Corporation Plans 2023 Reality TV Mars Mission

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QoEEGyS ... r_embedded
http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en

A private space consortium (Mars One) led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdrop, promises to get four humans on the surface of Mars as early as 2023, for an estimated cost of six billion USD.

There will be no return journey, it will be a one-way trip. The purpose of the mission is to establish a permanent human settlement on the red planet. The main reason for the one way trip is to slowly grow the colonies population. As every two years, the colony would welcome four new residents.

The entire project from the training phase to the mission itself, will be televised in what could be one of the biggest global media spectacles of all time! The Mars One group hope that the media coverage will in part pay for funding, and attract new investors, as well as inspiring the public to take a more active interest in space exploration.

The Mars One team claim that no new technologies will need to be developed. Apparently all the components needed already exist, and will be provided by a worldwide collection of private space firms. The mission launch vehicle will be Space X’s Falcon nine rocket, and a modified version of the Space X dragon capsule will be used as a lander. The landing site, and habitat will be built by a rover, which will be sent to Mars a few years earlier to prepare for the arrival of the first human colonists.

If your interested in becoming one of the “lucky four” Mars One will be taking applications later this year. Out of these applications 40 people will be selected to take part in a televised 10 year training program in which the applicants/contestants will be narrowed down to the final four through a system of public votes.


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I am cautiously optimistic and excited about this. It has that pioneering "fuck it, let's just do it and figure it out along the ride" attitude. And the reality TV aspect is interesting, and something I've seen pitched by science fiction before.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson likes to say, there are only three motivators for extremely difficult human endeavors;
1)Praise of royalty or diety
2)War
3)The promise of economic return


What do you guys think, will this happen? Is the business model feasible?

Would you volunteer for it? I know I will.

Brekkie wrote:If your interested in becoming one of the “lucky four” Mars One will be taking applications later this year.

/cry


Seriously though, it sounds interesting, but I just have this feeling we'll get to see the death of four people on reality TV.

I... Seriously would consider doing it. FOR GREAT SCIENCE!

I would not consider it, but then I have things worth living for. I suppose if I had nothing to lose and it was Mars or jumping off a bridge, I'd go Mars and let millions of people watch me die.

Mars is a barren rock. Even if you "terraformed" it, it would still not have sufficient magnetosphere to shield it from cosmic radiation. Everything you plant would die.

The only means of survival would be in a completely shielded eco-dome type of thing. Spend the rest of my life trapped indoors with Pauly Shore? No thanks.

It's something I've always thought would be fascinating to do. Giving up thing's here to have that chance I think would be doable. But the main turn off for me is the reality bit. The fact that if you somehow got to be one of the 40 picked for the training, spent 10 years doing training, then got told you weren't going. No thanks.

Here's why Mars will not be habitable, ever:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/

What atmosphere Mars has is a remnant of what it had when it still had a molten core and the accompanying magnetosphere. When the core solidified, the magnetosphere declined, the planet stopped being protected from solar wind, and the atmosphere effectively blew away.

Unless the core of Mars can be reliquified, the planet is dead. We can plant all sorts of plants, but any oxygen they produce would be bled off and swept into space.

So no habitation of Mars will ever be possible outside of controlled environments, which makes for a pretty sucky and boring existence that nobody would want to tune into beyond the initial novely of living on another planet.

One hopes this is just another version of Space Cadets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadets_%28television_hoax%29
in which they actually convinced three idiots that they were orbiting the earth when in fact they were in a television studio in England.

Maybe this time they'll ship some retards off to the Sahara desert and convince them it's Mars. Good for a laugh, and better than sentencing 4 people to certain death.

Koatanga wrote:it still had a molten core

TOO SOON

also, Space Cadets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wjPxl1DAE

Koatanga wrote:The only means of survival would be in a completely shielded eco-dome type of thing. Spend the rest of my life trapped indoors with Pauly Shore? No thanks.

Viva los Bio-dome! Grew up watching that, great reference. No wonder I'm so mixed up now.

I can appreciate the revenue generating reality TV aspect, but it kind of muddies the whole "experiment" by dubbing it entertainment. Hopefully they keep the over dramatization out of it if it ends up going through.

"Who will be shunted out the depressurisation room? Stay tuned!"

I'll be surprised if this project still exists in a year.

Invisusira wrote:also, Space Cadets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wjPxl1DAE

Yeah, I loved that series. The best kinds of reality TV shows are the ones that take a bunch of complete idiots and put them into a circumstance in which they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, so we can all laugh at them.

That's why I am currently enjoying Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel.

If man is going to walk on Mars in our lifetime it will probably have to be one way to start with and deal with the whole return journey thing later. If this did go forward I think you would see it kickstart a massive wave of exploration from other avenues. Quite a few people would probably die, but I doubt you'd have too much problem finding volunteers. Everyone for the next few hundred years at least will know the name of the first person to set foot on Mars. And eventually someone would establish a return path as well, even if it required the original colony setting up some sort of refuelling station.

