Will We Be Ready to Send a Couple to Mars in Five Years?

An artist's concept of the Inspiration Mars spacecraft. via

Last week, space-faring millionaire Dennis Tito introduced the world to his latest venture, the Inspiration Mars Foundation. Tito became the world’s first space tourist in 2001, when he spent 8 days on the International Space Station. Now he wants to send a married couple on a mission to Mars in 2018. But his plan is vague, and frankly, a lot of magic would have to happen to get two humans to Mars in just five years.

Tito unveiled the details for the mission at a recent press conference, and it's actually pretty simplistic. Taking advantage of a favourable launch window in January 2018 – it will be the shortest transit time to Mars until the planets realign in 2031 – the mission will send a heterosexual married couple to Mars, have them whip around the planet’s far side, and slingshot their way back to Earth. Once they launch, there’s no chance for an abort. The crew would take everything they need with them: food, water, oxygen, equipment, medical supplies, and waste storage (both human and material). They wouldn’t be opening the hatch for any space walks and they wouldn’t land. Basically, the mission would see them sitting quietly in orbit for 501 days, the boredom punctuated at the halfway mark with a view of Mars from 100 miles up through their porthole windows.

It isn’t actually that difficult a mission. It’s easy enough to launch something into Earth's orbit. And once you ignite your engine to gain the necessary speed and momentum to get on the path to Mars you leave Sir Isaac Newton in the driver’s seat. That’s the beauty of a free-return trajectory: you don’t need to make any adjustments, so you don’t use any fuel, lightening the load you have to take with you. Tito emphasized the mission’s simplicity in the press conference, stating multiple times that it’s a feasible flight plan with existing technology.

But he never said what exactly that existing technology is. Even a barebones spacecraft going to Mars is going to be pretty heavy. There are heavy lift launch vehicles flying right now, like the Delta Heavy, but they aren’t man-rated.  SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is slated to carry men, but it hasn’t been built yet. No one said what the spacecraft will be either, just that it will probably look like an Apollo Command Module with an additional external inflatable habitat module. Whatever it is, it will also have to go through testing, and that takes time. There also weren’t any good answers to questions about test milestones and the obvious problem that the launch date is less than five years away and nothing has been built.

Questions about the hardware weren’t the only details Tito glossed over. Radiation is a huge issue in space, especially on a 501 day-long mission. We have some ways of protecting astronauts on deep space missions, but events like coronal mass ejections where the Sun spews out huge bursts of radiation are a threat on a whole different level. NASA took the risk on Apollo missions, but those missions lasted 14 days. This is 501 days. If we want to bring the crew home in the same condition in which they left we’re going to need some advances in radiation shielding and fast. Right now, Inspiration Mars’ response to the “what if they come home with cancer from radiation exposure” question is that we can deal with those consequences here on Earth. Not the most heartening answer.

Funding was another big piece of the mission that was only half discussed. Tito himself is using his significant cash reserves to fund the mission through 2014, but big undertakings don’t need the bulk of the money in the first two years. When all those last minute problems pop up and threaten the flight’s success a year from launch, that’s when you need money. And that’s the money Inspiration Mars doesn’t have yet. The figure $10 million was thrown around a few times; that’s a lot of crowd-sourcing and corporate sponsorship.

But skepticism was trumped by inspiration, and everyone who spoke at the press conference laid it on thick. Tito noted that he will “come out a lot poorer as a result of this mission but my grandchildren will come out a lot richer for the inspiration it will give them." Constant reference was made to how this isn’t a mission for a man and a woman It will inspire the nation into believing anything is possible. It will inspire the next generation to pursue careers in STEM. It will be the Apollo for a new generation, never mind that Apollo was purely political in nature (selective readings of the Space Race are one of my pet peeves).

Inspiration Mars is, as the tag-line says, a mission for America. America, mind you. The crew will be American and their spacecraft and rocket will be American-made, though some parts might be imported from foreign nations. So if you’re middle-aged and in a stable marriage but not a U.S. Citizen, you and your spouse need not apply to fly.

That Tito’s millions are behind the first stages of this mission brings it closer to “maybe” end of the possibility spectrum. But it’s still a big maybe. It’s worth bearing in mind that history is littered with audacious goals that haven’t come to pass. Remember Excalibur Almaz, the UK-based company that wanted to launch affordable missions to the Moon?

A lot has to happen very quickly for Inspiration Mars to reach its goal, and a lot of unforeseen roadblocks are bound to pop up.