Last week, multimillionaire Dennis Tito, 72, announced in a press release that he was planning "a historic journey to Mars and back" in January 2018.
More details were revealed in a news conference in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
Here's what you need to know.
First, let's meet the brains (and bucks) behind the mission, Dennis Tito. Tito made his fortune as the founder of California-based investment firm Wilshire Associates.
But he's always been interested in space. The tycoon became the first private citizen to visit the International Space Station in 2001.
Tito first flirted with the idea of a manned mission to Mars after coming across a paper, published in 1996, that presented data showing the fastest return trips to Mars, with flight times of a little under a year and a half. The lowest row of four black spots represent those opportunities.
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