If you had asked the Young Me, back in 1969, if man would have walked on Mars by the year 2011, I would have said, “For sure.”

If we could put men on the moon in 1969, less than a decade after we decided it was a good idea, we ought to have a colony on Mars, 42 years later.

Somewhere in the four-decade interlude, we lost interest, or realized the difficulties were too daunting, or decided it didn’t make economic sense.

I thought about this when I looked up at one of the TVs suspended from the ceiling, at the office, and saw guys emerging from what looked like a space capsule, and they were wearing uniforms with “Mars500” patches.

Were the Russians, or the Chinese, even, making a push for the Red Planet?

Well, not exactly. But the Russians (mostly) are thinking about it … and the Mars500 project is the most significant attempt to push forward a flight to Mars.

So, when do we get to go to Mars?

At least someone is thinking about the answer to that question. That is what the Mars500 project is about. The event I saw via CNN was six guys emerging from a simulated trip to Mars.

No one ever got off the ground; they were locked inside a “sorta” space craft for 17 months, in a Moscow warehouse, to test a basic part of the Mars plan — whether you could put six guys into a confined area for 520 days and not have them go crazy or turn hostile. The length of time is pegged to how long it would take to get to Mars, hang around for a bit, and come back.

So far, so good. Far as we know. Though it apparently was a bit boring at the end, particularly.

Let’s back up for a moment. Here is the wiki site for the Mars500 project. It lays out what they hope to accomplish, and begins to get into the difficulties of getting to Mars.

Among the problems of a manned mission to Mars: Long periods of weightlessness or near-weightlessness; the trick of landing on Mars; the trouble of providing food and water for people in space; the amount of radiation that reaches the Martian surface; the amount of sunlight that gets there; how Mars doesn’t make much economic sense.

Turns out, it’s complicated. Really complicated. And going to the moon was not nearly as complicated. Who knew?

Young Me didn’t know. The moon in 1969? And not all that difficult? Mars should be no problem. NASA would be running tours, by 2011!

It now is clear we are not going to make it to Mars in my lifetime. A more realistic question, now, is whether a human will get there in the 21st century.

Might be a close call.