Space tourist Dennis Tito begs US to bankroll HIS manned Mars flyby
Multi-millionaire investment manager, and world's first space tourist, Dennis Tito has been testifying before the US Congress about his plans for a 501-day trip around Mars and back.
He says he'll need government money to meet the planned schedule of a 2018 launch.
On Wednesday, Tito published plans to send an older couple, preferably husband and wife, on a jaunt around the Red Planet that would pass within 100 miles of the Martian surface. The mission wants to use an uncommon alignment of the planets to speed up the trip, and Tito told the House Science Subcommittee on Space that to do so he'll need some help from NASA.
