This is what was in the news last week. There is a plan for a "bare bones private mission" to Mars funded by a millionaire. The plan calls for a trip of "up to 16 months in a cramped space capsule half the size of an RV". The thinking is that on such a long, cramped trip it might make sense to send a married couple. They can give each other emotional support.
Hmmm. They also acknowledge that the trip involves a huge risk. You think? A married couple in a teensy capsule sounds like a space disaster in the making! Even if they manage to get the capsule there and back without any problems, I'd be surprised if they are still both alive when they open the capsule! I wonder how long before the whole thing breaks down. (I'm thinking that the gas caused by the big send-off meal would have the wife bailing out before they even left our atmosphere!)
In two days, my husband and I are celebrating our 20 year wedding anniversary. 20 YEARS! It's hard to believe. (Too help you with the math, I was married when I was 7.) It's been a great 20 years. But I don't think I could make it 16 months in space. We are perfect together. On Earth. We are the same in many ways but different in many others. If all we had to do was surf the internet for 16 months straight, ooofa. Our differences would wreck us. I would be all, "Read this joke. Look at this picture of baby animals. Watch this music video. Watch me play solitaire. Read my book -it's fiction." And he would be all, "The markets are down. Watch CSPAN with me. Read my financial texts. Look at this picture of pasta. Watch Gladiator. Again." It wouldn't be long before we would wind up with a masking tape line down the middles separating us. (Maybe they should just paint one on the capsule during construction. Then no one has to argue that "it's crooked and you have 4sq. in. more than me!")
Current technology is amazing. Not because we can consider travel to Mars but because, on your way to the red planet, you can surf the net to try and hang onto your sanity. Nowadays, astronauts are tweeting and video chatting from space and they are no more isolated than your average awkward gamer/Reddit addicts. (In fact, with their fellow astronauts around them, they may have more human interaction.) BUT! Is that technology enough to get through 16 months drinking your own recycled urine and subsisting on minimal food while cooped up with a guy who seemed perfect right up until the moment the burners ignited? Seems doubtful to me. But it could make one hell of a reality show! (Or horror show!)
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