GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Is world's first space tourist Dennis Tito planning a trip to Mars?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02..._is_it_manned/

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The internet is aflutter with rumours that millionaire Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, is planning a private manned mission to Mars in just five years' time.

The wires were set jangling by a press release announcing a "once-in-a-generation space journey", details of which would be given at a press conference on 27 February. According to the release, the conference will detail plans for a "historic journey to Mars and back in 501 days", due to kick off in January 2018.

Tito, who paid $20m for a trip to the International Space Station in 2001, will be joined at the conference by the chief exec of Paragon Space Development Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, chairwoman of the same, as well as Jonathan Clark, associate professor of Neurology and Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

While reports immediately jumped to the suggestion of a manned mission, given that Tito does like going into space, there's no mention of 'nauts in the press release and just sending a private ship to Mars and back would be pretty darn impressive.

However, as science blog io9 points out, Jeff Foust of NewSpace Journal does have some data to back up the idea that the historic journey could be manned.

According to the programme schedule for next month's IEEE Aerospace Conference, Tito will be hosting a session titled "Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free Return Mission in 2018". Even more tellingly, among the authors of the paper Tito is planning to present are MacCallum and Clark, who are also due at the press conference.

A copy of the paper seen by Foust talks about a manned mission that would fly by Mars, not into orbit around it or to land on it, but to reach and see the Red Planet. The mission would be made possible using a modified SpaceX Dragon on a Falcon Heavy Rocket. Just two people would be able to go along, albeit in "survival need only" levels of comfort.

There's no mention in the paper of how much such a mission would be likely to cost, but it does say that if the 2018 window was missed, the next chance of a good trajectory would be 2031.