MTI, given the truth of your analysis, what are the chances of a safe launch, landing, return launch, return landing of human beings?

If it's 1/3 chance for one-way robots would it be 1/9 for round-trip? I'll bet not. I'll bet the chance of a successful return trip would be much, much lower. The return vehicle must remain viable after decceleration, near-crash landing, then be able to properly re-ignite for the return leg.

There are many people who find the current shuttle failure rate unacceptible. If we improved the failure from the current martian success rate for each leg to say... the shuttle rate (2% catastrophic failure) for a round trip, would it be okay to send manned vessels?

Botnst