[space] Is Mars-one a scam?

[Nephf]

Designing a machine to endure a sustained g load of that magnitude isn't a difficult challenge. It seems a bit strange that you are arguing against the idea that probes can cope with a flight regime that's more hostile than humans can. After all, the fact that they can endure more adverse conditions is half the reason it's so much cheaper and easier to send probes than humans.

You may be right. But there are not 10-15 gees. Where should they come from? The Martian atmosphere is very thin and they com with "just" 50.000 km/h.

third. There is no launcher. Since nothing is known about the craft there is no knowing how much the launcher should be capable of lifting. Mars-one says on the website that they will use the Falcon nine Heavy. that launcher is capable (when it is finished) of transporting 13 tons to Mars. The Apollo spacecraft was about 30 tons. and that could only serve a crew of 3 for about a week!

You're right. But the Apollo is 45 years old. Do you think nobodyhas developed a more lightweight method of construction for spacecrafts? In fact, the Apollo weighed 30 tons becaus it had fuel to slowdown at the moon and fly back to earth. The Dragon is suitable for up to 7 Persons and weights 12.5 tons.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Nephf

[Kryten]

The martian atmosphere being thin is the issue. It's simply because they have to come to a stop before the heat shield is completely burned through, and before they hit the ground, using the limited amount of atmosphere that's there. The only option is to come in relatively steep.

[Nephf]

The martian atmosphere being thin is the issue. It's simply because they have to come to a stop before the heat shield is completely burned through, and before they hit the ground, using the limited amount of atmosphere that's there. The only option is to come in relatively steep.

You don't want to tell me that the heat shield will be the problem ......

[Kryten]

You could just slow down of course, but you've already discounted that as a possibility by turning the upper stage into a friendly home filled with neurotoxic carcinogens, discounting the possibility of any kind of service module, and needing the superdracos for actually landing.

[Nephf]

You could just slow down of course, but you've already discounted that as a possibility by turning the upper stage into a friendly home filled with neurotoxic carcinogens, discounting the possibility of any kind of service module, and needing the superdracos for actually landing.

You don't need to slowdown! You build a good heatshield, like the ones for Venus probes, don't go down steep, open high-atmospheric parachutes and make a powered landing!

[Kryten]

The heat-shielding on the venus probes won't have been significantly different from that on, say, Curiosity. During re-entry, heat shields end up creating a layer of ionised gas, which absorbs the heat rather than the shield itself. That's why re-entry bodies are almost always blunt shapes-to create such a layer rather than directly contacting the atmosphere. This in turn results in time spent during re-entry being the major factor in whether or not a body burns up or not-and shallow re-entries like you're proposing being fatal.

[3_bit]

Who can say? As with many things, only time can tell. It could be a scam, stating it is or is not is pure speculation on our part as of now. I sincerely hope it isn't, though.

[problemecium]

Regarding the "one way" complaints, all I have to say is that just because Mars One is one-way doesn't mean all space programs are permanently forbidden to bring any of them home. They can just do what stranded Kerbals do and hang out until somebody else comes for them. Surely there'll be another Mars mission SOMEDAY.

[78stonewobble]

Oh, it's not a scam, if you truely belive your idea is great.

Doesn't necessarily mean the idea is any good tho...

Besides it would be discrimination to not allow delusionals to be entrepeneurs.

[78stonewobble]

Regarding the "one way" complaints, all I have to say is that just because Mars One is one-way doesn't mean all space programs are permanently forbidden to bring any of them home. They can just do what stranded Kerbals do and hang out until somebody else comes for them. Surely there'll be another Mars mission SOMEDAY.

I'm all for the "one way" missions to mars actually. As long as it's a voluntary thing and they'll get the necessary support to stay alive, even if certain things break down.

[Mazon Del]

Mars One Applicant here. I didn't make it past the first selection round (oh well).

Here is my view on it all, look at it from the punnet square style. You have two sets of two possibilities. It's a scam or it is not. You tried or you didn't.

- If it is not a scam and I tried, I might make it to Mars! Even if I didn't get selected (which I didn't) I have the joy of forever knowing that I tried. Never will I think about the colony and how things might have been if only I had tried.

- If it is not a scam and I did not try. I WILL always wonder if I would have made it.

