Is India sending a manned mission to Mars?

Answer 1

NO, definitely not! India has only just joined the space-race and has yet to send a human being into space, let alone contemplate anything that ambitious. The furthest they have got so far is to send satellites up.

No manned mission to Mars is planned by any country for decades- it takes 8 months to get there, as oppose to the three days or so to reach the Moon, and this presents huge problems over how to keep astronauts alive and healthy during such a long flight there and back. Cryogenesis (deep-freezing someone in suspended animation) does not in reality work for longer than about 6 weeks maximum, so any space vessel that flew to Mars would have to be of enormous size, sufficient to carry enough food and other essential supplies to last for a mission that, in total, would take over a year. It would probably have to be built in space, in orbit around the Earth. Presidents and politicians talk up the idea of landing space explorers on Mars, but in reality this won't happen until the latter part of this Century at the very earliest. If, and when, it does, it will probably have to be a joint collaborative effort involving all of the world's space agencies- NASA, ESA, the Russians and the Chinese.