OK, how long would this take? If we made the capsule, say 10km wide...give us a few minutes?

Apologies, care to specify, stanx?

I get that a signal couldn't travel back up the cable, assuming it's subject to gravity, I'd be thinking more on board recording inside an incredibly robust casing. Not sure I see the reasoning of wrong direction if attached...surely it could only follow the path of the cable if intact. Gravitational Sheering yes, yes, very strong cable... Weirdness...worth a try?

You only mentioned material stresses in 1st reply...

See, I get what you're saying, but it's theoretically possible, no? Without faster-than-light stuff?

Yeah...you realize that's at the end, right?

Do tell. Guess the rest is accurate then?

I never said otherwise, AFAIK all successful missions to Mars surface are NASA ones. Risks are very high, tho and tbh, I struggle to see them actually doing it in the near future (50x years).

43/78 missions+sub-missions successful, according to wiki. I should clarify that when I said 'we' I meant humanity, not Americans.

At least 20-30 years. I'll take advice from more learned ppl here, but my understanding is that it takes approx 7x months to reach Mars and land. We would need at least 2/3 trips BEFORE the manned flight to drop return fuel, habitat, supplies, etc. We currently lose 50% of the spacecraft we send there, due to unknown reasons. We haven't even started the build for the unmanned stages yet.