We can only get to the ISS or a little higher with the Soyuz TMA which is the only human rated spacecraft. But we could go higher if we had multiple Soyuz TMAs.
One space tourism company claims that it can send a tourist on a free return orbit around the far side of the Moon using just the current existing Russian hardware. They would use two Soyuz TMAs and a lunar module.
Details here:
Circumlunar Mission - Space Adventures
At the moment the Soyuz TMA is the only human rated spacecraft we have. Space Shuttle retired, and can no longer be flown. Apollo retired long ago.
When a spacecraft is retired - it's not just the diagrams and plans and engineering details but also all the people involved in building it with particular skills and who have developed ways of working to make the diagrams work in reality. And the parts no longer available. So in that way you can lose space capability and we no longer have the capability to land anyone on the Moon.
The US are in the process of developing heavy lift launch system that should be able to send humans to the Moon and beyond. And SpaceX have plans also that they think will permit interplanetary travel - but there is a lot involved in human rating a spacecraft. And as we saw with the Space Shuttle it's not easy to be sure that you have covered all the things that could go wrong. Because with robotic craft it is okay if some of them explode on launch, or misfire, etc. So long as the numbers are small, then we can live with it. But with humans you have to have near 100% launch success and the systems are also far more complex. So that's harder to achieve.
When it comes to interplanetary travel you also have the problem that the mission will take at least six months or so to the nearest planets, and you can't do resupply, any supplies take as long as that or longer, and in an emergency can't get back to Earth quickly. With the Apollo era technology they had enough delta v to send a lunar module to Mars or Venus for a flyby, indeed Snoopy is in independent orbit around the sun. But it is one thing to keep an astronaut alive and safe for a few days to the Moon and quite another thing to do that for a six month interplanetary voyage.
So - with current technology, nobody has yet shown the ability to keep someone alive in space for a year or more without resupply from the Earth. There are also health issues if the humans stay in zero g, and if you use artificial gravity then - nobody has tested that yet in space. So there is a lot of work to do before we can do interplanetary human spaceflight.
Denis Tito claimed that if the funding was available, he could send a human on a flyby mission around Mars in a slingshot. But there has been a fair bit of skepticism amongst some spaceflight experts about whether this is feasible, or whether the crew would die on the journey.
Dennis Tito's 2021 Human Mars Flyby Mission Explained (Infographic)
And Elon Musk says that he will be able to send humans as far as Mars within ten years, but again I think there's reason enough to treat that with a healthy dose of skepticism. He hasn't yet shown he can send humans to the ISS. He has good ideas, but will they work as he expects? And will they be reliable enough for humans? Maybe, maybe not, will see. Page on inquisitr.com
And of course Mars One claim to be able to do a one way trip to Mars using near future "off the shelf" technology. But there is a lot of skepticism there also.
And back in the 1960s, NASA briefly looked into a possibility of a flyby of Venus also going quite close to Mercury. Manned Venus Flyby. Plus later ideas for humans to Mars of course.
Right now, NASA with its priority to send humans to Mars still plans to start with an asteroid retrieval mission where the humans remain in the Earth Moon system.
If all goes well, hopefully we'll see the first human flights beyond LEO since Apollo in the next ten years, and maybe a return to the Moon or human flights to a Near Earth Asteroid - or hopefully both.
But I'd be a little surprised if we get as far as the first interplanetary human flight as soon as that.
One space tourism company claims that it can send a tourist on a free return orbit around the far side of the Moon using just the current existing Russian hardware. They would use two Soyuz TMAs and a lunar module.
Details here:
Circumlunar Mission - Space Adventures
At the moment the Soyuz TMA is the only human rated spacecraft we have. Space Shuttle retired, and can no longer be flown. Apollo retired long ago.
When a spacecraft is retired - it's not just the diagrams and plans and engineering details but also all the people involved in building it with particular skills and who have developed ways of working to make the diagrams work in reality. And the parts no longer available. So in that way you can lose space capability and we no longer have the capability to land anyone on the Moon.
The US are in the process of developing heavy lift launch system that should be able to send humans to the Moon and beyond. And SpaceX have plans also that they think will permit interplanetary travel - but there is a lot involved in human rating a spacecraft. And as we saw with the Space Shuttle it's not easy to be sure that you have covered all the things that could go wrong. Because with robotic craft it is okay if some of them explode on launch, or misfire, etc. So long as the numbers are small, then we can live with it. But with humans you have to have near 100% launch success and the systems are also far more complex. So that's harder to achieve.
When it comes to interplanetary travel you also have the problem that the mission will take at least six months or so to the nearest planets, and you can't do resupply, any supplies take as long as that or longer, and in an emergency can't get back to Earth quickly. With the Apollo era technology they had enough delta v to send a lunar module to Mars or Venus for a flyby, indeed Snoopy is in independent orbit around the sun. But it is one thing to keep an astronaut alive and safe for a few days to the Moon and quite another thing to do that for a six month interplanetary voyage.
So - with current technology, nobody has yet shown the ability to keep someone alive in space for a year or more without resupply from the Earth. There are also health issues if the humans stay in zero g, and if you use artificial gravity then - nobody has tested that yet in space. So there is a lot of work to do before we can do interplanetary human spaceflight.
Denis Tito claimed that if the funding was available, he could send a human on a flyby mission around Mars in a slingshot. But there has been a fair bit of skepticism amongst some spaceflight experts about whether this is feasible, or whether the crew would die on the journey.
Dennis Tito's 2021 Human Mars Flyby Mission Explained (Infographic)
And Elon Musk says that he will be able to send humans as far as Mars within ten years, but again I think there's reason enough to treat that with a healthy dose of skepticism. He hasn't yet shown he can send humans to the ISS. He has good ideas, but will they work as he expects? And will they be reliable enough for humans? Maybe, maybe not, will see. Page on inquisitr.com
And of course Mars One claim to be able to do a one way trip to Mars using near future "off the shelf" technology. But there is a lot of skepticism there also.
And back in the 1960s, NASA briefly looked into a possibility of a flyby of Venus also going quite close to Mercury. Manned Venus Flyby. Plus later ideas for humans to Mars of course.
Right now, NASA with its priority to send humans to Mars still plans to start with an asteroid retrieval mission where the humans remain in the Earth Moon system.
If all goes well, hopefully we'll see the first human flights beyond LEO since Apollo in the next ten years, and maybe a return to the Moon or human flights to a Near Earth Asteroid - or hopefully both.
But I'd be a little surprised if we get as far as the first interplanetary human flight as soon as that.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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