Mars-One: People living on Mars in 2023

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Mars-One aims to send four people to live on Mars indefinitely by 2023, with funding expected from media interest akin to a reality TV show. Critics argue the mission is implausible due to the high costs, untested technology, and lack of essential life support systems for survival on Mars. Concerns include the psychological stability of volunteers, the feasibility of food production, and the challenges of landing and operating on the Martian surface. The timeline is deemed unrealistic, with many asserting that even with significant funding, the mission would likely fail. Overall, skepticism prevails regarding the viability of Mars-One's ambitious plans.
  • #61
Drakkith said:
What do they do if something happens and Earth can't send the supply ships? Perhaps a major accident in launch or upon return to Earth or the supply ship crashes on Mars. Anything less than a fully self sufficient colony (or as close to it as we can get) would be extremely dangerous.
You overdesign. In this case that means you send so many supply ships that the loss of one is no disaster. Besides, the supply ships themselves don't need to carry life support. They can carry a very large payload. And the first ones can be sent ahead of the humans.
 
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  • #62
D H said:
Turn to the public? There would be no SpaceX without NASA. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Funding
Funding
As of May 2012, SpaceX has operated on total funding of approximately one billion dollars in its first ten years of operation. Of this, private equity has provided about $200M, with Musk investing approximately $100M and other investors having put in about $100M. The remainder has come from progress payments on long-term launch contracts and development contracts. NASA has put in about $400-500M of this amount, with most of that as progress payments on launch contracts.​
About half of the total funding to SpaceX came from NASA, and a good chunk of the rest came from the DoD. Musk would have had a very hard time finding investors had it not been for those government contracts. The development of that Dragon to the ISS was funded almost entirely by NASA. This is something that NASA has very much wanted to happen for a long time, and has been working with industry to make that happen. (Well, some parts of NASA. Other parts of NASA are stuck in the stone age.)
Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but I'm not completely clear on how that makes SpaceX different from, say, Lockheed or North American/Rockwell/Boeing. Is it simply that NASA has less control over the design/construction and mostly just pays for it as opposed to directing (contracting) the design/construction and staffing the launch and control facilities?
 
  • #63
lvlastermind said:
to live there indefinitely.

Sure, I don't know why this thread is full of such naysayers! It's VERY POSSIBLE to get them there indefinitely by 2023...you never added the caveat that we need to get them there ALIVE did you... :-)
 
  • #64
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