Artwork courtesy www.inspirationmars.org
The first privately funded mission to Mars has been announced with a launch date set for January 5, 2018.
‘Inspiration Mars’, initially bankrolled by millionaire space enthusiast Dennis Tito, proposes to take a man and a woman, preferably husband and wife, on a 501-day return journey to our red planetary neighbor. The significance of timing the mission five years from now lies in the fact that at that point Mars and Earth will be in their closest alignment, separated by just 57.6 million kilometers or 35.8 million miles as compared to the average of over 225 million kilometers or 139 million miles. At their opposite most they are 401 million kilometers or 249 million miles apart.
This is a no-frills flyby mission where the spacecraft will fly within about 100 miles of the planet before being flung by the Martian gravity back towards Earth. According to a press release from the Inspiration Mars Foundation, “The flyby architecture lowers risk, with no critical propulsive maneuvers after leaving Earth vicinity, no entry into the Mars atmosphere, no rendezvous and docking, and represents the shortest duration round-trip mission to Mars. The 2018 launch opportunity also coincides with the 11-year solar minimum providing the lowest solar radiation exposure.”
The purpose behind sending a man and a woman who are also a couple is to make use of their comfort level which will be obviously tested severely inside a cramped space for over a year and half. There are no specific dimensions available yet but the living quarter would be the size of an average American bathroom with all manners of gear crowding the area. It will also have water tanks. Speaking of water, the couple’s drinking water needs will be met by recycling 75 percent of urine and flush water. To be in love is to drink each other’s recycled urine and flush water.
I am not sure how much the entire mission might cost but I have read the figure of a billion dollars. It should not be hard for Tito and his team to raise that amount given the sheer audacity and grandness of the vision. If I had that kind of money, I would write a check for the whole sum in the middle of the night.
The significance of this mission is not necessarily scientific but more inspirational and symbolic. The human race will have to evolve into a spacefaring civilization in the not too distant future. It is in this context that ‘Inspiration Mars’ is a worthwhile objective even if it means an interplanetary equivalent of taking a Southwest flight to Las Vegas. I am pretty sure it is not at all hard to find people who are willing to even to land on Mars fully aware that there is no coming back. I would volunteer for such a mission in a heart beat.
The backers of the mission are pretty clear that this is an American enterprise. They call it ‘A Mission for America’ and insist that the crew will be American as well as a man and woman to underscore equal gender representation. One is tempted to quibble with the parochialness of this being an American mission but then it is privately funded and one cannot really contest anything. That is a minor point in what clearly has the potential to put the human race on a spacefaring trajectory.