How long would it take for a maned space ship to travel from earth to Mars?

Question

And how long would the say on Mars have to be for a convenient point of departure? And then how long would the return trip take?

Answer 1

There is a valid transfer orbit to Mars, an ellipse with perihelion at departure from Earth on 6 September 2148.

Orbital elements of Earth.
a 1.00000011
e 0.01671022
i 0 (zero)
L 0 (zero)
w 102.94719 deg
T JD 2453009.3

Orbital elements of Mars.
a 1.523688
e 0.093405
i 1.8497 deg
L 47.5574 deg
w 286.5016 deg
T JD 2452873.0

Orbital elements of the transfer orbit.
a 1.3411728 AU
e 0.248072
i 10.608 deg
L 341.687 deg
w 0 (zero) deg

At departure, Earth and Mars will be at 341.7 and 23.8 degrees heliocentric longitude, respectively. At arrival on 23 May 2149, Mars will be at heliocentric longitude 152.1 degrees. The transit time is 259 days.

This is close to the minimum energy transfer orbit. Disregarding the planetary gravitational accelerations, the departure delta-vee is about 6.83 km/sec, and the arrival delta-vee is about 4.26 km/sec.

The astronauts would have to wait on Mars for 15 months before an opportunity came to use the minimum energy transfer orbit back to Earth. (The transit time would be about the same as for the trip outbound.)

Of course, there are other transfer orbits besides the minimum energy one. They're just more expensive in how much fuel they use.

Answer 2

The distance between Earth and Mars varies depending on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun. So the time it takes to travel to Mars from Earth depends on the distance between the two planets at the time of launch. It also depends on the speed of the spacecraft and the path chosen.Mission Spirit Launched June 10, 2003 and arrived on mars Jan 3, 2004 .So about six months in this case. Mission Pathfinder Launched Dec 4, 1996 and arrived July 4, 1997.So exactly six months in this case. Astronauts can use the slingshot effect of the moon to gain a tremendous amout of speed which shortens the journey time to mars considerably.But as you can see in these two cases it takes approx six months for us to get to Mars.Which is pretty good because if we had to go in a straight line to mars and ignored the slingshot method and used the same equipment as Apollo 13 did it would take astronauts a little over 7 years 7.3 to be more exact.
Okay now for the return trip using the slingshot method would take have to take shorter than six months.Even though we wouldn't have earths moon to slingshot off of we could use Mars' two moons Phobos and Deimos. The return trip would be shorter than the trip to get there due to the exponential speed increase from Mars' two moons as opposed to the Earths one moon.

Answer 3

It takes about 9 months to get to Mars and about the same to get back. I believe the waiting time is almost a year before Mars and Earth are in the right place for the return trip to start.

Answer 4

You can't get the answer by using the time it took to get to the moon. You are hitting a moving target. I think NASA has it planned at about 8 months - using current technology.

I don't think there are any firm plans or mission schedule in place, but how long it will take to come back will depend on how long they are able to stay - since that will determine their return trajectory. This will also determine the out-bound trajectory (which will determine the time it takes).

How long they are able to stay (which will, in turn, determine out-bound and return trajectories - and, thus, the time it will take) will depend on how many supplies, including oxygen, they are able to take with them. All of this will, of course, depend on the final budget for the mission - which is nowhere near being set.

Answer 5

relies upon on how plenty gasoline you're keen to spend. An "affordable trip" (technically, a low delta V trajectory) will take approximately 2 years, in spite of the shown fact that it must be competently scheduled so as that the deliver arrives at Mars whilst it is meant to be there (kinda like aiming a cannon previous to a deliver so it hits the deliver whilst the cannon ball arrives).

Answer 6

I think the estimated travel time is about 9 months.

Answer 7

depends how fast the spacecraft is travelling at the time!