- If it was a scam and I tried, I wasted $40. (Not including the t-shirts. hehe) Oh well, no great loss.

- If it was a scam and I didn't try, then I was right all along.

It is more worth it to me to ensure that I at least tried, than it is to me to not waste $40. $40 can be spent on things I wont miss not having had. Spending the rest of my life wondering if I could have gotten to Mars would be draining on me every time I thought about it.

Besides, some of the money is confirmed going into some areas related to space tech, and at the end of the day isn't that the only thing we really care about?

[problemecium]

Oh, I meant I was in favor too. Insofar as "one way" isn't necessarily one-way forever. We should go ahead and send colonies if we can, and it'll only give us more motivation to develop two-way missions later.

And uh, Mazon? If you're talking about KSP, surely you know docking's already a thing? xP

[Nibb31]

I'm all for the "one way" missions to mars actually. As long as it's a voluntary thing and they'll get the necessary support to stay alive, even if certain things break down.

Yes, but we don't have the technology to assure that we can keep a colony alive.

Also folks, what is the point of a colony?

In the past, colonies were created where there were resources (gold, spice, slaves, exotic produce, etc...) that would increase the wealth of the colonizing nation. Another reason was to grab land before other countries would get their hands on them. The colonial effort was usually initiated by governments or government-controlled companies for two main reasons: greed and power. And the whole thing fired back when those colonies went independant.

The big difference is that in those days, you could sail for a few weeks and live off the land when you arrived there. You had air, water, construction material, and a temperate climate. You could grow food locally, build a farm, and rely on trade routes. You didn't have to rely on supplies or technology for long-term survival. And even then, it was tough. If Mars One wasn't a scam, with today's life-support technology and no assured supply lines, it would be more likely to end like the Roanoke Island colony in 1587.

Any space colony would have to be massive in order to be self-sufficient. It would need farmers, miners, doctors, children, cooks, teachers, janitors, engineers. It would require hundreds of inhabitants just to have the minimum skillset for survival of the group. This means that it would need hundreds of interplanetary launches to bring the equipment, supplies and people. It is simply beyond any short or medium term capabilities.

Now, why would a government or a corporation invest hundreds of billions to build a colony on Mars or the Moon when:

a - There are no useful resources that would increase anyone's wealth back home.

b - There is no possibility of a land grab, firstly because of a and secondly because of the Outer Space Treaty.

c - Any self-sufficient colony would be hard to control, which increases the risk of losing it to independance.

As for the colonists, just like all migrants since the dawn of humanity, they moved there to seek wealth, comfort, and a better future for their children.

Mars on the other hand is a sterile wasteland, bombarded with cosmic radiation, where you can only go outside with a 50kg EVA suit. You would spend the rest of your life living inside a prefabricated hab module, breathing canned air, drinking recycled urine, and eating hydroponic tomatoes. You will never feel a drop of rain on your face or feel the wind in your hair. It is not a great place to seek "wealth, confort, and a better future for your children", even if you could have any.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Nibb31

[Red Fang]

Point of a colony? Other than economic, there is one more. Relieving population pressure. When a populatin A grows enough to make habitat A crowded, a dicrete number of individuals start (thinkng) to move to habitat B, which is not necessarily a better living option than habitat A. A critical mass for colonizing an empty spot in the middle of the woods might be as low as aa single family, for colonizing a nearby island could be a small tribe or a group of hunter-gatherers. Earth is big, Mars is far away and inhospitable, the journy there would be unimginably expensive. To setup a colony there, you would need a big group of stinking rich individuals who think that Earth is too messed up to live on/want to try something new/ can se financial gain in other man's moneypit.

not soon

You are left with govermeents fighting for prestige, power and in a landgrab.

a little less not soon

And there you haave Mars One with an alledged plaan to use Mars as a set for a reality show. Preproduction of that thing would put Peter Jackson and Steven Spilberg to shame, just to get a single crewed craft on aa Mars flyby, let a lone a landing mission or a colony.

[Nibb31]

Point of a colony? Other than economic, there is one more. Relieving population pressure.

That still fits in the "seeking wealth, comfort, and a better future for their children" category. To relieve any sort of demographic pressure, you would need to ship people by hundreds of billions, which falls into the science-fiction category.

