Chief of Mars 500: Manned mission to Mars - no less than 30 years after decision

[Zvezdichko]

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=388061&cid=10

The chief of the international project Mars 500 - Boris Morukov says that a Manned mission to Mars is unlikely to occur soon. According to him the mission will be acheived no less than 30 years after decision to make it.

Mokurov also says that a manned mission to Mars will be trully an international project.

[Garrison]

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=388061&cid=10

The chief of the international project Mars 500 - Boris Morukov says that a Manned mission to Mars is unlikely to occur soon. According to him the mission will be acheived no less than 30 years after decision to make it.

Mokurov also says that a manned mission to Mars will be trully an international project.

Well since the interview is apparently in Russian I'm not sure how much use that is to most people here and the accompanying article is very light on detail even allowing for the translation problems.
I would say though that the idea that 30 years is some sort of fixed number is nonsense. How long it takes to mount a Mars mission is a function of the budget and the mission profile chosen. A crash program(no I have no suggestions for what would inspire one) could probably do it in 10.

[kamaz]

Most of the article is about psychological problems in getting the crew to Mars. He says that although the astronauts can spend over a year in space, they can always get back in 90 minutes if there is a problem. A Mars crew would not have such luxury.

As for the 30 years claim, the quote is:

Если бы решение об экспедиции было принято, то я не думаю, что финансово это было бы очень обременительно для человечества. Я думаю, что срок вылета экспедиции - 30 лет от момента принятия решения"

That roughly means:

"If the decision to make the expedition was taken, I don't think it would be financially very onerous for mankind. I think that the start date would be 30 years after making the decision".

[ravens_cry]

I have reason to believe we could handle it. Those old sea voyages could take years and be absolutely out of contact with the rest of society as soon as they dipped bellow the horizon. Sure, they could breath the air. But they were just as dead if the decided to abandon ship, it would just take longer.

[Damburger]

I think 30 years may be optimistic, considering the 'decision' to go to Mars was made straight after Apollo. Before even, if you count von Braun's early work. I know that is not a government level decision though. So lets take 1989 when Bush I said the US should go to Mars. That was 21 years ago, and I'd bet my life savings on us not being ready at all to launch a Mars mission in the next 9 years.

TBH I don't think it will ever happen. Constellation was the last shot and it failed miserably to actually do anything. The timescales people are talking about for even beginning to develop a mission are overlapping now with the timescales over which humanity will face extremely serious environmental crisises, overpopulation and energy shortage. Nobody is going to be heading to Mars if we suddenly find we can't sustain our agricultural output here on Earth or half the planet is busy fighting over dwindling water resources.

We had our era of easy energy and we got as far as the Moon. The next step is our extinction, the creation of new fossil fuel reserves on Earth, and the evolution of another sentient species on Earth who might make a better go of it than we have done. Maybe the bipedal elephants of 100 million years hence will have more foresight than we did.

[novaderrik]

a manned mars mission has to be an international project, if only because there would have to be international treaties and pacts signed that would bind each individual nation to do their part. to leave it up to any one country means that it is left to the whims of the citizens of that country and the poiliticans that represent them.
it's like when someone wants to quit smoking or lose some weight- they are more likely to do it if they have their family and friends there to help keep them on track.

[Hernalt]

TBH I don't think it will ever happen. Constellation was the last shot and it failed miserably to actually do anything. The timescales people are talking about for even beginning to develop a mission are overlapping now with the timescales over which humanity will face extremely serious environmental crisises, overpopulation and energy shortage. Nobody is going to be heading to Mars if we suddenly find we can't sustain our agricultural output here on Earth or half the planet is busy fighting over dwindling water resources. We had our era of easy energy and we got as far as the Moon. The next step is our extinction, the creation of new fossil fuel reserves on Earth, and the evolution of another sentient species on Earth who might make a better go of it than we have done. Maybe the bipedal elephants of 100 million years hence will have more foresight than we did.

Worthy of Hamlet 3, 1. Hopefully a space-age adaptation of which will be staged in the orbital colony of Titan, circa, say, 2500 AD.
Or as some other guy said, "We haven't run out of history yet."

[Damburger]

Worthy of Hamlet 3, 1. Hopefully a space-age adaptation of which will be staged in the orbital colony of Titan, circa, say, 2500 AD.
Or as some other guy said, "We haven't run out of history yet."

We are doing just fine for history, its energy, food and clean water I worry about.

[Hernalt]

I'm curious where you suspect man's progress into the cosmos would presently be had we followed through on plans from early on, such as post-Apollo?
What magnitude of population living 'off the grid' of earth, using solely space-based resources? What maximum distance from earth for a human explorer?

I hope this does not sound skeptically rhetorical - surely you have some personal estimate of man's progress lost due to all these vices.

[djellison]

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=388061&cid=10

The chief of the international project Mars 500 - Boris Morukov says.......

....the obvious.

Your point?

[novaderrik]

....the obvious.

Your point?

that was clever...

[Zvezdichko]

I am making no point here. I'm starting a discussion then I'm enjoying reading people's opinions.

I can only share what I think. And my opinion is that we'll hardly see a manned mission to Mars before 2050.