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Mars One, which offered 1-way trips to Mars, declared bankrupt
- HillRat 8y agoI, for one, am shocked that these guys couldn’t crowdfund their way to Mars. After all, it only cost NASA (frantically punching numbers into a 4-function desk calculator) $315bn to get to the Moon in current dollars. I mean, that’s only 77x total funds raised on Kickstarter to date. Perhaps they should have added the Kupier Belt as a stretch goal?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tombert 8y agoWhile I agree with your point on this, just to play devil's advocate I have to point out that a lot has changed since the 1960's. We have designed more efficient rockets, we have much better computer guidance systems, we have much lighter-weight synthetic materials that could save on fuel, etc. Conceivably if we were to go to the Moon today, it would be substantially cheaper. That said, I did feel like this project was overly ambitious. Even with my previous points, rockets are expensive, and space R&D is pricey.
- umeshunni 8y agoA better comparison is how much it has cost SpaceX to get to where they are (and still at least 3 years left to go for their Mars mission) - $2.5B in equity funding + $10s of billions in revenue over the last 10 years.
- proy24 8y agoquestion..how does spacex make revenue? or I might just google...
- angus-prune 8y agoPeople pay them to put things into space
- avip 8y agoShould be their moto. out: "SPACEX DESIGNS, MANUFACTURES AND LAUNCHES ADVANCED ROCKETS AND SPACECRAFT" in: "SpaceX: We put things in space so you won't have to"
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoDon’t they sell space launch services?
- manigandham 8y agoThey are in the commercial space launch business. They deliver satellites and other payloads to orbit and the ISS.
- umeshunni 8y agoA lot of their initial revenue came from Air Force and other military contracts to launch satellites to space. GPS satellites, spy satellites etc. E.g here's an article from 2016 about them launching a GPS satellite for ~$90M: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-spacex-launch-ula-idUSKCN0XP2T2 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-spacex-launch-ula-i... More recently they also launch private satellites. Iirc, Facebook has plans to launch their next satellites on a SpaceX rocket (an earlier attempt failed).
- loeg 8y agoThe fundamental Tsiolkovsky rocket equation and delta v required to get to Mars hasn't changed since the 60s. Some technology has improved, but the major difficulty is just lifting enough fuel out of Earth's gravity well to get anywhere.
- trhway 8y agoThe fuel is minimal part of the cost - putting 100ton of it into LEO even at $10K/kg is just $1B. And with BFR it will be even much cheaper than that.
- loeg 8y ago$1B is a lot of money and LEO is a long way from mars.
- isostatic 8y agoLEO is about half way to Mars
- isostatic 8y agoLooks like more than halfway. Assuming you can arrange aerobraking on Mars, soft-landing on Mars is slightly nearer than soft-landing on the moon! Getting back is a different kettle of fish though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#/media/File:Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#/media/File:Del...
- grey-area 8y agoThat difficulty changes substabtially if you have rapidly reusable rockets. The fuel itself is cheap, it's throwing away a rocket per launch that makes it infeasible.
- stickfigure 8y agoConceivably if we were to go to the Moon today, it would be substantially cheaper. This seems contrary to experience. In constant dollars, a jetliner today is 5-10X the price of a jetliner of the 1960s. Mass transit rail miles are >10X. The solutions may be better, but they don't seem to be cheaper. Launch costs do seem to have fallen quite a bit in very recent history though. So maybe?
- fatbird 8y agoIs that 5-10x the upfront cost? What's the cost comparison in operating costs over the lifespan of the plane? It's not that I don't believe 5-10x, it's that I'm pretty sure the net savings are on the backend, which is where a huge amount of airplane engineering has gone--better fuel efficiency, faster servicing, etc. I'm not an expert in this area, so I'm genuinely curious.
