Wheels sold separately?

Exactly. If the grid is that sensitive that a 10min interruption along a narrow geographical band causes power companies to panic, then it seems they haven't thought this whole solar thing through well enough. They must have some sort of backup power source for these sorts of occurrences. And what about during the…

What do they do with the grid at night? Do that for 20 minutes

Maybe they were referring to Human DNA. Because I know it would be helpful to me if they labelled foods that contained human DNA, you know, just in case you're one of those health conscious types. Choosy Mom's choose Jif!

Put a big heatshield on the spaceship and use Mars' atmosphere to slow down. How terrifying would that be? Miss the entry angle and you could slam into the surface at 20,000mph, or not slow down enough and fly right past Mars, lost in space forever.

The power to get to Mars isn't the main concern, the Gemini and Apollo missions of the 60's had rocket tech that is on par, or even better than what we can do today. What they didn't have is advanced automated flight computers, some of the lightweight materials, and the mistakes of other pioneers to build upon. ex.…

The first 3 missions you refer to were USSR missions....in 1960! 3 years after Sputnik! So you not only got the agency wrong, but really, we should probably cut them some slack, it being the early 60's and all. Kudos to the Indians, but the comparisons to the first attempts at such a feat aren't fair.