On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 15:33:52 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote:

Has there been any proper work done for a human mission to Mars yet?

NASA has done innumerable studies on the subject, going back at least
to the Apollo era. The chances of Congress agreeing to fund any of
them are somewhere down near zero. In 1989, President Bush 41 proposed
a massive human exploration program for the solar system. It was dead
on arrival on Capitol Hill, mostly because NASA's suggestions were
outrageously expensive, even for NASA ($500 billion was the oft-cited
cost.)

i.e. a rough design on the type of spacecraft that will be used, or
some small amount of metal being bent, or at the very least a rough
selection of who will be in the crew,

NASA would be slapped down by Congress in an instant if it tried to
spend any significant funds on human exploration of Mars. Even things
that weren't really Mars-related, but would have been useful for a
Mars mission, get killed pretty quickly by Congress. See Transhab, for
example.

Ergo, no bent metal, no crew selection, etc.

or at least ANYTHING specfic
that will give some indication that NASA is serious about going to
Mars.

See the Mars Reference Mission:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/mars/ref.../hem/hem1.html

Brian