Totes McGoats Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/24/is-mars-one-serious-about-suicide-mission-to-red-planet/ There’s an old joke about sending someone you hate on a one-way trip to Mars. Now, a Dutch entrepreneur has formed a company around this concept -- and it’s no joke. Bas Lansdorp, the 35-year-old founder of Mars One, told FoxNews.com his company is serious about a one-way mission. The company will hold a worldwide lottery next year to select 40 people for a training team. They will then set up a mock colony in the desert, possibly somewhere in the U.S., for three months. This initial team will be reduced to ten crew members. They will then be sent to Mars, never again to return. “We will send humans to Mars in 2023,” he told FoxNews.com. “They will live there the rest of their lives. There will be a habitat waiting for them, and we’ll start sending four people every two years.” The habitat will consist of several housing structures that Mars One will launch before 2023. In 2016, the company plans to launch the first supply vessel. In 2018, it plans to send a rover. Lansdorp says his four-person company will coordinate the launches, but it will work with suppliers for the ship and rockets. For example, Mars One might use the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is currently being developed as a launch system for larger spacecraft. To help fund the project, Lansdorp says there could be a reality show based on the selection process and test colony. Paul Römer, the co-founder and executive producer of the show "Big Brother," is an adviser for Mars One. Other advisers include Nobel Prize winner Dr. Gerard 't Hooft and Brian Enke, an analyst at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., who studies space missions. 'We will send humans to Mars in 2023. They will live there the rest of their lives.' - Mars One founder Bas Lansdorp Even with the complexities of sending a human to Mars, attention has centered on the one-way trip. Those selected won’t come back to Earth, although a return mission to retrieve the explorers might not be out of the question. “In theory, it is less complex to get people back to Earth once you have a sustainable settlement on Mars,” Lansdorp told FoxNews.com. “However, our astronauts will be offered a one-way trip. We have no idea when it will be possible to offer return tickets.” Norbert Kraft, a former NASA researcher who studied group psychology for long-term human missions, says the Mars One crew will have to be carefully selected by psychiatrists and prepped to deal with psychological factors like how to collaborate in stressful situations and anticipate problems. Meanwhile, NASA has maintained that future missions will probably involve robots. That said, in late 2010, a director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California did make an off-hand comment about a DARPA project to send a spaceship with humans on a 100-year mission to Mars. Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot with Neil Armstrong who landed on the moon, has maintained for years that the only way for humans to reach Mars is to plan a one-way mission. Still, the Mars One project faces some tough issues. Lansdorp says colonists would have to grow plants using a chemical process called hydroponics, which does not use soil. The spaceship design will have to be large enough to accommodate passengers and the fuel needed to reach the Red Planet, which is about 34 million miles from Earth at the closest launch point and orbital position. And, if there are any delays in developing the rockets or technology needed for the trip, Mars One would suffer. Enke says scientists have learned more about the Martian climate and geography in recent years. He says scientists view a trip to Mars as safer and more affordable now than in the past. Missions that involve only robots will not capture the public’s attention as much as a human mission. “Over those next ten years, NASA has planned a series of highly complex robotic missions to return a small sample of Martian regolith back to Earth. The cost of these missions will easily exceed $5 billion. When judged in terms of cost-benefit ratio or chances of mission success, these uber-expensive and risky robotic missions now have a hard time competing with simplified human missions,” says Enke. Enke and Lansdorp both argued that a human can explore in a way a robot can’t. There’s a six-minute delay between communications from Earth to the robot, so the robots would need to be highly autonomous and pre-programmed. Yet, a human can make decisions and judgments as needed. Enke, who prefers the term “extended stay” mission, says round-trip missions are much more complex because of the need for a contingency return trip. The mission to Mars, he says, removes 90 percent of the uncertainty. “Most of the complexity in short-stay missions involves creating fuel for the return trip, landing and launching an ascent vehicle for the return, orbital rendezvous, or returning to Earth.” Still, Lansdorp has not quite announced how the Mars One lottery will work. The selection process will start next year, he says. Unfortunately, you can’t make any suggestions. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/24/is-mars-one-serious-about-suicide-mission-to-red-planet/#ixzz21ZsZlxQq Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift-4 Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PxNVGnibok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbbyNucksFan Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I'd volonteer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Sign me up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustJokinen! Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 They must be running out of new locations for "Survivor." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Sounds like a video game from id Software - Doom anyone? Seriously, this sounds really cool and I hope they pull it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
:D Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Finally, let's do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dittohead Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 they'll go insane and we'll get to watch on tv. it would be fun for the 1st month then you'd want to go home just like any other trip. then of course there'll be babies it'll jump the shark series will end in disaster and get cancelled...but in this series the characters will die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift-4 Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 If you have a Martian milkshake, and I come there to have your milkshake, and I have an Earth straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the solar system, and starts to drink your milkshake... I... drink... your... milkshake! I drink it up! mmm....martiany! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pimpcurtly Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Great! As if Earth wasn't enough, now we can start screwing up other planets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 As much as I love the idea of sending reality show contestants (or CDC posters) to Mars I can't help but think their plan to send over a habitat ahead of time doesn't have much chance of sucsess at this moment. Of course, we could simply tell them that it's working and maybe they will luck out and simply adapt to the thinner atmosphere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Guess you had to be there........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobble Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I assume when they have a world-wide lottery, they are selecting from a pool of qualified individuals?!? I'd be interested in it. It would be a huge committment, but to be apart of something like that is almost too good to pass up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoolander Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Could you imagine living with 9 other random people in a small area for the rest of your life. They can't even go outside until an atmosphere is built. I'd go insane, but if the mission works and an atmosphere is eventually built, I wouldn't mind taking a trip there.What an experience that would be! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobble Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 If they can send a habitat ahead of time that would be fully operational for humans to then later colonize, why not just send huge terraforming machines to create an atmosphere?!? However, I assume it would take hundreds of years to create a suitable atmosphere for humans to breath normally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goalie13 Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Could you imagine living with 9 other random people in a small area for the rest of your life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Self contained units that can survive indefinately haven't even been shown to be functional here on earth. If they were we could be colonising the ocean and the moon - two places we can get back from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanGnome Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 If they can send a habitat ahead of time that would be fully operational for humans to then later colonize, why not just send huge terraforming machines to create an atmosphere?!? However, I assume it would take hundreds of years to create a suitable atmosphere for humans to breath normally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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