Mars one mission - Realistic or ridiculous?

[james gander]

There is a thread called "mars mission - an act of luncay or science" but this thread is about a specific Mars mission called Mars one.

Sounds to me like this mission is a big fat scam but who really knows?

They have not even got any contacts signed at the moment, they have exaggerated the number of applicants by 100%, they have not got any vehicles etc.

If they honestly believe they are landing humans on Mars in 2023 then they need to at least of sent a probe there by yesterday at the latest!

GRRRRRR! This scam is annoying me, the conspiracy lovers are going to love this.

 

[rootone]

I think it started as a fantastical pipe-dream idea, then got taken over by scam operators later.
If I recall correctly, they have a couple of potential 'colonists' ( aka donators), who over 60 years old.
Those guys would be lucky to make it alive even into low Earth orbit.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained through stupidity.

My feelings are similar to Rootone here, I think early on there was probably a group of people who thought the idea of funding a Mars mission through media rights was a good one. But over time reality sunk in. With regards to it being a scam had it taken people's money?

 

[DennisN]

Reading this thread made me look for information about the current status of the project (e.g. this article: "Mars One Colony Project Delays Manned Red Planet Mission to 2026"), and I finally ended up reading two quite interesting (in my opinion) articles about what astrophysicist Joseph Roche (a Mars One finalist) have said about the project:

• "Shortlisted Mars One astronaut: venture has taken one giant leap backwards" (The Guardian, 18 March 2015)
• "Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters" (Matter, 16 March 2015)

 

[tom aaron]

Ridiculous.

Somewhat sad that the press is full of scientific and technical illiterates.

 

[DiracPool]

There's a similarly ill-conceived project in the works called "inspiration Mars."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration_Mars_Foundation

I'm not a fanatic, but I do try to follow the manned mission to Mars community as best I can, and my conclusion is that these projects arise out of the frustration of especially Apollo-generation people desperate to find someway to get a human to the red planet. Possibly the icon of this frustrated being is Robert Zubrin, who I believe has entertained and even advocated both of these doomed projects.

Let's take both in turn. The Mars one project, as has been alluded to here, is nothing other than a suicide mission, which is fine, but call it what it is at least, instead of trying to pretend it is something else. If I had some intractable disease and had a year to live, I'd love to sign up for the mission. And I think the public may actually even get behind it. Timothy Leary had his ashes shot up into space. I attended a lecture of his at Sonoma State University in California shortly before he died, and the way he was talking I have little doubt he would have taken the trip to Mars at that time.

The Inspiration Mars project is even a worse idea than the Mars One project, IMHO. Why? Because our goal here is to create a meaningful moment and send human beings out to the red planet on a real expedition. It is that mission that is going to generate the public excitement and funding needed to execute the mission. A 501 day "flyby" to Mars with humans aboard is not going to do it. They are not landing on Mars, so who cares? Sure, they could take a selfie with Mars in the background when they get there, but so what? Just send a orbiter with a camera and do the same thing. It's 501 days of wasted nothing. They may as well just hang out on the ISS and get osteoporosis that way.

The real risk, though, with the inspiration Mars deal is that, if these intrepid explorers don't make it back to Earth in one piece, which they probably won't due to underfunding, it's going to set back a legitimate manned mission to Mars project a decade or two or more, because of a paranoia not to repeat this televised catastrophe.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Reading this thread made me look for information about the current status of the project (e.g. this article: "Mars One Colony Project Delays Manned Red Planet Mission to 2026"), and I finally ended up reading two quite interesting (in my opinion) articles about what astrophysicist Joseph Roche (a Mars One finalist) have said about the project:

• "Shortlisted Mars One astronaut: venture has taken one giant leap backwards" (The Guardian, 18 March 2015)
• "Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters" (Matter, 16 March 2015)

Interesting account from the last link, seems like the finalists are just being milked for as much money as possible. Also seems like they were trying to generate media hype enough that the 100 finalists would become celebrities with Mars One as their agent. Relevant sections:

As Roche observed the process from an insider’s perspective, his concerns increased. Chief among them: that some leading contenders for the mission had bought their way into that position, and are being encouraged to “donate” any appearance fees back to Mars One — which seemed to him very strange for an outfit that needs billions of dollars to complete its objective.

“When you join the ‘Mars One Community,’ which happens automatically if you applied as a candidate, they start giving you points,” Roche explained to me in an email. “You get points for getting through each round of the selection process (but just an arbitrary number of points, not anything to do with ranking), and then the only way to get more points is to buy merchandise from Mars One or to donate money to them.”

