The benefits are several:

1. We can send more people. Just the sheer increase in numbers and space to move about should keep morale levels healthier than on a single-ship mission, since the crews can be rotated between ships in various combinations. This would relieve a lot of pressure on everyone, from crewmembers to psych evaluators who must otherwise construct a crew to very close social tolerances, and possibly be forced to cut personnel with top-grade professional skills but who come up a bit short on social qualities. Just the thought that there's somewhere else one can go to if A and B are not getting along would be mighty comforting, IMHO.

2. Each ship can bear a primary version of a necessary item or operation while the other ship has a more basic version. Examples: a first aid station on Ship Alpha and a more elaborate medical station on Ship Beta, extensive science lab equipment on Alpha with a back-up on Beta, etc. Food storage and preparations, life support, emergency equipment, computers, construction materials and equipment for use on arrival, can all be divided accordingly.

3. The time spent on the voyage would allow for cross-training or even holding classes, giving and receiving briefings, and formulating proposals for activities, repairs and experiments both among the crew and with Mission Control.

4. Product designs could be multi-purpose, so that in extreme situations, one ship could be cannibalized in order to make the other habitable. Even a ship that could not support life in space might still be useful after landing on Mars.

Obviously, such a plan would be more expensive than building and loading a single ship, but the cost of the project may not be doubled since many components would be duplicated, which could lower the unit price.

I just think that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and the increase in the mission's success as well as the reduction in the toll taken on the crew would justify the added expense. I'm sure I'd feel better knowing that there was somewhere else I could go "just in case."

The benefits are several:

1. We can send more people. Just the sheer increase in numbers and space to move about should keep morale levels healthier than on a single-ship mission, since the crews can be rotated between ships in various combinations. This would relieve a lot of pressure on everyone, from crewmembers to psych evaluators who must otherwise construct a crew to very close social tolerances, and possibly be forced to cut personnel with top-grade professional skills but who come up a bit short on social qualities. Just the thought that there's somewhere else one can go to if A and B are not getting along would be mighty comforting, IMHO.

2. Each ship can bear a primary version of a necessary item or operation while the other ship has a more basic version. Examples: a first aid station on Ship Alpha and a more elaborate medical station on Ship Beta, extensive science lab equipment on Alpha with a back-up on Beta, etc. Food storage and preparations, life support, emergency equipment, computers, construction materials and equipment for use on arrival, can all be divided accordingly.

3. The time spent on the voyage would allow for cross-training or even holding classes, giving and receiving briefings, and formulating proposals for activities, repairs and experiments both among the crew and with Mission Control.

4. Product designs could be multi-purpose, so that in extreme situations, one ship could be cannibalized in order to make the other habitable. Even a ship that could not support life in space might still be useful after landing on Mars.

Obviously, such a plan would be more expensive than building and loading a single ship, but the cost of the project may not be doubled since many components would be duplicated, which could lower the unit price.

I just think that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and the increase in the mission's success as well as the reduction in the toll taken on the crew would justify the added expense. I know I'd feel better knowing that there was somewhere else I could go "just in case."

Yes, BEING on Mars or the Moon is a much better experience than seeing it in VR. But if there is a probe that could give us the VR, imagine the PR for that! Imagine that you could have Neil Armstrong's view when he put his foot down on the surface. Feel the lunar dust, grip the ladder, and see what he saw. Maybe not as inspiring, but definately a way to engage the public.

On the other hand, we can probably do all of that programming without actually going there. sigh

OMG, that's a beautiful thought. I love the idea. Talk about bringing the universe to the masses!!!

Cheers, Ian

Up to a year at a time is spent on a Navy vessel during an expeditionary cruise. That time is primarily filled with performing maintenance and drilling for various emergency scenarios.

Granted there is the occasional interlude in the form of a Port Call which really makes a monumental difference but I think the key to avoiding a lot of the personality issues is to keep everyone focused on their goal and prevent too much free time from finding it's way onto the schedule.

I also agree with the Idea Bob put forth. I know Engineers roll their eyes and clutch their protractors in tense anger when people talk about it, but honestly a sizable ship, makes more sense to me, and as Al Hall mentioned, this thing needs to be Fast.

There is something about the human mind, that, in some sense, can be distracted away from such mundane things that would normally cause the average person to go psycho within a short span of time. Provided that the settings, or, atmosphere is right, just as people who enjoy their careers to the point where they don't even consider it work, these somewhat long journeys in space should not be of any alarm from a psychological aspect.

A practical test used in the oilfield industry to determine whether someone requires overnight observation for pulmonary edema is the knee test: if a worker that gets "gassed" loses his balance and at least one knee touches the ground, the dose was high enough to cause pulmonary edema.

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If we really want to get somewhere, Nasa needs to "man up" and harness what we know as the most powerful energy source on earth.

In for a penny, in for a pound… Go big or go home….

Thats my two cents….

Although, I certainly wouldn't want to breath that!

* 0.0047 ppm is the recognition threshold, the concentration at which 50% of humans can detect the characteristic odor of hydrogen sulfide [3], normally described as resembling "a rotten egg".
* 10-20 ppm is the borderline concentration for eye irritation.
* 50-100 ppm leads to eye damage.
* At 150-250 ppm the olfactory nerve is paralyzed after a few inhalations, and the sense of smell disappears, often together with awareness of danger,
* 320-530 ppm leads to pulmonary edema with the possibility of death.
* 530-1000 ppm causes strong stimulation of the central nervous system and rapid breathing, leading to loss of breathing;
o 800 ppm is the lethal concentration for 50% of humans for 5 minutes exposure(LC50).
* Concentrations over 1000 ppm cause immediate collapse with loss of breathing, even after inhalation of a single breath.

So how much would be required for this hibernation? Even if the people survived it they would certainly loose the ability to smell, possibly blindness.

By 2020 we should have the computing hardware necessary to reproduce the complexity of the human brain. It may take a little longer to reverse engineer the human brain, and a little longer than that to make a copy of a particular human's brain.

So by 2030 or so, it should be possible to send machines that are psychologically human but with the relatively low life support system requirements of machines.

Switch the brains off and send them on their voyage in a package small enough that we could send with even today's technology, and it won't matter how long the trip takes. Boot them up upon arrival and let them go to work.

Of course, by that point we should have pretty mature nanotech going, so constructing a return vessel should be doable.

OTOH, why bother? Just beam the brain's pattern in a data stream back to Earth to upload into a computer/robotic architecture. Yup, return trip at the speed of light. Teleportation for the real world. Well…the real world of a few decades from now.

But with future virtual realities being no doubt super-realistic, humans might get to experience something very close to what the computers send back as sensory data.

You're right……….. That is a wild thought………