- sgt101 8y agoJet technology is much more complex to meet environmental, safety and efficiency goals. Fuel was much cheaper in the 1960's, I wonder what the cost of a jet is in terms of it's operating life? Rail and other ground works have got much more expensive as labour costs (in the developed world) have risen. I expect that rail costs in China are not 10x? I would be interested to know ! In term of moonshots I think that safety and risk would mean that a modern mission would be much more expensive than Apollo.
- mevile 8y agoIt was a cool idea and I'm glad they tried it. It's easy to mock people going out and trying out something new. It was an interesting concept, even though I'd never want to be part of it. It got a lot of people excited, and hopefully, something else came of it as well besides excitement and the ire of some people on the internet.
- throwaway5752 8y agoIt was obviously stupid and possibly a scam, and there's limit to how much "at least they tried, risk taking implies some failure" back-slapping one should indulge in.
- User23 8y agoThe new gilded age needs its bucket shops.
- kumarharsh 8y agoMaking wild claims _on the back_ of a cool idea and raising a bunch of money is not trying out something new. It was a scam from the start to the finish. Or if not a scam, atleast a very misguided wishful thinking not at all grounded in reality (of Earthly or Martian variety)
- Johnny555 8y agoIf you're counting just the Apollo program, your numbers seem high -- the entire program cost "only" $25B in 1973 dollars, or $106B in 2016 dollars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program Or maybe up to $200B in today's dollars: "In 2009, NASA looked back at the cost of the Apollo program in its entirety, and arrived at a figure of $170 billion in 2005 dollars (or around $200 billion in today’s money)" https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186600-apollo-11-moon-landing-45-years-looking-back-at-mankinds-giant-leap https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186600-apollo-11-moon-la... But each Saturn V launch cost a few billion dollars in today's dollars, so you could deduct ~40B if you only care about making a few launches. Though still well out of reach of a privately funding company that has no real return on investment (it's not like an asteroid mining mission that could bring back a trillion dollars of minerals).
- HillRat 8y agoTrue — I simply added up NASA’s budget in constant dollars through the moon landings for maximum effect, but the Apollo program in isolation would have been less. (Still took an estimated 400,000 personnel to pull it off, though!) To my untutored eye, your $200bn+ doesn’t sound out of the range of likelihood, plus or minus — you’re basically looking at an ISS with a number of novel capabilities, plenty of redundancies, and assurance that the crew won’t end up dead from hard radiation along or after the trip, so assume at least $150bn in engineering+build and another $10-15bn to get 500 tons or so of spaceship into orbit. Add in Martian lander and rover costs, new personal equipment, any novel work on propulsion, power, radiation, and life support ... what were these guys thinking, anyway?
- adrianN 8y agoI agree that the bankruptcy of Mars One comes as a surprise to no one, but a trip to Mars can be had for a lot less money than they Apollo program cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct For example is a proposal that would send men to Mars for about 55 billion dollars over ten years. That even includes a return trip.
- harrygeez 8y agoHow did I not see this coming
- outside1234 8y agoNobody wanted 1-way trips to Mars? Shocking.
- azinman2 8y agoApparently a good number did! Which baffles me... why would you want that? Sounds like a very odd death trap with no resources, economy, services, entrertainnent, ability to travel, etc etc.
- Permagate 8y agoTo me, it would be very odd if no one wants that since human vary. Someone out there must be crazy enough to just abandon their life on earth to have a chance to set the first stone of civilization in mars (or on the other extreme, no longer wants to live on earth).
- cornellwright 8y agoWhile I did not apply, I can see the appeal. In one word: Adventure
- maxxxxx 8y agoMars just seems a miserable place. Cold, dusty and pretty boring. I think the novelty would wear off pretty quickly.
