Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post reports that yesterday, billionaire Dennis Tito testified before the U.S. House subcommittee on space regarding his plan to send a husband-wife team of astronauts to Mars and back. According to Tito, the 800 million mile journey would take 501 days and cost a cool $1 billion. Hmmm…. That’s $1.25 a mile, about the same cost to fuel a Winnebago. Unfortunately, the two volunteers for the journey won’t be as comfortable as they would in an RV, as they would be confined to Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus space capsule the entire way, which is perhaps half the size. That doesn’t leave much room for food, supplies, taking a walk or having a change of scenery. I hope the walls are padded.

Accomplishing a Mars flyby would be an amazing feat. The United States would have at least 10 or 20 more years to claim leadership in space exploration. As Tito hopes, it would certainly inspire the rising generation to dream again. Doing so would also obliterate current notions of what can and cannot be done. Yet, could we find a way to protect the astronauts from the radiation risks and keep them sane by 2017, the year Tito wants to launch? Probably not. Could we spend our billion in some other way and get an even bigger bang for the buck? Maybe. But I admit, if we could pull off a Mars flyby in the next decade, what a thing that would be!

If I had a billion dollars for space exploration, I would fly a heliogyro to Mars and back. That would leave me $990,000,000 left to fly somewhere else.