On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 01:30:47 +0000 (UTC), Steve Firth
wrote:

It seems we are on the timeline set by John Wyndham (The Outward Urge),
with a Mars landing in 2094, rather than one in the early part of this
century.

I copy a reply I made elsewhere...

"Which is what we were absorbed with 40 years ago - after the Moon,
what about Mars?
With 70s technology, it would have been an utter, unparalled,
unmitigated disaster in slowmotion. Right now, if it had gone ahead,
we would have still been thinking of those poor dead Marsnauts lying
frozen up there and likely any further Mars programmes would have been
put on the back burner for decades or longer.
As it stands, we have a good chance of getting there in a decade or
two and have a decent chance of getting back intact - that's the
tricky bit."