Probably 5mins after I die so I can't enjoy it lol

It is a suicide mission right from the start. We do not have the technology to shield a spaceship from cosmic background radiation.

By the time a spaceship reaches Mars, any moron inside it would have received about a 40% lethal dose of radiation. This means that once you are on Mars, you are really, really sick. Missing a magnetic field, cosmic radioation continues to slowly kill you (unless you dig into the ground really, really deep). If you plan a one-day mission to pick up some Mars dirt, by the time you return to Earth, you are dead.

Instead of this Mars nonsense, people with the money should take care of Earth, not Mars. Where are all those fancy robots companies are developing? That is the road to take, not kill morons on purpose.

This was published after the thread went dormant until now
https://www.space.com/nasa-plans-astronauts-mars-mission-30-days

NASA aims to launch astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s. Making that vision a reality will be challenging. Assuming the funding and technology come into play at the right time, for example, the round-trip travel time would still be about 500 days given the distance between Earth and Mars.

The mission plan is in the early stages and could change considerably. But so far, NASA envisions using for a habitat-like spacecraft to ferry crewmembers to the Red Planet, using a hybrid rocket stage (powered by both chemical and electrical propulsion). Four people would make the long journey, with two alighting on the surface, somewhat similar to the model seen in the Apollo program with three astronauts.

Roughly 25 tons of supplies and hardware would be ready and waiting for the crew, delivered by a previous robotic mission. These supplies would include a crew ascent vehicle, already fueled and ready to go for the astronauts to make it off Mars and  back into orbit around the planet.


I can't find anything about the June workshop mentioned in the article, I guess already behind schedule :p

They will get a lot of radiation, no question about that. And they will get very sick from it.

Those 40% are however stretched over a long timeframe, so actual damage is somewhat lower. Nonetheless, yes, this is part of the suicide mission design, and they will die on mars a couple months after arrival due to it.

While I'm all in favor of space exploration and eventually colonization, I agree that it's way too soon to do so, the tech is simply not there for it, and won't be for quite some time. Until we can create a sufficiently sized and powerful magnetic field around the spaceship (at least around the habitable parts of the ship) to shield from the space and solar radiation, Human-rated missions shouldn't go any further than the moon.

It's awesome but it will take decades.

I see it happening between 2040 and 2050.

When we figure out how to pay for it and when there are actual added benefits of sending humans to Mars outside of it having a big technological dick as a country. We can do many things already with the drones we send to Mars, so what do we really need humans for on Mars to figure out.
If it's just to do it to show the world we van that's a dumb reason when our own planet is getting more inhabitable by the minute and funds should be spend to make earth more habitable instead of less. Although we also spend a shot load of funds on war and killing eachother so perhaps a country ends up doing it just for the heck of it and showing their tech, it might actually be plausible

It's not just about ego, the tech developed for space missions helps a lot on Earth as well.

And yeah compared to spending on killing each other.... $750 billion that goes to the Department of Defense and $21 billion that goes to NASA.

If that was reversed we might already have scale-able fusion technology which will provide enough energy and knowledge to create strong magnetic fields.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/google-chevron-invest-in-fusion-startup-tae-technologies.html
Google and Chevron were part of a $250 million funding raise announced Tuesday for TAE Technologies, a nuclear fusion startup with an unconventional strategy that has now raised a total of $1.2 billion.

Priorities are upside down
1. War
2. Space dick
3. Save the planet (or rather our way of life)

I'm okay with Mars, just so long as they don't forget about Uranus.

Sadly, I think the only way the powers that be would care about advancing space travel would be if there was another Space Race.