UK team designs manned mission to Mars

BBC : To stimulate debate about the technical obstacles and risks involved, researchers at Imperial College London have mapped out a theoretical mission to put humans on Mars. The spacecraft they envision would comprise a cruise vehicle and lander. For protection of the crew during the nine-month trip, various innovations have been proposed, including tethering and spinning the cruiser and lander to provide artificial gravity, and circulating water within the cruiser’s shell to absorb radiation. Once in orbit around the planet, the crew would disembark and land near a previously sent Martian habitat module and rover. They would spend from two months to two years on the surface before returning to the cruise vehicle and heading back to Earth orbit, where they would dock temporarily with the International Space Station. Renewed interest in Mars has sparked at least two other possible missions, both private ventures: American engineer and multimillionaire Dennis Tito proposes sending a couple on a flyby by 2018, and the Dutch project Mars One proposes settling humans on the planet beginning in 2023.