And there is no lack of space on Earth. If you are going to live on closed-loop life support and hydroponics inside a hab module, then you might as well do it in the antarctic or the sahara desert in an environment that isn't instantly lethal and where it doesn't cost so much to get there. At any rate, if we can master closed-loop life support for millions of people, then there will be no more demographic pressure.

[Aghanim]

That still fits in the "seeking wealth, comfort, and a better future for their children" category. To relieve any sort of demographic pressure, you would need to ship people by hundreds of billions, which falls into the science-fiction category.

And there is no lack of space on Earth. If you are going to live on closed-loop life support and hydroponics inside a hab module, then you might as well do it in the antarctic or the sahara desert in an environment that isn't instantly lethal and where it doesn't cost so much to get there. At any rate, if we can master closed-loop life support for millions of people, then there will be no more demographic pressure.

And, there is nothing stopping you to build artificial island/huge floating barge/large oil rig in the ocean, and the environment is much much better than Mars.

[hugix]

Mars One Applicant here. I didn't make it past the first selection round (oh well).

Here is my view on it all, look at it from the punnet square style. You have two sets of two possibilities. It's a scam or it is not. You tried or you didn't.

- If it is not a scam and I tried, I might make it to Mars! Even if I didn't get selected (which I didn't) I have the joy of forever knowing that I tried. Never will I think about the colony and how things might have been if only I had tried.

- If it is not a scam and I did not try. I WILL always wonder if I would have made it.

- If it was a scam and I tried, I wasted $40. (Not including the t-shirts. hehe) Oh well, no great loss.

- If it was a scam and I didn't try, then I was right all along.

It is more worth it to me to ensure that I at least tried, than it is to me to not waste $40. $40 can be spent on things I wont miss not having had. Spending the rest of my life wondering if I could have gotten to Mars would be draining on me every time I thought about it.

Besides, some of the money is confirmed going into some areas related to space tech, and at the end of the day isn't that the only thing we really care about?

There is a difference between trying and scamming. When you try, you fail and the mess you've made during it is your own problem. When I try to learn to skate and I fail that broken leg is my problem.

When you scam, you place the mess at other people. Mars one says 200.000 people applied in the first round. If every applicant payed 20$ (I can't find the entrance fee right now, could you please comment on that) that is 4.000.000 Dollars right into the pocket of mister Lansdorp! Then there is the revenue made on the merchandise and donations!

And when you look at Mars one, how far are they in their planning? Have they bought any launch vehicles yet? Have they placed an order for the rovers they want to use. Have they bought any crew capsules yet? no, no, no and no! The only two things Mars one owns right now is the website and a T-shirt printing press.

4 Million dollars doesn't fly you to Mars. Not in a longggg time. But however it does fly mister Lansdorp to a tropical island far away. With just him and his money.

It really borders these quackjobs like Scientology / Charr / Derek Ogilve. Who cash in big time by telling people lies to feel better. It feels wrong to me, it seems like robbing someone.

[NASAFanboy]

While I do believe that Lansdorp has good intentions, he isn't going to Mars for a long time.

No one is.

[Mazon Del]

parameciumkid: I have existed in the before time when there was no docking except for fascinating collisions. I am also lazy enough to not bother changing my account info.

hugix: Application fee was about $40, it was something like 20-25 Euros, which at the time resulted in about $40.

You are also somewhat mixing up the point of the plot. You are mixing the scam/try. These are separate things. I am not scamming, I am the one trying. Singularly all of my effort amounts to the $40 and the 10 minutes it took me to get the application set up. The burden is on MarsOne to be a scam or not be a scam, nothing I do can affect that. Based on the presentations I watched and the information at my disposal at the time, there was no definite way of determining if MarsOne was a scam or not. In my opinion, there still isn't. Since there was no clearcut way of determining the scam-level of the company, there existed two possibilities for them, and two for me. Again, since nothing I can do would change that system, it made sense to buy in. Absolute worst case, I lost $40 and 10 minutes. Why should I care? It is less of a risk than kickstarter for a reward that I win either way (I get there or I don't, but either way I still have the happy feeling of knowing I did what I could).

