Private manned voyage to Mars in 2018

Space tourist Dennis Tito is planning to lead a 501 days lasting manned mission to Mars in January 2018.

Dennis Tito is the world's first space tourist, back in 2001 he spent $20 million for a visit to International Space Station. The Inspiration Mars Foundation is a new nonprofit organization, founded and lead by Mr. Tito himself and will hold a news conference next Wednesday (February 27th) where the new private held and manned venture to Mars will be discussed. According to Space Ref main reason for the mission is to generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration.

Among the conference attendees there will also be Taber MacCallum and Jane Poytner present, representing the Paragon Space Development company that is providing environmental controls for extreme and hazardous environments. MacCallum and Poytner were both part of the Biosphere-2 project in 1990's, which goal was to create build a completely isolated environment inside a giant structure with a size of two and a half football fields.

This is without a doubt the most demanding manned space mission until the date. Imagine a spacecraft needs to be built, that will carry humans 35 million miles (56 million km) to Mars and back, with still a huge number of unknown variables that need to be taken in consideration and with only 5 years until the launch? We sure wish them all the luck and can't wait for the official conference held next week where interesting details hopefully will be announced.