Mars One, a non-profit company founded by Bas Lansdrop, intends on launching one of the most ambitious projects in human history – A one way manned mission to Mars in 2025. They want to send 24 people to colonise a planet that man has never stepped foot on. A planet that Schwarzenegger struggled to survive on…and not only that, they intend to turn it into reality TV.
The aim of Mars One is to create the first human colony on the red planet, a colony consisting of people who have simply applied to take part. Once the application process is complete and the 24 contestants are selected, they will begin training. This training will consist of living in an Earth based replica of the settlement intended to be present on Mars. The catch to this game? There are no return journeys…..
While the potential success of the project offers invaluable insight and knowledge to the Human race, the big question on many lips is this. Can the Mars One project really be a success? Can people, previously untrained in space travel, reach the red planet? Let alone survive long term and build a sustainable colony when they get there.
Elmo Keep, an Australian writer, is one of many that thinks they cannot achieve this in the ambitious timescale. Keep spent a year with the project and reported her observations in the report “All Dressed Up for Mars and Nowhere to go”. Her conclusion states that “Mars One doesn’t appear to be in any way qualified to carry off the biggest, most complex, most audacious, and most dangerous exploration mission in all of human history.”
According to Keep, there are several factors surrounding the mission which hint to its improbable success, for example Cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev spent 211 days in orbit and lost his eye sight due to the elevated radiation levels. The Mars One trip will require seven to nine months in orbit, and the occupants intend on living there indefinitely. The longest anyone has ever lived in space is 14 months, so we really have no idea how the human body will react to years on Mars.
Another report by MIT details yet more issues which could prove a setback for the program. The report discusses issues such as vegetation producing unsafe levels of oxygen which would eventually “cause human inhabitants to suffocate” as the level of oxygen in our own air is perfect for our bodies; An issue which currently has no technology developed for use in space.
Despite these issues, the project is certainly eye catching in its ambition to say the least. After the success of landing on a moving comet with the Rosetta space probe last year, Mars One may be controversial, but it is keeping space exploration in the minds of the general public. Successful or not, it promises to be a talking point for potentially years to come.
But let’s say the next big brother type show is a success, could you do it? Could you commit to being one of the most isolated people in the world, and never see a different face in the world except for a new born baby? At Fisher Jones Greenwood, we would be happy with just watching it from the comfort of our homes, millions of miles away from the real action.