The information I had stated that the way they intended to reduce costs was that they (for the most part) were NOT going to be developing anything. Their plan was (and to my knowledge, still is) buy things from people that are footing the dev cost themselves. For example, using the Falcon Heavy. They only need to pay the $50-100M cost of its use YEARS from now instead of the billions for dev costs. Considering the Falcon Heavy won't be launching any tests until August (unless that has changed since last I heard), you can't use the lack of any purchased launch vehicles against them. They have the option of going 'now' and paying the United Launch Alliance a billion dollars for the launch or they can wait a couple years and pay SpaceX a tenth or better what they would pay the ULA. Depending on exactly what they are doing with the rovers, its possible the same logic applies, they may still be in the discussion stage for exactly what they want the rovers to do (just be an examination bot like Curiosity for landing site judging? Or perhaps it is a construction bot?). These things take TIME in the real world.

My job is a Systems Engineer, and for important systems the process involved in just choosing a color for an LED indicator takes several meetings, trade studies, and research power points. And that is just for an indicator light! Not something that actually does anything at all, no computation, no movement, etc. That may sound absurd, and to a point it is, but this is how a system gets made where everything is thought of, because almost literally every person on the project got to have a say in every aspect of the project. One person can make a massive mistake (ignoring red green colorblindness), one hundred people has a good chance of catching even the slightest of problems (at just the right orbit above mars, with the right orientation of the craft and the solar panel arrays, some light will bounce off the solar panels and shine through the window to land on the console, making it impossible to see that a warning light has started glowing the specific amber color you chose). And at ANY stage you can be forced to go back and start over.

Again, it doesn't make much sense to purchase a crew cap or the transit stage craft until such a time as you actually know what your desired launch system can actually do. On that note, their plan for the transit stage was to basically pay one of the major contractors that had produced habitat modules for the ISS to build a near carbon copy of their module, just with redone internals to more suit their needs. The development costs are almost zero, they just need the tooling costs, labor, and materials for the most part.

The fact that they are waiting means they are not actually idiots. They are waiting to see if technologies that can drastically reduce the cost will pan out this year. During that time they continue to go through the selection process for their astronauts. This gives them plenty of time to make sure they make the 'right' decisions (clearly they have already failed though, as they booted me > ) and to begin the training. From the information I have come across, they are doing tasks exactly as they said they were (with a little slippage in the time frame, but they made their schedule during the hope filled early years, so I don't blame them) and in an order that makes sense for what it is they can do with the money they currently have.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Mazon Del
Clarification

[78stonewobble]

Yes, but we don't have the technology to assure that we can keep a colony alive.

Also folks, what is the point of a colony?

In the past, colonies were created where there were resources (gold, spice, slaves, exotic produce, etc...) that would increase the wealth of the colonizing nation. Another reason was to grab land before other countries would get their hands on them. The colonial effort was usually initiated by governments or government-controlled companies for two main reasons: greed and power. And the whole thing fired back when those colonies went independant.

The big difference is that in those days, you could sail for a few weeks and live off the land when you arrived there. You had air, water, construction material, and a temperate climate. You could grow food locally, build a farm, and rely on trade routes. You didn't have to rely on supplies or technology for long-term survival. And even then, it was tough. If Mars One wasn't a scam, with today's life-support technology and no assured supply lines, it would be more likely to end like the Roanoke Island colony in 1587.

Any space colony would have to be massive in order to be self-sufficient. It would need farmers, miners, doctors, children, cooks, teachers, janitors, engineers. It would require hundreds of inhabitants just to have the minimum skillset for survival of the group. This means that it would need hundreds of interplanetary launches to bring the equipment, supplies and people. It is simply beyond any short or medium term capabilities.

Now, why would a government or a corporation invest hundreds of billions to build a colony on Mars or the Moon when:

a - There are no useful resources that would increase anyone's wealth back home.

b - There is no possibility of a land grab, firstly because of a and secondly because of the Outer Space Treaty.

c - Any self-sufficient colony would be hard to control, which increases the risk of losing it to independance.

As for the colonists, just like all migrants since the dawn of humanity, they moved there to seek wealth, comfort, and a better future for their children.

Mars on the other hand is a sterile wasteland, bombarded with cosmic radiation, where you can only go outside with a 50kg EVA suit. You would spend the rest of your life living inside a prefabricated hab module, breathing canned air, drinking recycled urine, and eating hydroponic tomatoes. You will never feel a drop of rain on your face or feel the wind in your hair. It is not a great place to seek "wealth, confort, and a better future for your children", even if you could have any.