- nsxwolf 8y agoIt was 30 degrees below zero in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and the experience was a lot like what life on Mars would be like. Spending nearly 100% of your time inside your habitat, and going outside is a big deal that requires a lot of preparation. A week was enough of that for me. I'd still like to visit Mars, but I can't imagine I'd enjoy living in those conditions for the rest of my life.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
- JoeDaDude 8y agoThis looked like a con job from the start. I can only hope some creditors get their money back, and that those responsible get punished accordingly.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stupidcar 8y agoYep, and as often happens when a scam involves science or tech, many journalists helped out by promoting their ridiculous claims without due challenge or skepticism.
- neotek 8y agoGosh, what a surprise. I'm sure this saga will convince the general public of the need to be more sceptical about pie-in-the-sky bullshit in the future, and nobody will ever fall for pseudo-scientific scams again. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm just going to go for a quick jaunt on the Hyperloop.
- gftttgggfffddd 8y agoA lot of people who were looking forward to dying in space are going to be disappointed.
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- jeena 8y agoBut to be honest, it sounds much more exciting to die in space than to die in a hospital.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dennisgorelik 8y agoIf your goal is to die while having fun -- there are much cheaper alternatives available right here on Earth.
- newsgremlin 8y agoYeah but dying on earth is too mainstream and everyone does it. A lot more people will hear about someone dying on Mars for the first time ever.
- jeena 8y agoI didn't write fun, I wrote excitement. Taking drugs is fun, adventures are exciting.
- s_kilk 8y agoStarvation isn't exciting.
- mcv 8y ago
- analog31 8y agoIt's not a legitimate airline unless it's been bankrupt at least twice. ;-)
- blocked_again 8y agoBut this is a noairline not an airline.
- supermw 8y agoInstead of offering dumb 1-way trips to Mars why not create round trips to the Moon and back? You can see Earth from the surface of the moon, see the lunar lander, drive a lunar rover, bounce around for a bit then hop in your module and head back home and live the rest of your life with a new perspective. More interesting than Mars, and doesn't take months to get there.
- sandworm101 8y agoNot as simple as you would think. Mars has atmosphere for capture braking, for parachute landings. The moon requires lots of powered deltav to get onto the surface from low earth orbit, more so than mars iirc.
- loeg 8y agoThe Martian atmosphere is extremely thin — per wikipedia, "the atmospheric pressure on the Martian surface averages … about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure." It is not really sufficient for capture braking / parachute landings with any efficiency or safety. Also, mars takes more delta v than the moon.
- ukulele 8y agoAre you suggesting that going to Mars is easier than going to the moon?
- sandworm101 8y agoGoing to? If you are sending a robot, yes mars can be in some ways easier (less deltaV). Getting back is a totally different equation. Musks tesla, with a heat shield and parachute, could have made it to the surface of mars. Putting it on the moon would require more energy, a bigger rocket.
- stickfigure 8y agoHmmm... Mars' atmosphere is <1% Earth's. So far, everything landing there has needed either retro rockets or (if light enough) elaborate airbags. I don't think a parachute is enough to keep the Tesla intact after "landing".
- gesman 8y agoFraud
- tdons 8y agoThe writing has been on the wall for a while now. Even Gerard 't Hooft, famous physics nobel prize winner and one of the ambassadors of Mars One said the schedule and budget were off by a factor of 10. [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/23/mars-one-plan-colonise-red-planet-unrealistic-leading-supporter https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/23/mars-one-pla...
- doingmyting 8y agoSo if technology was not there, what exactly have they been doing all this time? What did their daily work day look like? Did they just sit around for a few years then decide suddenly, yeah we should file bankruptcy now?
- jlebar 8y agoGreat podcast about this, although I'm halfway spoiling it by telling you it's about Mars One. http://loveandradio.org/2014/05/hostile-planet/ http://loveandradio.org/2014/05/hostile-planet/
- m23khan 8y agojust Yesterday I commented on another article here about space colonialization being alchemy of our times and I got downvoted. And Today this...
- AckSyn 8y agoA single company going bankrupt is not an indication of space colonization being "alchemy". Colonization is inevitable.
