It is a crewed flight; jeff foust at Newspace Journal has some good information
Wonder if we could talk them into an amateur payload? A transponder would be useless...and any comm system would have to be hooked into a large antenna with some power to be useful to all but a few.
My suggestion would be some sort of data link with say a small (12 inch) or so telescope...
BTW I am pretty jaded as far as human spaceflight goes; but this is a tremendous in my view effort and if it happens (even if it does not work) it will change the human spaceflight condition for the better...they are going to try and do this for less money then ISS spends in 3 months.
Robert WB5MZO
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 14:15:28 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] Mars Flyby 2018
Saw the item in ANS about the proposed Mars flyby by the Inspirational Mars Foundation in 2018.
Although lots of sites are implying there will be a human onboard the Inspirational Mars Foundation press release does not actually state that: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=40141
You'd have thought a small automatic uncrewed spacecraft would be a better bet for a flyby and return given the timescale. Guess we'll find out at the press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
73 Trevor M5AKA
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