More than 100,000 want to go to Mars and not return, project says

[AdamSmith]

Think I'll wait til the Martian escort population builds up a bit...

More than 100,000 want to go to Mars and not return, project says

By Jennifer Juarez, CNNMexico.com

updated 5:15 PM EDT, Fri August 9, 2013 | Filed under: Innovations

Mars applicants apply here

(CNN) -- More than 100,000 people are eager to make themselves at home on another planet. They've applied for a one-way trip to Mars, hoping to be chosen to spend the rest of their lives on uncharted territory, according to an organization planning the manned missions.

The Mars One project wants to colonize the red planet, beginning in 2022. There are financial and practical questions about this venture that haven't been clarified. Will there be enough money? Will people really be able to survive on Mars? But these haven't stopped some 30,000 Americans from signing up.

You can see some of the candidates on the project's website, but they're not the only ones who have applied, said Bas Lansdorp, Mars One CEO and co-founder.

"There is also a very large number of people who are still working on their profile, so either they have decided not to pay the application fee, or they are still making their video or they're still filling out the questionnaire or their resume. So the people that you can see online are only the ones that have finished and who have set their profiles as public," Lansdorp said.

The entrepreneur did not specify how many have paid the fees, completed their profiles and configured them as private.

The application process

Anyone 18 or older may apply, but the fee depends on a user's nationality. For Americans, it's $38; if you're in Mexico, however, it's a mere $15.

The company said it sets the price based on the gross domestic product per capita of each nation. "We wanted it to be high enough for people to have to really think about it and low enough for anyone to be able to afford it," Lansdorp said.

For the first crew, the Mars One mission will cost $6 billion, Lansdorp said. The idea is for it to be funded by sponsors and media that will pay for broadcasting rights of shows and movies documenting everything from the astronauts' training on Earth to their deployment and colonization of Mars.

Out of the applicants, Mars One said it will select a multicontinental group of 40 astronauts this year. Four of them -- two men and two women -- are set to leave for Mars in September 2022, landing in April 2023.

Another multicontinental group of four will be deployed two years later, according to the Mars One plan. None of them will return to Earth.

An illustration shows the proposed Mars One settlement. A manned mission to Mars is planned in nearly a decade.

The astronauts will undergo a required eight-year training in a secluded location. According to the project site, they will learn how to repair habitat structures, grow vegetables in confined spaces and address "both routine and serious medical issues such as dental upkeep, muscle tears and bone fractures."

"What we want to do is tell the story to the world," Lansdorp said, "when humans go to Mars, when they settle on Mars and build a new Earth, a new planet. This is one of the most exciting things that ever happened, and we want to share the story with the entire world."

How will Mars be colonized?

Each lander that Mars One sends will be able to carry about 5,511 pounds of "useful load" to Mars, he said. After eight missions, more than 44,000 pounds of supplies and people are expected to have arrived. The capsules themselves, whose weight is not included in that number, will become part of the habitat.

Food and solar panels will go in the capsules. Earth won't be sending much water or oxygen though -- those will be manufactured on Mars, Lansdorp said.

Astronauts will filter Martian water from the Martian soil. "We will evaporate it and condense it back into its liquid state," he said.

"From the water we can make hydrogen and oxygen, and we will use the oxygen for a breathing atmosphere inside the habitat. This will be prepared by the rovers autonomously before the humans arrive."

It sounds like terraforming, a process in which the conditions of a planet are modified to make it habitable, but Lansdorp said it isn't.

"We will create an atmosphere that looks like the atmosphere on Earth, so you could say that we are terraforming the habitat. But to terraform the entire planet, that's a project that will take hundreds and hundreds of years," he added.

A dangerous mission

In spite of the risks of space travel, the Mars One founder said he is convinced of the viability of the project. However, some space travel experts have said the risks are far too high to carry out these manned missions to Mars, a distance that humans have never traveled.

Radiation is a big concern. NASA does not allow their astronauts to expose themselves to radiation levels that could increase their risk of developing cancer by more than 3%.

To maintain the radiation exposure standards that NASA requires, the maximum time an astronaut can spend in space "is anywhere from about 300 days to about 360 days for the solar minimum activity. For solar maximum, in ranges anywhere from about 275 days to 500 days," said Eddie Semones, NASA spaceflight radiation officer.

A round-trip journey to Mars could expose astronauts to the maximum amount of radiation allowed in a career under current NASA standards, according to a recent study by scientists at the space agency. Mars One is planning a one-way journey, which doesn't negate the problem, and being on Mars could expose astronauts to even more radiation, depending on how long they stay and what the shielding conditions are like.

Radiation damages cells' DNA, which can lead to cell death or permanent changes that may result in cancer. However, "there's no convincing human evidence for excess abnormalities in offspring of radiation-exposed adults," Semones said.