- unnouinceput 8y agoNah, I wouldn't worry, you can get downvoted today just as easy :P
- Johnny555 8y agoBut unlike alchemy, space colonization is actually technologically possible, it's just prohibitively expensive and would likely take global cooperation to make it possible -- which won't happen without some clear extinction threat to Earth and given the response to the threat of global climate change, I'm skeptical that enough people would believe scientists claiming that we're a decade from a life-ending asteroid strike.
- stickfigure 8y agoAlchemy is certainly possible with today's technology, and has been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals It's not cost effective, but it is cheaper than space colonization.
- sriku 8y agoI'm surprised at the negativity on this on a startup accelerator's site where "a small chance of success" - Gimli style - means game on. At my org, we've had one of these round 3 candidates give a talk about it and the interview and training process they went through seemed like no joke. It seemed to me that if you were to start a company with the final selectees, it would be hard to fail.
- Areading314 8y agoI think there are a lot of people on here who think that "conquering space" is a giant distraction from the many very real problems that exist here on Earth that can actually be solved by self-sustaining businesses.
- Pristina 8y agobut muh space, muh high contrast colorful nebulae, muh railguns
- laumars 8y agoI disagree. I think that conquering space makes sense from the perspective of creating a redundant copy of the human race (I say “redundant” rather than “backup” because Mars is too close to Earth to protect it against any sizeable interstellar events). My issue with Mars One was that it didn’t seem very credible in achieving its goals and that worries me that now people have been burnt by Mars One, they will not take a more credible organisation seriously if/when one comes along.
- neatcoder 8y agoI think such thinking is very short-sighted. Space exploration is necessary. It satisfies human curiosity, a very innate need among humans, one of the reasons why our species has been very successful so far. That there are real problems that exist here on the Earth somehow does not preclude space exploration. Space exploration and solving problems on the Earth are not mutually exclusive activities. They can both be done in parallel and sometimes one helps the other and vice versa.
- exabrial 8y agoYet someone got paid and declared mission accomplished. Hilarious unless you were an investor. Maybe the engineers that worked at the company wrote really productive code in a really productive language. And the company offered amenities and benefits that were unlike anything else.
- lozenge 8y agoWhat engineers? AFAICR the team was six marketers... because it was a marketing stunt/scam.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- runyor 8y agoAs long as everybody is investing their time, money and health as free choice I think it's a good thing and we should support them. Of course it's a pipe dream. Of course people will dump sh*tloads of money for no results. Of course people will die if they really start doing stuff like this. But is there really a way to achieve such kind of goal without such sacrifices?
- loeg 8y agoBy that logic, we should celebrate Madoff for sacrificing other people's money. I don't think it's unreasonable for society to set limits on the scams and cons businesses are allowed to be based on.
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- runyor 8y agoLet's say you are right. Then we should discuss why Mars One is a scam and SpaceX isn't. And just saying "SpaceX has succeeded until now" is not really cutting it. Being a billionaire and probably having quite some parental and silicon valley network to make use of, Musk simply also had much better odds. But this is not something you or I couldn't have guessed when Mars One started. It's quite obvious. So from what I can see you can't say one is a scam and the other isn't. Both are a gamble and the one succeeded until now while the other hasn't. A scam is, when they didn't even try to do anything. Or when they used the money to buy yachts instead of financing space base science. Is there something like this? If they sold a pipe dream and worked hard to try to make it become reality, imho, it's not enough to call it a scam.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- martin-adams 8y agoWhat would concern me is if they did managed to get people to Mars, then went bankrupt, leaving no new supplies being sent across.
- GreenToad5 8y agoJust to go out on a limb here, I am guessing that the "one way" bit put a bit of a kink in their marketing efforts...
