Ticket to adventure – or madness?

Published Feb 28, 2015

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Cape Canaveral – At an initial cost of $6 billion – funded by a reality TV programme that will chart the project’s progress – the “first footprint on Mars and lives of the crew thereon will captivate and inspire generations”.

Mars One will send its volunteers on the 210-day trip – and sustain them there for the rest of their lives.

Mars One said its crews were people who wanted to settle on Mars, and that the “absence of a return mission reduces the mission infrastructure radically”.

Before the organisation even tries to land people on the planet, a series of robotic exploratory and pre-supply missions will set up a viable Martian base, complete with pods, food and water, supplies and solar panels.

But detractors point out that even if the volunteers reach Mars, they are unlikely to survive long in its cold, inhospitable desert. Toxic razor sharp Martian dust will shred spacesuits, and the crews will face deadly space radiation. Others point out how more than half of unmanned missions to Mars fail.

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, released last October, found that the first crew fatality would occur within 68 days of the trip, and slammed the project as an overambitious suicide mission.

Some have derided the project as a scam, labelling chief executive Bas Landsdorp a “21st century snake oil salesman”.

But Mars One maintains that human settlement on the planet, while complex, is possible with existing technologies.

“Basic elements required for a viable living system are already present on Mars. Thus we need to send more tools and equipment rather than raw elements.

“For example, the location for the first Mars One settlement is selected for the water ice content of the soil there.”

Mars One said blueprints of a Mars human settlement are flung across much of history – from science fiction books to dossiersof national space agencies.

That’s why Dr Andrew Chen, an associate professor of astronomy and space science at Wits University, believes Mars One is more “about the impulse to explore” than scientific endeavour.

“From an astronomical angle... if you want to know if there was life on Mars in the past, putting people on Mars can contaminate samples. Mars is the only planet in the Universe that is entirely populated by robots. It would almost be a shame to spoil it.”

Professor Azwinndini Muronga, head of the science centre at the University of Johannesburg, believes human missions to Mars will push the limits of human endurance, and test our species’ courage.

“Mars will be our next possible home... but I think the challenge of this mission has been underestimated. We need to send more robotic probes to Mars, grow crops, and then possibly send animals.”

* See www.mars-one.com.

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