Space agency NASA, although having completed many difficult missions, hasn’t dared enough to announce any manned mission to Mars. But the very interesting thing is American billionaire Dennis Tito, who is widely known as the first space tourist, lately has offered NASA to send a manned mission to Mars in 2017 for which he is even prepared to share the funding for the mission. The agency agreed to help in technology but declared can’t help in funding this. What’s the story?
Dennis Tito has created an organization named Inspiration Mars Foundation. The organization will arrange everything for people who would like to visit space at their own cost. Tito has even planned to send a married couple to have a 501 day round trip to Mars via Inspiration Mars. Tito also planned that by using this private rocket, even astronauts will be able to visit the red planet. But later Tito realized that due to many technical reasons and most importantly, the expenditure for the mission, neither Tito nor his organization will be able (at least for now) to send any manned mission to Mars without NASA.
Tito explained NASA about his plan and told that he needs a $700 million funding for his dream Mars 2017 mission. Hearing all, NASA simply denied Tito’s proposal. NASA’s David Weaver said in an email, “the agency is willing to share technical and programmatic expertise with Inspiration Mars, but is unable to commit to sharing expenses with them. We remain open to further collaboration as their proposal and plans for a later mission develop.”
Well the reason for denial Tito’s proposal is the US government is now passing a very hard time in terms of fiscal funding for the country and to handle the situation, the country is trying to allocate less funding for each sector. On the other side, Barack Obama has already planned to cut funding for Mars program. Both the terms hint that at this moment, NASA hardly have cash for Mars mission. And even it has, then the agency is thinking many times for what purpose it is spending.
Source: Washington Post
Thanks To: The Verge
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