Visit to the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics by Dennis A.Tito

Dennis A. Tito visits the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and meets with Professor James Longuski and members of his research team

Dennis Tito visited the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics on July 31, 2013 and met with Professor James Longuski and members of his research group.  

In 2001, Tito spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of the International Space Station on a visiting mission to the ISS, and he is widely known as the first privately funded astronaut.

In February 2013, Tito created the Inspiration Mars Foundation and announced his intention to privately finance a mission to send a two-person American crew – a man and a woman – to flyby Mars, with target launch date on January 5, 2018.

This rare opportunity to Mars has been identified as a quick free-return orbit of 501 days. The next time the planets would have the same alignment would be in the year 2031. There would be no entry into the Martian atmosphere, and no rendezvous or docking. The launch date also represents the shortest duration roundtrip mission to Mars. Tito states that the technology is already in place and that the issues that need to be overcome are only the requirements of the rigor of a 501 day trip on a psychological and physical level for the human crew.

The Mars mission itself was inspired by the rare 501 day free-return opportunity that was found in 1998 by Professor James Longuski and his student (at the time) Moonish Patel. Currently, Professor Longuski and his students Kyle Hughes, Peter Edelman and Sarag Saikia are working with Dennis Tito and his team on various aspects of the Inspiration Mars free-return. In particular, Professor Longuski and his students are investigating the physical reasons behind why the 2018 opportunity is so rare, and finding that it may be more unique than previously thought.

Photo caption from L~R: John Carrico (Applied Defense Solutions, Inc.), Michel Loucks (Space Exploration Engineering Co.) , Kyle Hughes (Prof. Longuski’s Ph.D. student), Dennis Tito (Wilshire Associates Inc.), Peter Edelman (Prof. Longuski’s Ph.D. student), Professor James Longuski

Not pictured - Sarag Saikia