While orbiting the Earth, astronauts get exposed to greater concentrations of cosmic background radiation than here on Earth in addition to charged particles trapped in the upper atmosphere and from the sun, said Robert J. Reynolds, epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

As a spacecraft moves into deep space, the people on board would be exposed to even more cosmic radiation and solar particles, which is "fairly dangerous," Reynolds said.

Interestingly, according to Reynolds, astronauts' risk of dying of cancer is lower than that of the general public because they tend to be in shape, eat well, don't smoke and receive careful monitoring from doctors. Of course, none of them have been to Mars.

Semones emphasized that NASA does not study the health effects of Mars colonization and that it's focusing on shorter recognition missions of the surface of Mars. "We're not looking at colonization of Mars or anything. We're not focusing our research on those kinds of questions."

Can it be done?

Mars One isn't the only group hoping to make history by sending people to the red planet. The Inspiration Mars Foundation wants to launch two people -- a man and a woman -- on a 501-day, round-trip journey to Mars and back in 2018 without ever touching down.

At this time there is no technology that can protect astronauts from an excess of space radiation. "The maximum number of days to stay with our standards is on the order of 500 days. So any mission that would exceed 500 days would not be doable," Semones said.

Reynolds agreed: "At this point it's completely infeasible to try to send someone to Mars unless we can get there faster or we develop better shielding for a spacecraft."

NASA is working on engines intended to cut the travel time to Mars by the 2030s, but those systems won't be ready for many years, Chris Moore, NASA's deputy director of advanced exploration systems, told CNN this year. In the meantime, Moore said engineers could try to limit travelers' exposures by designing a spacecraft in such a way that it provides more protection.

But Mars One founder Lansdorp insisted his group will get people landing on Mars by 2023.

"The risks of space travel in general are already very high, so radiation is really not our biggest concern," he said.

If that all sounds good, you can still sign up.

But remember: You can never go home again.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/09/tech/innovation/mars-one-applications/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

[RA1]

I have a few folks that I would propose be added to their list. In fact, I have at least a few multiples of $38 I would contribute to that cause.

Are folks so bored with their lives here on earth or so desperate about their chances for a future that they would eagerly embrace a one way trip to Mars? Somehow I see hardly any of the usual rewards from being there that most people seek. This seems to require the "wrong stuff" to qualify. I cannot even agree that someone needs to do it.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

I cannot even agree that someone needs to do it.

Indeed $38/head seems like a bargain to deal with a few troublesome folk.

I agree. Mars is a great target for what we're doing there right now: robotic investigation.

As messed up in several respects as our space program is today, a maybe under-appreciated aspect of it is the great success of the many, many unmanned missions underway even now -- not only the new Mars rover, but also the Opportunity rover, still operating almost ten years into its mission, the Voyager probe now in the process of leaving the sphere of solar influence and beginning to give first readings of the interstellar medium, all the other near- and deep-space probes finding new things. The cost/benefit of unmanned exploration far exceeds that of manned spaceflight.

Where I think manned missions would make sense would be to establish permanent bases on the moon, for scientific research such as giant radiotelescopes on the far side, shielded from Earth's electronic racket, etc., and also for industrial purposes beginning with extraction of lunar mineral resources. This was originally part of the Apollo plan -- a phase 2 after the initial trips, to be called the Apollo Applications Program. A casualty of the early '70s political and economic climate, alas.

[RA1]

An early AAP, eh, even before we had smart phones?

Obviously we don't have the political will to colonize the moon and far too many folks think space programs in general are a waste of money. They don't stop to think (period) about the benefits already realized. Tang, pens that write upside down, drunk astronauts that race up and down Daytona Beach, etc.

If the current administration wants to spend money on projects that are greener than green what could be better than space? It is the new garbage pit for pollutants. NASA can't/won't go broke (like so many of the green projects) so long as we can continue to print money. Of course, if we completely turned the private sector loose we would already be on Mars.

Best regards,

RA1

[caeron]

What a brilliant scam. Pay me $38 for the privilege of filling out a form with which nothing will be done.

[AdamSmith]

Sort of like those companies that will "name" a star for you, for a fee that gets you an official-looking certificate hot off the laser printer. Meanwhile the NGC remains serenely unperturbed.

[lookin]

I have a few folks that I would propose be added to their list.

I've got my holiday shopping done!

[Guest EXPAT]

I know a bunch of politicians I'd like to send to Mars that would never return.

[AdamSmith]

As in...

