Married couple needed for 500-day round trip to Mars

Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, wants to send a mission to Mars in 2018, and he's looking for a married couple to make the trip.

At a press conference at the National Press Club today, Tito announced the details of his plan — to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment between the Earth and Mars to send a two-person crew on a quick flyby of the Red Planet and then return to Earth. To crew the spacecraft, he is looking for a fairly unique pair — a married couple that is willing to spend 501 days in cramped quarters, far from friends, family and the comforts of home.

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"When you're out that far and the Earth is a tiny, blue pinpoint, you're going to need someone you can hug," Tito said in a SPACE.com interview. "What better solution to the psychological problems you're going to encounter with that isolation?"

To meet this planetary alignment, any craft would need to leave within a window of opportunity that starts in January 2018.

"There are rare opportunities to actually go out to Mars and come back in a relatively short time, about 1.4 years, or 500 or so days," said Tito. "If one misses those opportunities, then typical flight times would be two to three years."

To make this mission a reality, Tito has formed the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a non-profit organization that will raise funds, purchase and outfit the spacecraft for the mission, conduct the research required for its success and find the crew that will make the trip. The plan is to use existing technologies for the trip, such as the Dragon spacecraft, built by SpaceX corporation, and modifying it for the extended trip.

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Tito acknowledges that the project isn't going to be easy, but he has dedicated himself to seeing it become a reality.

"I think this is the real deal," Tito said."It doesn't mean it's not difficult. We've got a long way to go to make it happen. But it's certainly a doable thing. I'm absolutely committed to make this happen."

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