Dennis Tito To Announce Private Human Mars Mission

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Solar sails and electric propulsion have never carried anything as large as a human capsule

and the time both would take to get something to Mars (because of gradual acceleration) means you need a larger life support system for the extended length of time. It's untried; certainly not something that's been around for 20 years. But what you need to get off Mars is a chemical rocket. Nothing else will do to get you out of the gravity well into an orbit. And that large piece of equipment has to be delivered to the surface in one piece, suitable for a takeoff many days later, without a ground crew. Even if you manufacture the fuel on Mars (which many suggest - but that's new technology too), you're still landing objects many times larger than Curiosity; the care that was needed for Curiosity would be need for them too. The astronauts' lives would depend on them.

Robots that could set up shelter on rough ground, without real-time earth control, would have to be far more complicated than Curiosity. Curiosity just has to navigate, and use a few very simple tools - a laser, a drill. You're talking about actions that no independent robot ever tries on Earth - effectively surveying a suitable site, perhaps have to level sections of it, construction from parts ... . No, Curiosity could not be retasked to build shelters. It cannot manipulate the large items that would be involved.