BTW have you read the Red / Green / Blue Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson? Future history of Martian colonization, very good read.

I'm curious as to why he chose Mars instead of an easier conquest to start with (like the moon)?

Tophus wrote:I'm curious as to why he chose Mars instead of an easier conquest to start with (like the moon)?

Because no one has ever set foot on Mars. The moon is no longer virgin territory. People will be willing to deal with the inevitable ugly death awaiting for them on Mars if they could be the first to walk on it and get their name in the history books for all time.

That and the running hypothesis is that Mars did at one point have the capability to sustain life, so should be able to do so again. AFAIK, the moon has never shown that capability.

Also, Martians > Mooninites.

I don't think that Mars would have been capable of supporting life at any point. At least, not multi-cellular life forms, anyway. Some bacteria (known collectively as archeobacteria) could theoretically have survived on Mars, but anything more complex would have just frozen solid.

Just because there is water somewhere doesn't necessarily mean that place is capable of sustaining life (especially since thanks to the temperatures there it would never have been found in anything but a solid state). And no, Mars will never be able to sustain life at all, thanks to the distance from the "goldilocks zone" and the complete lack of a magnetosphere.

I'm not saying that it can... but it's a more common belief than the moon sustaining life.

There are still people that believe the hollow earth hypothesis. Hell, I saw something on the National Geographic channel about people who still believe the earth is flat.

Just because it's a "common belief" doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

Fivelives wrote:Just because it's a "common belief" doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

Not arguing against that... but the question was:

Tophus wrote:I'm curious as to why he chose Mars instead of an easier conquest to start with (like the moon)?

I was offering my suggestion as to why that might be.

Skye1013 wrote:

Fivelives wrote:Just because it's a "common belief" doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

Not arguing against that... but the question was:

Tophus wrote:I'm curious as to why he chose Mars instead of an easier conquest to start with (like the moon)?

I was offering my suggestion as to why that might be.

My idea is -

People have been to the moon and returned from the moon.

People haven't been to Mars and haven't returned from Mars.

How can you sell a one way/non return trip to the moon ethically? Easier to do it with Mars.

lythac wrote:My idea is -

People have been to the moon and returned from the moon.

People haven't been to Mars and haven't returned from Mars.

How can you sell a one way/non return trip to the moon ethically? Easier to do it with Mars.

If it's a permanent colony, then the return trip is not required in either case. It boils down to whether or not it is ethical to send consenting people to a place from which they can't possibly return.

Pretty much like the early settlers who came to the US - it was a one-way trip for them, and they knew it. The difference is that they could potentially live off the land, whereas the martians or moonies won't have the potential to do so.

In the case of Mars, it's a bit worse, because the moon is always close enough to launch a resupply mission, whereas Mars can be on the other side of the sun from us - effectively out of range for any meaningful emergency resupply mission.

Why Mars and not the Moon ?

1- Humans have already been on the Moon, not on Mars.
Even tough it would still be a technological tour de force to send people to the Moon, the general public probably wouldn't find it impressive.

2- There isn't much scientific interest in returning to the Moon.

3- It's easier to sustain a permanent base on Mars than on the Moon.

culhag wrote:Why Mars and not the Moon ?

1- Humans have already been on the Moon, not on Mars.
Even tough it would still be a technological tour de force to send people to the Moon, the general public probably wouldn't find it impressive.

2- There isn't much scientific interest in returning to the Moon.

3- It's easier to sustain a permanent base on Mars than on the Moon.

I agree with 1 and 2, but I would disagree on 3. Sure don't have a vacuum to contend with on Mars, but you do have (extreme) weather, which is likely worse due to unpredictability. We (humanity) know how to sustain a base in vacuum almost indefinitely (space stations) and resupply to the moon would be exponentially easier than Mars. Not to mention getting / sending things back much easier from a shallower gravity well.

Yes it's easier to send supplies to the Moon, but I'm talking about a completely autonomous base here.

Ironshield wrote:

culhag wrote:Why Mars and not the Moon ?

1- Humans have already been on the Moon, not on Mars.
Even tough it would still be a technological tour de force to send people to the Moon, the general public probably wouldn't find it impressive.

2- There isn't much scientific interest in returning to the Moon.

3- It's easier to sustain a permanent base on Mars than on the Moon.

I agree with 1 and 2, but I would disagree on 3. Sure don't have a vacuum to contend with on Mars, but you do have (extreme) weather, which is likely worse due to unpredictability. We (humanity) know how to sustain a base in vacuum almost indefinitely (space stations) and resupply to the moon would be exponentially easier than Mars. Not to mention getting / sending things back much easier from a shallower gravity well.

What? No. Wind speeds may reach high levels, but because the atmosphere is so thin, the actual effect would feel similar to a light breeze on Earth.
Unless you were talking about Solar weather, in which case that's not a big deal either because the light travels faster than the particles, allowing enough warning to retreat to shelters.