- bArray 8y agoMuch too ambitious, especially with massive organizations (such as NASA) being unable to with much larger budgets and experience. Called it as a non-starter from the get-go. Good thing too, probably would have blown up on the pad and never left earth. I think they could have got quite a bit of funding from crowd sourcing with lower ambitions, such as having a crowd-sourced satellite to go to Mars to conduct research. They could pay some external company to do a lot of the engineering and just act as a middle-man. Like the cube sats, offer to take other people's research/commercial projects all the way to Mars and you have yourself a semi-viable investment project. For the backers, allow them time on the satellite, name stuff, something on the satellite that stores something personal to them (perhaps digitally and transmitting it back to earth with a massive time delay) - I think people would be interested.
- duchenne 8y agoI find it amazing that, even though Mars One looked so sketchy since the beginning, still 200,000 people applied for their program. That means that still many people dream about exploring space. If a solid project was launched, probably hundreds of millions of people would apply to travel and settle down on another planet. It makes me very hopeful. Until a few years ago, medias were always very negative and described space exploration as a waste of money. But, it is getting a bit better. This may be thanks to Space X, the new race to the Moon (China), the landings on a comet (Europe) and an asteroid (Japan), the Indian mission on Mars, and so on. Now, the project of replacing the ISS (end scheduled in 2020) with a permanent base on the Moon sounds more plausible (Moon Village).
- manigandham 8y agoThere's a big difference though between wanting to go and actually being capable and qualified. The first several waves will need to be the absolute best of us to have a chance of establishing a permanent settlement.
- antt 8y agoOne only needs to look at the death records for New England in the early period to realize that's not the case. An 90% mortality within a year is no stop for colonization if there is enough political will for it.
- 7952 8y agoI think it was more about economic will. It was seen as an amazing commercial opportunity that attracted investors who funded the trip.
- koheripbal 8y agoAgreed. It is definitely not profitable going to Mars. The only people who'd want to go, would be the most extreme ideologues. A toxic environment, surrounded by a toxic environment.
- santafe 8y agoMaybe they just collected the subscribers data for mining.
- tzfld 8y agoDoes anyone remember Dennis Tito's Inspiration Mars Foundation?
- fipple 8y agoMy friend "applied," knowing full well it was a scam. He said that he regretted nothing, as it allowed him to fantasize about the journey more concretely. So perhaps it served the same function as pornography.
- belorn 8y agoI think it is more similar to lottery than pornography in that it enable people to fantasize about the future.
- idlewords 8y agoShirley Jackson's Lottery.
- 2019ideas 8y ago>My friend "applied," knowing full well it was a scam. Knew it was a scam and did it anyway? These are the people that need to have conversations with economists.
- 5partan 8y agoYou don’t rationalize on hopium.
- KnightOfWords 8y agoWell, that's no surprise. Their plan was essentially to hold a televised execution while lacking the budget to build the scaffold. Here's a technical assessment of the viability of their plan: https://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2014/01/18/ask-ethan-20-is-the-mars-one-crew-doomed https://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2014/01/18/ask-etha...
- devoply 8y agoImagine people having some sort of debilitating disease wanting their last moments to be on a trip like this.
- detaro 8y agoExcept Mars One wasn't interested in not fully healthy people.
- tempestn 8y agoI think calling it a televised execution is quite an oversimplification. Mars One was deeply flawed, but the basic concept of a one way colonization mission to Mars isn't insane. A one-way mission is legitimately simpler from a technical perspective, and there are obviously plenty of people who would be happy to go. If it were done well, with a high probability of survival and prosperity (and really, only in that case), I would be fascinated to watch. Not to mention, even if the initial mission were one-way, it's entirely possible that return trips could be possible within the lifetimes of the initial colonists. And besides, everyone dies; I can see why someone might choose a life of adventure (and pain, toil, monotony, etc.) on Mars over a life of relative comfort on Earth, even if I wouldn't make the same choice.
