[Spaceships] [High-Tech] [Action] Cydonia Or Bust, TL8

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Langy

True enough. That's why you don't hide them... at least, not completely. You run it as if it were a normal manned mission to Mars, but when it arrives the astronauts turn out to be military special forces and the ship turns out to be packing some serious guns.

Anyways, I think we could probably do it significantly faster than Fred suggests if it's an emergency situation and we're willing to cut corners or use technology like Orion drives. I'd put an upward bound of 10 years - again, if this were an emergency. Probably closer to five.

Ten years is my lower limit. This is harder than the Apollo Program (sending a dozen people to live for a few years on Mars is a wee bit more difficult than sending two to live a few days on the Moon- and no country has been able to put men on the moon since the 1970s). Similarly, if you ignore all necessary testing and trial runs, send only veterans with curiously short CVs and interesting gaps in their training schedule, and use a drive which scraps half the satellites in orbit with EMP, how do you hope to convince anyone that its just an ordinary expedition?