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From the inimitable Jay Lake (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake) comes news of Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, is planning a trip to Mars in 2018. Now, I'm all in favor of going to Mars (this is the "Private Mars Rocket" blog, for Pete's sake) but I think Tito's plan is half-baked at best.
The plan is to use an as-yet-untested capsule, a vehicle the size of a mini-van, to send two astronauts on a 500+ day flyby of Mars. 500 days in zero-gee for a couple of hours looking out the window doesn't sound like a good deal to me. It gets even worse when you consider the lack of arrangements for dealing with solar flares. One ill-timed flare in a year-and-a-half of travel and you're goose is cooked.
Like I said, hold the champagne.
jaylake) comes news of Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, is planning a trip to Mars in 2018. Now, I'm all in favor of going to Mars (this is the "Private Mars Rocket" blog, for Pete's sake) but I think Tito's plan is half-baked at best.The plan is to use an as-yet-untested capsule, a vehicle the size of a mini-van, to send two astronauts on a 500+ day flyby of Mars. 500 days in zero-gee for a couple of hours looking out the window doesn't sound like a good deal to me. It gets even worse when you consider the lack of arrangements for dealing with solar flares. One ill-timed flare in a year-and-a-half of travel and you're goose is cooked.
Like I said, hold the champagne.
