it's complicated...





A Quick Explainer on Orbital Mechanics
The planets don’t follow circular orbits around the Sun, they’re actually travelling in ellipses. Sometimes they’re at the closest point to the Sun (called perihelion), and other times they’re at the furthest point from the Sun (known as aphelion). To get the closest point between Earth and Mars, you need to imagine a situation where Earth and Mars are located on the same side of the Sun. Furthermore, you want a situation where Earth is at aphelion, at its most distant point from the Sun, and Mars is at perihelion, the closest point to the Sun.

When Earth and Mars are closest

When Earth and Mars reach their closest point, this is known as opposition. It’s the time that Mars appears as a bright red star of the sky; one of the brightest objects, rivalling the brightness of Venus or Jupiter. There’s no question Mars is bright and close, you can see it with your own eyes.

And theoretically at this point, Mars and Earth will be only 54.6 million kilometers from each other. But here’s the thing, this is just theoretical, since the two planets haven’t been this close to one another in recorded history. The last known closest approach was back in 2003, when Earth and Mars were only 56 million kilometers apart. And this was the closest they’d been in 50,000 years.

Need that in miles? The closest possible distance from Earth to Mars in miles is 33.9 million miles.

Here’s a list of Mars Oppositions from 2007-2020 (source)

Dec. 24, 2007 – 88.2 million km (54.8 million miles)
Jan. 29, 2010 – 99.3 million km (61.7 million miles)
Mar. 03, 2012 – 100.7 million km (62.6 million miles)
Apr. 08, 2014 – 92.4 million km (57.4 million miles)
May. 22, 2016 – 75.3 million km (46.8 million miles)
Jul. 27. 2018 – 57.6 million km (35.8 million miles)
Oct. 13, 2020 – 62.1 million km (38.6 million miles)

2018 should be a very good year, with a Mars looking particularly bright and red in the sky.

Thanks, so techinically how long could a manned mission take?

they say 40 days (theoretical)as of right now
they need a faster propulsion engine...

figure 50 million miles, at 15,000 mph = 3,333 hours, or 138 days...

but, there is this:
http://www.space.com/8009-rocket-engine-reach-mars-40-days.html

The fastest manned space ship was Apollo 10 (Thomas Stafford, Eugene Cernan and John Young), which reached 39,665 kph as it returned to Earth from the Moon in May, 1969.

If only we had a Flux Capitor.

NASA also claims that we'll have alien contact & evidence in the next 20 years

Anyone ever visited NASA's headquater's in Washington?

.

been to Johnsons space center here in Houston a few times, great place to take your kids if ever here... but all the NASA centers are really cool, great as a vacation destination...

http://www.space.com/17953-nasa-headquarters.html

Sounds exhilarating....the closest i ever got to something of that sort was a planetrium in johannesburg south africa

But i do hope to see the actual space center some day

Strangest objects spotted on Mars after water find including 'alien scorpions', 'spoon' and a 'dark lady' - Mirror Online http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/strangest-objects-spotted-mars-after-6532797/

Furs and feathers could be an ideal 'skin' to wear if people are to live and move around on mars. see link.

http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/2014/fur_and_feathers_keep_animals_warm_by_scattering_l/

In short:
It's not the 'trapping a layer of air' (alone) within the fur that keep animals warm. In other words it's not conduction/convection within the air layer that slows down the heat loss.

Individual hair mimic as radiation shields (heat).


So it's no coincidence that polar bears have white furs...or

I remember back in High School when my science teacher suggested that the rings of Saturn were made of water ice. I suggested that the solar wind probably blew the water from Mars out to the outer Solar system.
Back in that day & age kids were not supposed to think outside the textbook so I got reprimanded and told to study harder.

Then Voyagers found water ice moon, water ice rings around all the outer planets and I reasserted my idea that it was Mars water in an email to Carl Sagan. No reply.

Now, NASA comes to the conclusion that the Solar weather stripped Mars of its Water reserves and blew them off into space.

DUH!

correlations exist, but still a hypothesis... maybe figure out a way to prove it?

wouldn't most the water/co2 get absorbed by the asteroid belt? after that, there's Jupiter, with smaller rings, then Saturn, with the biggest rings... so it seems likely the AB and Jupiter would get most all of the water molecules,. unless it was a massive blast from the sun with Jupiter on the other side of the solar system at the time...

Remarkable!!
On a similar note; may be NASA should consider landing polar bears somewhere near the Mars pole before any of their 'manned missions'? Assuming details like training, light gear and a supply of frozen fish (for 2 years). Add some friendly rovers to keep them company and observe their survival techniques.

is this practical?

where do you get your information?

Thinking aloud MM, thinking aloud.

I believe some of the water does reside in the Asteroid Belt. However, I read on the NASA website that the Asteroid belt is sparsely populated. It has high and low density spots.
Plus, if you can imagine an entire planetary ocean system being blasted into space from a CME, some of the water should still be travelling.

Ganymede & Europa may actually be populated with water from Mars along with water that formed in the Solar system naturally. Enceladus at Saturn could also have Mars water in it.

I have always imagined a great mining system out near these planets. Mining for water ice for use in refueling stations for extended missions to the outer system.

Taken as trying to be cute. LOL

If you were serious? Hahahaha

Anything and everything that reduces risk should be weighed upon??
After all this one is in line with the gorilla and the dog (Russian) that went out in space before man..

Rural folks over here used to train bears to perform till the government banned it. Yes Sir, bears can be trained all right. May have to catch them young though.

bears, monkeys, dogs, they all have something in common - they need to breath to live... mars isn't the best place for breathing...