.