Quote Originally Posted by piper184 View Post
.. Just think this kind of thing was only science fitcion 50 years ago, now we are on the verge of doing it for real.
Don't get your hopes up just yet. Below are a few selected quotes from this article...

https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q2811.html

================================

All in all, your trip to Mars would take about 21 months: 9 months to get there, 3 months there, and 9 months to get back. With our current rocket technology, there is no way around this. The long duration of trip has several implications.

First, you have to bring enough food, water, clothes, and medical supplies for the crew in addition to all the scientific instruments you will want to take. You also have to bring all that fuel! In addition, if you are in space for nine months, you will need a lot of shielding to protect you from the radiation of the Sun. Water, and cement make good shielding but they are very heavy. All together, it is estimated that for a crew of six, you would need 3 million pounds of supplies!

================================

The article then goes on to discuss the physiological concerns associated with such a long period of weightlessness. It does not, however, address the psychological concerns. Imagine, you're going to lock ~6 people in the tight confines of a tin can for almost two years and expect they will not go nuts and/or murder each other.

If you really want to do it, you'll need to figure out how to build better humans as well as better spacecraft.