Will man ever walk on Mars?

If I were putting money on it, I would say China would be the first to get there, but not the first to get back.

 

How long would it take to travel from Earth to Mars? A month? Two months?

 

It's in the hundreds of days, depending on the method of travel and the alignment of the two planets.

 

I said yes, but not in my lifetime. I'm a huge fan of the space program, of manned space flight and of us doing it before another country. But, right now I can't see doing it just to do it. Is there a reason or end result? If so, let's go. I say that about going back to the moon or even unmanned missions to Mars like we have going on right now. If there is an end result, I'm all for it. If not, that's a boat load of public money to be spending just to take some pictures and look for ice.

Now, I could also see such a mission being a huge boost to the economy if done properly. If it's a US project, require by law that every single component from the engines on the rocket and the food the astronauts eat to the cars NASA reps drive to the ink in the printer cartridges used to send out press releases be made in the US. The government is round about creating jobs which increases the tax base.

 

So we're talking about a two-year trip - roughly.

That's a lot of Tang to pack.

 

Exactly. With the moon, there at least was the lure of discovery. But, with Mars, we already know what's there, as we've had rovers tooling around exploring the place for years. What extra benefit would a person provide over the robots to justify the insane cost?

The question ain't technology--I think we probably can do it if prioritized--but for what purpose, and who pays for it?

 

Yes, why seek to know something we have no knowledge of.
Why press the boundaries of discovery.
This has never led to fruitful results in all of civilization.
Maybe we could use another smart phone.

 

About two years, including approximately 120 days stay on the surface. Trips can only be made in very specific windows which occur every 20 months. To go any faster would require propulsion sources far in advance of anything currently on the horizon.

To make the trip, a vehicle roughly the size of the ISS would have to be assembled in earth orbit. Assembling the ISS took approximately 50 launches (Shuttle and Soyuz) over the space of more than a decade.

 

Considering travel issues, they might be a better fit for Conference USA.

 

But we DO have knowledge of it. That's the point. Mars ain't a mystery anymore, we've had robots on the ground exploring the place and sending back all the same data a person could collect for years. As such, there doesn't appear to be much discovery purpose to a manned mission beyond the "just to say we did it" factor.

 

In addition to resource extraction, or last resort, Mars is a logical destination if we want to build a staging area for our eventual manned exploration of deep space.