Slashdot Mirror
Russian Group Plans Manned Mars Mission By 2011
weekendwarrior1980 writes "A group of Russian space experts on Friday announced an ambitious plan to send a six-man crew to Mars within a decade, a project it said would cost only $3.5 billion. Russian space officials dismissed the project as nonsense. They plan to have 6 people explore Mars for months before returning to Earth. The Mission would take 3 years, and would depend on fully equipped spacecraft containing its own garden, medical facilities etc."
Alexandrov didn't explain how his firm would raise the funds, but said one of the reasons he thought such a mission would be profitable was it could involve a "reality" television show.
Just what we need. Survivor in space. You don't even want to know what happens to the guy who gets voted off the spaceship.
Is this why its called the red planet?
Of course it is nonsense... the russians barely have enough money to keep the country afloat, let alone spend on a manned trip to Mars.
Well, the company funding the project did say it "draws no resources from the state budget." This appears to be a completely privately funded operation.
Still ludicrous, though, considering the technical and logistical challenges. Although I do like the reality TV angle...who wants to start betting on which cosmonaut takes the first shot of vodka in the Mars atmosphere?
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
I got this news from my 88 year old Grandmother today before it was posted on Slashdot. Oh well so much for getting the tech news fast on a holiday weekend.
Same thing that happens in the restaurant every Easter. Russia will offer to pay half, knowing full well that USA will want to pay most of it to be the "good guy", and having no intention of paying any of it. Russia will then make a playful attempt to snatch the bill off the table, at which point USA will poke Russia with a car key, forcing Russia to drop the bill. Russia will then give up its ambitions on the ISS (oops Mars) and then USA will pay for everything.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
We have just discovered real evidence of flowing water once existing on the planet, and this in turn could lead to evidence of fossilized microbes and other lifeforms that we would threaten with destruction if we were to introduce Earth microbes that the Martian microbes could not fight.
Doesn't it seem more likely that our microbial organisms wouldn't stand a chance against Martian organisms fighting on their own turf? What makes Earth organisms so tough?
Come to think of it, we should send well armed Earth bacteria to Mars in a preemptive assault against those mad, raving Martian microbes frothing at the mouth for their chance to dominate our culture. It's the patriotic duty of all Earth citizens to help liberate the Red Planet!
Dramatic conflict is better for TV ratings.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
You are going to attempt interplanetary travel without a towel ? jebus you really dont know what your doing
In Soviet Russia, the obligatory jokes make themselves!