[RA1]

Over the moon was always one of my most popular sayings.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Life on Mars: How a One-Way Martian Colony Project Could Work

By Katia Moskvitch, SPACE.com Contributor December 6, 2013 6:09 AM

LONDON — It's a one-way ticket, but don't worry: You'll live there longer than back home on Earth, says Bas Lansdorp. After all, on Mars you can't get hit by a car. And everything you'll eat will be organic — no pesticides, just fertilizer made from, well, recycled human waste.

As he addresses a room full of entrepreneurs, Lansdorp — founder of the Mars One colony project—looks as excited as a child. He is here at a recent International Space Commerce summit to promote his out-of-this-world idea, a one-way trip to the Red Planet, and possibly spark the interest of investors.

"There's no good answer to the question why exactly we want to go to Mars. But it will happen because exploration is what we humans do," Lansdorp says enthusiastically. [Photos: How Mars One Wants to Colonize the Red Planet]

Wanted: Mars colonists

The audience of suited-up men and women watches Landsorp speak, every now and then a sarcastic question pops up. "And have you thought about space radiation?" asked one listener.

Lansdorp has. He explained that the water the crews will carry to Mars will serve as shielding against deadly solar particles and cosmic rays. And once on the Red Planet, the habitat's roof will have some two meters of Martian soil for protection. You'll just have to make sure not to wander outside too much and you'll be okay. [Red Planet or Bust: 5 Manned Mars Mission Ideas]

Lansdorp has also thought through the entire time scale of what will happen when. More than 200,000 candidates have applied already, and on Dec. 10, Landsdorp is expected to announce who's made it into the second round of selection.

The first unmanned mission to pave the way will leave in 2016, followed by a first rover in 2018. This vehicle will start scouting for a perfect spot for the human outpost. In 2023, it will be joined by the very first Martians-to-be.

"What about you, will you go there?" asked another listener. It seems to be an unexpected question, which makes the Mars One founder pause momentarily.

"I started Mars One because I wanted to go, and I still want to go to Mars, but I had my first son a few weeks ago," Lansdorp answered. "But it's not even the main reason. I am just not that kind of person who can be locked up in a small room for 30 months with other people without hating each other."

"But I really hope I will be able to take my family to Mars one day," he added.

Martians forever

Lansdorp's vision evokes the image of a Ray Bradbury story "The Million-Year Picnic" in the book "The Martian Chronicles."

In the story, a father takes his family to Mars in the midst of war on Earth, duping them to believe it's only for a short vacation. When they arrive, he blows up the rocket and takes his wife and sons to meet other Martians. They go to a canal (on Bradbury's Mars, it is full of water), and see their reflection. That's the point — they are Martians. [Incredible Technology: How to Live on Mars]

Lansdorp's plan is very similar, except that in real life the Mars One crew won't have canals filled with water when they reach their destination. Nor will there be any breathable atmosphere. "The rovers will activate life support systems, they will feed them with Martian soil, which has ice crystals in it. This water will evaporate, and to make oxygen, we'll take nitrogen from the Martian atmosphere. We'll create an atmosphere," Lansdorp said.

That may work, technology permitting, and Lansdorp is sure it'll happen. But he is also certain that the Mars One colonists who leave Earth will be just like the folks in Bradbury's tale: They'll be Martians.

There may be more than 200,000 people happy to leave Earth (those who applied to the Mars One project online) but those that actually do make the trip, will never be coming back — even if they manage to build a rocket to return. "They will lose bone mass and muscle mass to such an extent that it will be extremely difficult for them to gain it back to survive a return trip to Earth and then the re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

"They'll be Martians for the rest of their lives," Landsdorp said.

Live from Mars: Red Planet reality TV

To get his venture up and running, Lansdorp needs money.

Initially, he plans to finance it by turning the venture into a reality TV-like show, with people back home on Earth watching in real time the departure, the several months long trip, the arrival and the life at the first human outpost away from Earth.

So how much will it cost? About $6 billion to get the first four people on Mars and $4 billion for every crew that follows, says Lansdorp. But that's feasible, he added, because "the Olympic Games in London made about $4 billion in just three weeks of broadcasting, just because the world was watching. But this will be a lot bigger."

Of course, the world won't be watching forever, and at some point viewers' interest will dwindle — unless everything on the Red Planet starts going topsy-turvy. And if it doesn't, Lansdorp is certain that money will still be flooding in, to support the human outcasts far, far away.

"There is a small group of people in the world who have a lot of money," Lansdorp said with a cheeky smile. "There are 200 billionaires who can finance the trip from their net wealth. And if you have $6 billion in the bank, what are you going to do with it? You can buy a house, an island — but you'll still have $6 billion.

"Well, we offer you to buy immortality."

That may be well and good for Lansdorp's idealistic vision. After all, he isn't headed for Mars anytime soon.

