You and your spouse could spend your second honeymoon going to Mars!

**Jenna** · 02-27-13, 04:07 PM

MacCallum and millionaire Dennis Tito announced their plans Wednesday to send a couple of earthlings on a 501-day trip in a spacecraft that would fly by the red planet. The proposal was unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington.The mission would lift off in 2018, they said. It would not involve landing on Mars, making the proposed journey infinitely easier than putting people on the planet's surface, which NASA wants to do later this century. But the spacecraft would pass within 100 miles of the planet.

The man and woman whom MacCallum and Tito want to send would likely be a married couple.

Group aims to send 2 humans on Mars mission in 2018 – Light Years - CNN.com Blogs

**pgg** · 02-27-13, 05:33 PM

But I thought men were already from mars

**IMGreat101** · 02-27-13, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by pgg

But I thought men were already from mars

That's where they grow tri tips!

My brother (the rocket scientist) has always said there never has been any reason to send humans into space except for status.

**Xiphos** · 02-28-13, 12:00 AM

Originally Posted by IMGreat101

That's where they grow tri tips!

My brother (the rocket scientist) has always said there never has been any reason to send humans into space except for status.

Except for the status, scientific discoveries, mining resources off planet, and the eventual death of our planet and species unless we colonize elsewhere.

**bayern** · 02-28-13, 04:37 PM

Please, please, sent Obama and Michelle to Mars. The sooner the better. Fact is they can leave tomorrow and it wouldn't be soon enough. They can be sent to the moon, and wait for the Rocket Ship to be ready.

**Odd** · 03-01-13, 07:53 AM

There's vanishingly small utility in sending a couple of space tourists on this sort of round trip. Send probes, put the toilet research for this one in to self repairing satellites. Problem being everything learned on such a mission is applied forward, which in an era of exponentiate tech results in better equipping for the last mission, not the next.

Risky one way trip to the surface? I volunteer.

**Ducky** · 03-01-13, 11:52 AM

It used to be the husband would threaten to send the wife to the moon. Modern times, modern places I guess.

**lewisipso** · 03-01-13, 04:42 PM

I ain't goin.

**Xiphos** · 03-01-13, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by lewisipso

I ain't goin.

It's your opportunity to be the Intergalactic Trunk Monkey. Can't believe you're giving up on this chance.

**Ducky** · 03-01-13, 07:09 PM

Any electronic I'm in close contact with for any significant time period, including calculators, phones, computers, vehicles, etc., develop electrical problems. It's a problem, and one that I would NOT want a year and a half from atmosphere.

**lewisipso** · 03-02-13, 09:04 AM

Pointing myself toward the sky and lighting my ass on fire with some of the most flammable liquid known to man under me is not my idea of a date night. Besides, I can eat meals out of a plastic bag in my laundry room. I still have several MRE's left over from Gustav.

**Jenna** · 03-03-13, 04:34 PM

More details....

The two-person crew aboard the ship, which will fly by Mars in 2018, will rely on a shield of water, food, and human waste to protect them from cosmic rays, reports New Scientist.

More so than muscle atrophy or sheer boredom, cosmic radiation is the biggest issue the crew will face on the trip. The waste would be dehydrated (to reclaim precious water) and placed into bags alongside the ship’s walls.
“It’s a little queasy sounding, but there’s no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding,” Taber MacCallum, a member of the Inspiration Mars team, told New Scientist.
It may sound kind of gross, but this is the sort of ingenuity we need to keep pushing space travel forward. And in a strange way, it may be similar to the creative methods early humans used to travel the sea.
Initially, the ship could be lined with water, relying on the Water Wells project for long-term life support in space missions. Water is considered a better shielding material for space missions, since it contains more nuclei than metal (nuclei are what actually block cosmic radiation). The Water Wells design can also purify human waste into drinkable water.
Eventually, the bags full of water will be replaced with dehydrated waste throughout the ship. MacCallum wisely hopes the bags won’t be clear.

Read more at A shield of poop will protect Inspiration Mars from cosmic rays | VentureBeat