One Way Trip To Mar Planned

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**WarOne**

So if you want to go to Mars, it is a one way trip for this venture.

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.

**Jihadin**

I see ten murders in the 2023

**purplefood**

Well someone is gonna be stupid enough to volunteer...
Probably 40 people actually...

**Jihadin**

40=stupid
at the end
10=Really F'ing Stupid that can be amused for long periods of time with a box of rocks

**LordofHats**

I've always thought we should go to Mar:

Lets get us some mustached talking ball's on chains

**FM Ninja 048**

I would Definatly Never ever concider signing up for this.

Ever

Nope

Definatly not

so, just out of curiosity, where would you sign up for this, I need to add the site to my blacklist.

**Orlanth**

purplefood wrote:Well someone is gonna be stupid enough to volunteer...
Probably 40 people actually...

I wonder how many people were 'stupid' enough to go on the Mayflower.

This group has the right idea, the benefit is worth the risk on a species level. We don't need Mars 'tourism' we need Mars colonisation. I would consider going.

**Jihadin**

wonder how many people were 'stupid' enough to go on the Mayflower

LOL but your still on earth with an idea that there is land on the otherside of the ocean

The Mars trip is a one way trip. With Orlanth on this. If its a start for colonization on Mars and feasable as all get go to establish it then I might consider is. Change my name to John Carter first though

**dogma**

Orlanth wrote:
I wonder how many people were 'stupid' enough to go on the Mayflower.

Its not really analogous, what with the whole "breathable atmosphere" thing. There's also a huge difference between being in a group 102 people in an open environment, and a group of 10 people in a tightly cloistered one.

**Ahtman**

dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
I wonder how many people were 'stupid' enough to go on the Mayflower.

Its not really analogous, what with the whole "breathable atmosphere" thing.

Lets not forget the that there were already people that had made the journey before them as well. It isn't like Mayflower was the fist Europeans to head over to the Americas.

**Orlanth**

The bottom line is that unless we fix what we are doing to the earth the only option we have is to get off. As improving our stewardship over this planet involves getting too many people on board and is at cross purposes with most goals of fiscal economics I can see off world colonisation as being more likely to succeed than fixing the political and economic problems we are creating for ourselves.

Howeverr I do think that Mars is a step too far too soon. I would like to see a mining colony on the moon and a space station community at a Legrange point (4 or 5). Its closer to home and potentially better living environment as you select both pressure and gravity, wheras Mars dictates the latter.

dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
I wonder how many people were 'stupid' enough to go on the Mayflower.

Its not really analogous, what with the whole "breathable atmosphere" thing. There's also a huge difference between being in a group 102 people in an open environment, and a group of 10 people in a tightly cloistered one.

The analogy is closer than you might think. It involves moving away from familiar surroundings to take a long journey to a hostile environment filled with hidden dangers and opportunities, with little hope of return.

Ahtman wrote:
Lets not forget the that there were already people that had made the journey before them as well. It isn't like Mayflower was the fist Europeans to head over to the Americas.

We have already made the journey, we know what is on the other side. In both cases the colonists are the kernel of an isolated community so prior presence is not a requirement for the similarity in pioneering spirit.

**Ahtman**

Orlanth wrote:We have already made the journey, we know what is on the other side.

There is a difference between having machines poke around, and having humans already there. These will be the first humans to go to Mars, the people on the Mayflower weren't the first anything to anywhere. They weren't the first to go to the New World, they weren't the first to go somewhere with plans not to return, and they weren't the first to flee what they felt was religious persecution. When talking about people involved in risky ventures they aren't even in the top 10. It was an important group, but not because they were the first, or because they actually were taking a huge risk. Roanoke and Jamestown were bigger risks.

**dogma**

Orlanth wrote:
The analogy is closer than you might think. It involves moving away from familiar surroundings to take a long journey to a hostile environment filled with hidden dangers and opportunities, with little hope of return.

So, you're saying that the people who use all their savings to move from small town West Virginia in pursuit of an acting career in LA are comparable to the Mayflower colonists?

After all, both leave familiar surroundings in order to take a long journey to a hostile environment filled with hidden dangers and opportunities. And both have little hope of return if the endeavor fails.

Orlanth wrote:
We have already made the journey, we know what is on the other side. In both cases the colonists are the kernel of an isolated community so prior presence is not a requirement for the similarity in pioneering spirit.

So the aspiring actor I mentioned above has a pioneering spirit?

**SagesStone**

I guess it's all good until 2059 when there's a virus in the water...

**purplefood**

Don't worry...
They base has a nuke buried underneath... for some reason...

**SagesStone**

Probably some social experiment. You know how big companies like their secret social experiments.

**LordofHats**

I guess it's all good until 2059 when there's a virus in the water...

Or until we accidentally open a door to hell...

**Doctadeth**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ5sWfhkpE0

**sirlynchmob**

Can we volunteer people to go?

whoever goes will be immortalized though. That first step onto mars will be the biggest thing since we stepped onto the moon.

We remember Columbus, even though he was not the first to discover america. We remember Armstrong, we will remember the first people on mars.

**Monster Rain**

sirlynchmob wrote:Can we volunteer people to go?

tl;dr, eh?

Anyway, I'd totally go to Mars. I can't imagine anything on earth that's remotely as interesting as being one of the first humans to ever set foot on another planet.

**purplefood**

n0t_u wrote:Probably some social experiment. You know how big companies like their secret social experiments.

Vault-Tec
Aperture Science
Umbrella Corporation
The list is extensive...

**SagesStone**

At least until you find the BETA, but that'd be fun for everyone.

**LunaHound**

I can totally see this happening....

stage 1 explore: Everyone is happy and alive!

stage 2 encounter: dun dun dun extra terrestrial life form

stage 3 reinforcement: we got this!

stage 4 despair:

stage 5 aftermath:

stage 7 cover up: What Mars base? It was just a crater :'D ( raccoon city nuke )

**Coolyo294**

purplefood wrote:
n0t_u wrote:Probably some social experiment. You know how big companies like their secret social experiments.

Vault-Tec
Aperture Science
Umbrella Corporation
The list is extensive...

But some of Vault-Tec's social experiments are awesome... Case in point, Vault 69.

**SagesStone**

Stage 8, they end up on Earth anyway and it isn't explained how.

**purplefood**

Coolyo294 wrote:
purplefood wrote:
n0t_u wrote:Probably some social experiment. You know how big companies like their secret social experiments.

Vault-Tec
Aperture Science
Umbrella Corporation
The list is extensive...
But some of Vault-Tec's social experiments are awesome... Case in point, Vault 69.

What about Vault 68 though?

**Coolyo294**

purplefood wrote:
Coolyo294 wrote:
purplefood wrote:
n0t_u wrote:Probably some social experiment. You know how big companies like their secret social experiments.

Vault-Tec
Aperture Science
Umbrella Corporation
The list is extensive...
But some of Vault-Tec's social experiments are awesome... Case in point, Vault 69.

What about Vault 68 though?

Mmmmmmhm. Definitely less awesome.

**Platuan4th**

Luna, where's Stage 6?

WHAT ARE THEY HIDING FROM US?!

**mattyrm**

I volunteer Bono to go.

**gorgon**

I predict they'll raise almost .00000001% of the money they'd need to pull that off.

Really, this plan is like something hatched by the underpants gnomes.

Reality show + ??? = Manned Mars mission! Genius.