Astronauts face radiation threat on long Mars trip

[longship]

8. I don't see any other way than multiple payloads.

Both from earth, and to and from Mars. Both gravity wells are just too damned steep. Worse yet, Mars doesnt have enough atmosphere to provide sufficient atmospheric braking. Landing on Mars is not easy. Just ask the Russians. Shit! Ask NASA.

The only way out of this is assembling the ship components outside the earth's gravity well. That's fucking tough, too. Then, when you get the thing safely to Mars, what are you going to do? You have to land the thing and still have enough to get off Mars when you're done. Again, no small feat given that it's much more difficult to land on Mars than either the Earth or Luna.

We can solve these issues, but it would be a lot easier to build Moon Base Alpha, IMHO.