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Much as we would love to fantasize about such a journey, the cost would be prohibitive if we use our present technology to launch a manned mission to Mars any time in the next two decades or so. I find it hard to believe some of our leaders have proposed such an expensive project when we need the money here on earth. (I'm sure that they are having second thoughts with the current economic situation). Until such a time comes, if at all, when we can get a handle on the situation down here, and new technology permits significantly easier space travel, we should wait.
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And what new technology is needed?
The computer sitting in front of you is perfectly capable of doing the needed orbital calculations in real time.
A rocket is a mechanical device. Adding computer control or design to these improves performance in some cases, but that has already been done. I'd say further improvements would be marginal.
What other technology is needed? How can radio communications between spacecraft and Earth be improved? More power? Better antennas? I really doubt that much can be done in this line.
Some technologies are mature. No massive improvements are practical or maybe even possible. For the simplest of examples, consider scissors. Said to have been invented by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago. Apart from better steels, there has been no improvement in principle since then.
I suggest you get onto the "Mars Society" site and read up on their ideas. One co-founder of this society, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin said several years ago that if we wait till we have "better" technology or for economic conditions to be right then it will never happen.
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BRP is right, and no one knows how well the crew would be able to withstand being confined for that long going out and back?
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Using the minimal fuel necessary and its consequent long travel times, like we did in the lunar program ,subjects astronauts to dangerous levels of radiation. We need technology to provide constant acceleration to minimize the flight time and decrease exposure. Thus we need considerably better propulsion systems that we currently possess. Shielding can be achieved by surrounding the crew compartment with a shield of water.
We also lack reliable long term life support. What is necessary is what was attempted by those strange people who ran the Biosphere II experiment. Except it would have to work. Long distance space travel requires nearly a 100% closed environmental system. Everything should be recycled. Otherwise the cost of shipping the weight of food and water into orbit would be prohibitive.
Rockets are simply not a very good method of escaping the earths gravity. They cost too much and they pollute too much and they lack a certain reliability. I would suggest putting off any interplanetary adventures until a space tether (also known as a space elevator) can be constructed. That might take a century, but the planets aren't going anywhere. Once constructed a tether system could allow components of an interplanetary ship to be hauled into space for a tiny fraction of the cost of using rockets.
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In my opinion, yes, we should wait. There is a technology on the horizon that would greatly improve the chances of success on a mission to Mars. I'm referring to nanotechnology, and if you've read about it as much as I have, then you know that its capabilities are almost limitless. Imagine an astronaut arriving on Mars, taking a small capsule out of a pouch in his spacesuit and tossing it on the ground in a suitable location, and watching the capsule 'dissolve' into the Martian soil, then automatically assembling a fully functioning habitat from local materials, within a few minutes or hours, complete with an ample supply of oxygen and water. Such 'miracles' as this are completely within the realm of possibility with a mature nanotechnology. So far, of course, nanotech is mostly science fiction, but with the exponential increase in the speed of technological progress, such capabilities should be attainable within 50 years, perhaps less. Mars will wait; I think that we should, too.
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Using that theory, Chris Columbus should never have gotten funding to look for the 'New World' until all the problems in Europe were solved.
And, for that matter, the way your question is phrased, you're too late, people have been thinking about it for a long time...