But for those Mars One colonist hopefuls, assuming they make it, survive and even have kids, there may well be another reality TV show in a few decades from now: one about the first few Martians desperately trying to get back to Earth, wondering whether their parents made a wise choice.

One thing is certain: Those kids would have one heck of a story.

Follow Katia Moskvitch on Twitter @SciTech_Cat. Follow us @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

http://news.yahoo.com/life-mars-one-way-martian-colony-project-could-110952177.html

[Guest EXPAT]

Speaking of Interstellar travel, this movie trailer is unbelievable. That wave really freaked me out.

[MsGuy]

What a brilliant scam. Pay me $38 for the privilege of filling out a form with which nothing will be done.

$38 x 100,000 = $3,800,000??!!

Really, caeron, what a magnificent scam! I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this first.

But who would of thought 100,000 folks would send real money to a web site like this? Bas Lansdorp, is that a Nigerian name?

[AdamSmith]

But only $15 for Mexicans, it said. What a deal!

[Guest StevenDraker]

Bad Predictions

Inventions that succeeded even though some important people stated otherwise.

In 1899, Charles Howard Duell, the Commissioner of Patents, was quoted as saying, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." And of course we now know that to be so far from the truth. However, it was only an urban legend that Duell ever made that bad prediction.

In fact, Duell stated that in his opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the 20th century would witness. A middle-aged Duell even wished that he could live his life over again to see the wonders which were to come.

Ian Gavan/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

• Bad Predictions About Computers

In 1977, Ken Olson the founder of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) was quoted as saying, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Years earlier in 1943, Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, stated "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Nobody seemed able to foretell that someday computers would be everywhere. But that was hardly surprising since computers used to be as big as your house. In a 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics it was written, "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." Only 1.5 toms.... More »

• Bad Predictions About Airplanes

In 1901 aviation pioneer, Wilbur Wright made the infamous quote, "Man will not fly for 50 years." Wilbur Wright said this right after an aviation attempt made by the Wright Brothers failed. Two years later in 1903, the Wright Brothers did indeed fly in their first successful flight, the first manned airplane flight ever made.

In 1904, Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre stated that, "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." Today, aircraft are heavily used in modern warfare.

"The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn't mean they are any good at making aircraft." This was a statement made in 1942 at the height of WW2, by the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe (German airforce), Hermann Goering. Well, we all know that Goering was on the losing side of that war, and that today the aviation industry is strong in the United States. More »

• Bad Predictions About Telephones
In 1876, a cash-strapped Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first successful telephone offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000. While considering Bell's offer, which Western Union turned down, officials who reviewed the offer wrote the following recommendations.

"We do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their telephone devices in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States?.. ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy. This device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase." More »

• Bad Predictions About Lightbulbs

In 1878, a British Parliamentary Committee made the following comments about the lightbulb, "good enough for our transatlantic friends [Americans] but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men."

And apparently there were scientific men of that time period that agreed with the British Parliament. When German-born English engineer and inventor, William Siemens heard about Edison's lightbulb in 1880, he remarked, "such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress." Scientist and president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Henry Morton stated that, "Everyone acquainted with the subject [Edison's lightbulb] will recognize it as a conspicuous failure." More »

• Bad Predictions About Radio

American, Lee De Forest was an inventor that worked on early radio technology. De Forest's work made AM radio with tunable radio stations possible. De Forest decided to capitalize on radio technology and promoted the spreading of the technology.

Today, we all know what radio is and have listened to a radio station. However, in 1913 a U.S. District Attorney began prosecution of DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company. The District Attorney stated that "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company." More »

• Bad Predictions About Television

Considering the bad prediction given about Lee De Forest and the radio, it is surprising to learn that Lee De Forest in turn gave a bad prediction about television. In 1926, Lee De Forest had the following to say about the future of television, "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming." More »

source: Bad Predictions - Great Inventions Nobody Believed In

[AdamSmith]

A new analysis of Mars One's plans to colonize the Red Planet finds that the explorers would begin dying within 68 days of touching down

http://time.com/3502724/mars-one-colony-mit-bas-landsdorp/

[Guest callipygian]

A new analysis of Mars One's plans to colonize the Red Planet finds that the explorers would begin dying within 68 days of touching down

http://time.com/3502724/mars-one-colony-mit-bas-landsdorp/

Certainly solves the problem of getting rid of things before you die! Especially since your one carry-on bag needs to fit inside a NASA pre-approved Tang breakfast drink.

[MsGuy]

Seeing as there was an 80% death rate for the first two years at Jamestown and maybe 50% or so for the first 10 or 15 years, maybe it's not so surprising you can recruit folks to go damn near anywhere.

[AdamSmith]

Good point. Not to mention Sir Walter's little venture.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony