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Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, announced a private effort today to fly the first-ever manned flight around Mars and do it by 2018.

The competition heats up: Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, today announced a private effort to fly the first-ever manned flight around Mars and do it by 2018.

The mission would send a married couple on the 501 day mission to do a fly-by of the red planet and then return to Earth.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • DougSpace

    I think that the primary significance if this mission were successfully completed is that it would forever eliminate mental roadblocks which have been preventing us from planning to go to Mars in the near-term. If the voluntary crew were to return and not have suffered serious medical problems then questions about radiation, zero-g, psychology, life-support, and to some extent rocket size will likely no longer be a stumbling block. Inspiration Mars will have been the existence proof which would be routinely brought out any time these roadblocks are brought up. e.g. “What do you mean we need 400 tonnes of water shielding from GCRs? Inspiration Mars didn’t have that”.

    However, if Inspiration Mars resulted in one or especially both of the crew being significantly debilitated or dead, then the cause would likely be known and so it would be known what is the most dangerous part of a trip to Mars. This would mandate a clear fix of that problem. Inspiration Mars would likely be viewed as fool-hardy more than courageous. Likely no inexpensive private mission would follow but I expect that it probably would not set back a government program much.

  • Whether they live or die they will have moved us forward.

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