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Looks like I'll need a master's degree in a STEM field and a thousand hours of flight time between now and April 2.
The timing on this is interesting. Had a less-than-stellar Valentine's day and want to get away from most of humanity for a while? NASA can help!
If you don't sleep between now and then you can manage the flight hours if you start today!
@Wilshire
I have serious doubts that NASA will ever land anybody on Mars. Not because of hardware challenges, but because of the difficulty of getting anything biological there alive.
Yeah but we should do those things - Not because they are easy, but because they are hard^tm^
@Flumpkin There's no reason not to try, but keeping the biologicals alive is definitely a major challenge.
I imagine that medicine or treatments to repair DNA damage from cosmic rays will also help with cancer. Or optimized ways to produce tasty and protein rich food could really help with small scale circular economies on earth. Although the real issue might be toxic perchlorate on mars.
maybe a reason is using that money to give people Healthcare and free education. You know, like, things that actually matter. Why do we need to go to mars?
@platypus_plumba
The US will never establish any form of 'free' or inexpensive healthcare. US politicians are ideologically opposed to the idea. The US ranks at number 37 in the world in English and Maths achievement, and their politicians don't care.