“Am I an optimist or a realist?”
Beats me.
But I’ve been working on Mars missions on and off for 35 years. Never heard anyone out of the Astronaut office making noises like this.
Chemical rockets are what we’ve got. Ain’t gonna have no impulse engine anytime soon. So we’re gonna go with what we got. Do the orbit mechanics right and the trip time is not that awful. One of the reasons for the ISS’s existence is to validate long term stays for interplanetary travel.
The risks are what they’ve always been, and have been radically reduced since guys were crawling into spam cans like Vostok and Mercury capsules.
We should trade notes sometime. Based on your last post, I think we may in the same neighborhood.
Am I an optimist or a realist?”
Beats me.