An 8 month round trip with a 70 day stay on Mars! I think you may have been wrong mk. Robots have not closed the window on space exploration You wrote:
Have your views on this changed? Pretty exciting stuff!!I have long expected that I would see people step foot on the red planet during my lifetime. As I am in my mid-thirties, I never considered that this was unlikely.
However, while following the exploits Spirit and Opportunity, this question came to me:
Have robots permanently become the most attractive option for space exploration?
This drive would significantly reduce the risk to humans, so it definitely lowers the blue curve on that graph. Whether or not the difference buys us enough time, I don't know. It will probably be a few years before this technology is tested in space, and at least several more before it could be part of a manned-mission to Mars. Those robots will change a lot in the next decade.