As Keith Cowing points out, the Planetary Society is in no hurry to put anyone on the surface of the Red Planet. They want to do Apollo to Mars, but take almost three and a half decades before the first boots on Mars, and almost four decades before long-term habitation. Though Firouz Naderi claims that keeping it under the cost limit makes it more likely, I’d say that it is doomed to failure. Something that takes that long, accomplishes so little, for so much money, is unsustainable in a democratic Republic. This is why Apollo to Mars is doomed in general. I’m discussing this in the Kickstarter project. We need to have a different approach, starting with an end to the phrase “space exploration” as the reason we send humans into space.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s the link to the report. I’m reading it now, hoping it will have some useful cost data from Aerospace.
[Update a while later]
Even Chris Carberry recognizes that we won’t ever get another “Kennedy moment.” I’m not sure, though, how one “stays the course” to Mars, when there is no course.
[Late-morning update]
Over at Sarah Hoyt’s place NASA employee Les Johnson proposes (wait for it) Apollo to Mars.
It is not going to happen, and it should not happen.