“Community members” can redeem points by purchasing merchandise like T-shirts, hoodies, and posters, as well as through gifts and donations: The group also solicits larger investment from its supporters. Others have been encouraged to help the group make financial gains on flurries of media interest. In February, finalists received a list of “tips and tricks” for dealing with press requests, which included this: “If you are offered payment for an interview then feel free to accept it. We do kindly ask for you to donate 75% of your profit to Mars One.”

Incidentally we had a rather lengthly discussion on Mars-one a while ago: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/mars-one-people-living-on-mars-in-2023.612739/

 

[tom aaron]

There's a similarly ill-conceived project in the works called "inspiration Mars."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration_Mars_Foundation

I'm not a fanatic, but I do try to follow the manned mission to Mars community as best I can, and my conclusion is that these projects arise out of the frustration of especially Apollo-generation people desperate to find someway to get a human to the red planet. Possibly the icon of this frustrated being is Robert Zubrin, who I believe has entertained and even advocated both of these doomed projects.

Let's take both in turn. The Mars one project, as has been alluded to here, is nothing other than a suicide mission, which is fine, but call it what it is at least, instead of trying to pretend it is something else. If I had some intractable disease and had a year to live, I'd love to sign up for the mission. And I think the public may actually even get behind it. Timothy Leary had his ashes shot up into space. I attended a lecture of his at Sonoma State University in California shortly before he died, and the way he was talking I have little doubt he would have taken the trip to Mars at that time.

The Inspiration Mars project is even a worse idea than the Mars One project, IMHO. Why? Because our goal here is to create a meaningful moment and send human beings out to the red planet on a real expedition. It is that mission that is going to generate the public excitement and funding needed to execute the mission. A 501 day "flyby" to Mars with humans aboard is not going to do it. They are not landing on Mars, so who cares? Sure, they could take a selfie with Mars in the background when they get there, but so what? Just send a orbiter with a camera and do the same thing. It's 501 days of wasted nothing. They may as well just hang out on the ISS and get osteoporosis that way.

The real risk, though, with the inspiration Mars deal is that, if these intrepid explorers don't make it back to Earth in one piece, which they probably won't due to underfunding, it's going to set back a legitimate manned mission to Mars project a decade or two or more, because of a paranoia not to repeat this televised catastrophe.

Mars one is not a suicide mission. It's a NOTHING mission. There is no suicide because one can't build anything like they are talking about and launch it, or travel to, or land on Mars. There is zero such technology developed with zero infrastructure developing it.

As stated, the saddest part is the scientific illiteracy of the press.

 

[jack476]

It would be a "suicide mission" if they actually had a prayer of getting off the ground. Someone else further up the thread mentioned that the "finalists" as it stands wouldn't make it into orbit, let alone the trip all the way to Mars. But that's not a concern, because the technology to even attempt establishing a permanent, even semi-permanent human settlement on Mars simply does not exist yet, no matter how much funding you manage to secure. The Curiosity rover is about the size of a small car (900 Kg), and getting it there was one of the biggest and most expensive space missions in history. Getting what essentially amounts to a small village's worth of equipment and housing to Mars within a decade is simply not possible.

And you know, if we're going to talk about space colonization, at least compared to Mars, the Moon is right there. It would be orders of magnitude easier and cheaper to develop infrastructure there, resupplies are actually possible, and the fact that people have returned from the Moon in the past means that it's not a suicide mission if (when) something goes wrong. It makes for a much better technological proving ground and a way to gain experience without the budgets of entire nations and a requirement that volunteers be willing to die.

But let's not even get that far ahead of ourselves. We don't even know how to make it possible for humans to live in most places here on Earth, and the very worst conditions on Earth pale in comparison to what would be completely ordinary on Mars. We don't know how to keep a human alive in space for an extended period of time, and that's with astronauts with years of training and physical conditioning, forget civilians.

The importance of future human colonization of space is why we need to take careful steps to make sure we don't mess it all up.

 

[james gander]

Yes, seems we are all the same page. It just infuriates me that people are ripping off others and making science look very, very bad while they do it!

Science is already in a battle. People say we are a religion and liars etc and this Mars One mission is not doing us any favours. The general public are already suspicious of science for many reasons we don't need some cowboy Mars mission making things worse.

If i could have my own way i would shut it down. There must be some legal issues surely!

Assisted suicide is illegal in may European countries.