I think that it is technically possible to create a permanent colony on mars, if not exactly today, we can do it with very near future technology.

This is what I meant, by assuring supplies. If we send people with early generation food/air and water supply technology, it will most probably fail in some way at some point and need repair and backup.

Alltoghether it would be extremely expensive, akin to ie. the apollo program or the manhattan project, but not impossible.

All that is lacking is will.

I do belive that establishing a 2nd and permanently self-sustainable presence of humans and life on another celestrial object is the single most important objective for humanity, but it is not an especially pressing concern right now.

Stil I think it would be worth it to sacrifice half to 1 percent of the global GDP on it. Which is still something like 359-718 billion US dollars.

EDIT: I agree that relieving earths population pressure is well beyond any current technology, however, that isn't the point of going in my example, which is more of a humanity and life backup thing.

Edited April 16, 2014 by 78stonewobble

[Mazon Del]

Careful there 78stonewobble, if you start tossing around the idea of NASA having a $359-718 billion budget, we might all drown from their drooling over the possibilities. Of course, we wouldn't exactly be hurting that flood ourselves.

[Albert VDS]

So a lot of people might think Mars One is a scam, that it's a suicide mission or anything else negative towards the idea.

But in my opinion the only sad thing is that Mars One is the only one actually actively pursuing to get to Mars*.

It's been 57 years since Sputnik, 53 years since Gagarin, 45 years since Apollo 11. Since Apollo 17 we've haven't even left LEO, we haven't been farther than what was achieved in 12 years.

Mars One should be something which we as space nuts should embrace, because (like many sciences) space exploration is based on having dreams.

To quote Robert H. Goddard: "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."

Going to Mars has been a dream of mankind since we knew it was an actual planet just like Earth.

Mars One brings that hope of getting to Mars.

The reality of being on Mars will never be reached if we doubt we can reach it.

Let's look at Goddard, they laughed at him for having the dream of reaching the Moon.

Even before we actually set a foot on the Moon people were laughing at NASA.

Now people are laughing at Mars One because it has a dream and wants to turn it into hope.

Now you can say that Bas Lansdorp is a fool and Robert H. Goddard is a genius, but they would have said the same thing about Goddard comparing him to anyone genius before him.

The only valid criticism to Mars One is that a reality show is sticking to it. But that's not because Mars One wants to be a reality show, but because we as a whole don't want to spend

money on space exploration. We rather spend it wars, on silly things which doesn't help our species at all. We think we need to spend more money down on Earth, when in fact we spend more

money on lip balm than trying to get beyond LEO. We rather watch some fake tanned air heads than send a mission to Europa. We rather watch grown men run after a ball and beat each other to a pulp because hes

rooting for the opposing team than to visit an other world.

Mars One isn't the laughing stock, we are.

*Of course in time SpaceX will get to it.

**

[78stonewobble]

Careful there 78stonewobble, if you start tossing around the idea of NASA having a $359-718 billion budget, we might all drown from their drooling over the possibilities. Of course, we wouldn't exactly be hurting that flood ourselves.

Haha, yeah thats definately not gonna happen. Especially since the number was based on guestimates on global domestic product. Don't think the chinese or the russians wanna sponsor nasa or vice versa, probably won't even happen across the atlantic and we're relatively "close".

It was just mostly an illustration that the entirety of humanity do have quite a bit of ressources available overall. Ie. during ww2 humanity could afford to have like 100 mio. people "wasting" their time fighting (necessary but sad waste of time and lives). Today it would be quite a few hundred mio. we could dedicate to any important enough task.

[Holo]

But in my opinion the only sad thing is that Mars One is the only one actually actively pursuing to get to Mars*.

They say that they are, but they're saying they'll have a Mars colony in ten years when even NASA's not landing there for another twenty. We could embrace it, but embracing things that probably won't happen is foolish.

[Nibb31]

All that is lacking is will.

We are only lacking one thing: will and money!

Er... We are only lacking two things: will and money... and technology!

...and ruthless efficiency...

Um... Among the things we are lacking are will, money, technology, ruthless efficiency, and a near fanatical devotion to the Pope!

Alright, I'll come in again...

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

Edited April 16, 2014 by Nibb31