By The Huffington Post News Editors
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 04/16/2013 10:01 AM EDT on SPACE.com
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — They’ll be crammed into a space the size of an RV for more than a year, breathing recycled air, subsisting on dehydrated food and drinking their purified urine. If they die, they’ll be freeze-dried in a body bag. And if they survive, they’ll have to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at a screaming 8.8 miles (14.2 kilometers) per second.
But the applications are already rolling in for the first manned mission to Mars, the project team said Thursday (April 11).
Speaking at the National Space Symposium here, members of the Inspiration Mars Foundation described the challenges inherent in launching two humans on a 501-day flyby journey to the Red Planet and back in January 2018, but remained optimistic that those challenges aren’t insurmountable.
“So far, we haven’t come up with any show-stoppers, so that’s exciting,” said Jane Poynter, president of the Paragon Space Development Corp., which has partnered with Inspiration Mars. [Private Manned Mars Mission (Gallery)]
Making history
Millionaire Dennis Tito, who became the first space tourist in 2001, unveiled Inspiration Mars‘ “Mission for America” in February.
The goal is to send two people (a man and a woman, possibly a married couple) on a 501-day there-and-back flyby around Mars in January 2018. The positions of Earth and Mars are then ideal for such a quick trip; the next such opportunity won’t come around until 2031.
The date also coincides with an 11-year solar minimum, meaning the Inspiration Mars crew will be exposed to less solar radiation than during other launch windows, officials said.
Tito plans to fund the Inspiration Mars Foundation for the first two years with his own money, with private donations covering the rest of the mission’s costs.
The plan is to use a commercially available spacecraft, rockets and hardware to get the space-faring couple to the Red Planet. SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is one possibility, but that vehicle has not yet been used to transport people, only cargo.]
“There are a lot of unknowns. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket,” Tito told SPACE.com in February. [Infographic: Private Mission to Mars]
A ‘simple’ mission
The goal of the mission is to inspire the public — and Congress — to recommit to long-distance space travel, Tito said at the National Space Symposium.
To prove that humans can explore deep space, Tito and his team are planning a stripped-down, austere mission: The spacecraft will pass within 100 miles (161 km) of Mars’ surface, but won’t enter orbit or touchdown, because that would require additional propulsion systems.
“It’s like a boomerang,” Tito said. “You throw it out there and it comes right back in 501 days.”
As part of the keep-it-simple philosophy, the crew won’t go on any spacewalks during the mission, and opportunities for