100 Year Starship: The NASA mission that will take astronauts to Mars and leave them there forever

The London Daily Mail ^ | October 28, 2010 | Niall Firth

[Jeff Chandler]

I hope they are Democrats.

[Jeff Chandler]

As long as we're on the subject, how many people are aware of NASSA?

[TigersEye]

Worden said he has discussed the potential price tag for one-way trips to Mars with Google co-founder Larry Page, telling him such a mission could be done for $10 billion.

He said said: ‘His response was, “Can you get it down to $1 [billion] or $2billion?” So now we're starting to get a little argument over the price.’

Oh yeah! Sign me up for the budget one-way trip to Mars. lol

[dr_lew]

Where do they get Starship out of this? That right there is enough to give the lie to the whole thing, in my mind. Well, you could say the same thing about “Astronaut”, but this is the second time around.

[dr_lew]

Oh yeah! Sign me up for the budget one-way trip to Mars. lol

Yeah, if it's gonna be one way, at least make it Saturn. That might be worth it.

[TigersEye]

That would be quite a ride down into a gas giant.

It's a ton of money but if I'm going to spend the rest of my life on Mars I don't think I want the Motel 6 package.

[Drumbo]

So they have £1 million (= about $633,000 US) + $100,000 from Nasa ... so they have only $9,999,267,000.00 to go. George Soros to the white courtesy phone please.

[dr_lew]

That would be quite a ride down into a gas giant.

My dream is of the rings. When Cassini-Huygens was on the way, I naively supposed that it would get down there and give real closeup shots of them. After arrival, though, when the itinerary was laid out in the popular press, there was no such thing in the offing, and the reason was apparent. It costs as much energy to descend into a gravitational well as it does to ascend out of it. The closest approach to the ring was a one time thing when the orbit was being shaped, and took a steep elliptical form. Once it was rounded out, it was much higher than the rings, and at this point it became impossible to go any deeper, due to fuel limitations.

They have a very good vantage point, of course, but there is no prospect of visual closeups of the actual ring particles, like we see in artists conceptions. This was and remains a real disappoint to me, even though the rewards of the Cassini-Huygens mission are otherwise ample, most particularly the landing of Huygens on Titan, 'cause if that doesn't capture your imagination, I don't know what.

[TigersEye]

So much to explore so costly to do it. I think we await another Einstein or Tesla-like mind to break through on the energy front. Or perhaps another aspect of physics that allows us to cut the costs and time dramatically.

A permanent base on one of Saturn or Jupiter's moons sounds a little more interesting than Mars.

[PowderMonkey]

"Spam in a can."

[Smokin' Joe]

Might want to check your exchange rate...

[politicalmerc]

I would like to formally nominate Barry Obama and Michelle Obama the King and Queen of Mars. Long live the king.

[Dem Guard]

We could use some new penal colonies.

[rickb308]

Load it up with Congress & send them to Nirvana.

[rickb308]

Until we can reach speeds close to the speed of light, similar to all of the sci-fi shows, cheaply & easily, we will continue to ride a 20” Huffy bicycle from NY to LA when it comes to space travel.

[catman67]

Muslim outreach?

[badgerlandjim]

[AFreeBird]

That got me too. A Starship would go to, you know, another star, I would think.

[The_Reader_David]

You did the exchange rate in reverse. £1 million is about US$ 1,590,000.