- walrus01 8y agoI don't really see the logic of "it'll be so much less costly and complicated if we make it a one way mission" Why? If we are able to successfully lower the $ per kg cost for cargo to LEO, and from LEO to mars transfer orbit, it will be a moot point. We're going to need something like the most wildly optimistic scenarios for full re-use of the SpaceX BFR, and huge numbers of BFRs or BFR-equivalents flying many missions to make a Mars colony a reality. Doesn't matter whether one-way or not. Presuming that we have done so, and the spacecraft are fully reusable and the $ to orbit cost is low, what technical problem or economic problem would prevent a few launches from Mars on a return trajectory to Earth? For whoever was part of the initial colony that decided they wanted to return.
- _carl_jung 8y agoI look forward to the Netflix documentary.
- tempestn 8y agoMars One: The Greatest One-Way Trip to Mars that Never Happened
- Asooka 8y agoPersonally, I'm waiting for the "put rocket boosters on Mars and fling it into Venus, re-enacting the impact that created the Moon and altering Venus's orbit to be approximately opposite of Earth's (but still safely far away), thus creating Earth-2" mission.
- Shengbo 8y agoBased on the AMAs the founder gave on Reddit, it looked like a scam to be honest. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/?sort=qa https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/?sort=qa https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansd...
- chriskanan 8y agoSo many comments here are really depressing and lack a sense of adventure and romance. Yes, Mars One did not have a sound plan, but it inspired a certain kind of person who wants a grand adventure with impact. Mars to Stay is a legitimate idea and makes a lot of sense for colonization: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay The Mars One idea of turning the colonists life into a reality TV show would be the first reality TV show I'd ever want to watch and would make a fantastic documentary. So, while Mars One was severely flawed, I think the Mars to Stay philosophy makes a lot of sense if we want to colonize Mars. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKGREZs6-w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKGREZs6-w
- Deestan 8y ago> So many comments here are really depressing and lack a sense of adventure and romance. (Since you are not replying to any specific such posts, I assume you are referring to those who point out that this was expected because Mars One was clearly not viable.) Adventure and romance are good, and can be communicated through fiction, sky castle thinktanks, forums for interested people, etc. Pretending to actually do it is not necessary. Lying to people and siphoning money out of crowdfunding can not be excused by "at least they made it sound fun". That's what all fraudsters do - they sell a dream and remove your money.
- chriskanan 8y agoAs I pointed out in my comment, Mars One didn't have a sound plan. Like most others following the effort, I thought it was a scam meant to enrich Bas Lansdorp. That they are a scam isn't news: everyone knew this. I'd guess that most of the donors even knew this. That said, I think the idea of a one-way Mars colonization mission has a lot of merit, as long as there is some chance of survival. "Mars to Stay" as a one-way trip is something that has many proponents, most famously Buzz Aldrin. The one good thing about Mars One is that they got people talking about this proposition and doing a deeper analysis of how it could be achieved.
- s_kilk 8y ago> So many comments here are really depressing and lack a sense of adventure and romance. I have plenty of both, but I just don't find these kinds of crass marketing scams enticing.
- oskhan 8y agoIt's like Fyre Festival, but in spaaaaace.
- kartikkumar 8y agoBas Lansdorp was one of the supervisors for my BSc graduation group project at TU Delft. I had some interesting interactions with him and a few others affiliated with Mars One back then, before Mars One was on the table. I think the whole Mars One story will make it into a Hollywood script, because there's been more drama than most good movies I've watched in recent times. There are thoughts about the project that I'd rather not share publicly, especially since I also know one of the main authors of the MIT study that became the focus of a lot of the critique about the feasibility/viability of the entire project. Safe to say, Mars exploration is hyper-complex because of complexity in a whole host of dimensions, not just technical/scientific. Mars One exemplifies that. I'm involved in Mars analog simulations missions through the Austrian Space Forum [1], so I've got a pretty good reading of the complexity that goes into planning & operational excellence. If I had to sum up the whole Mars One journey in one word, it would be: underestimation. [1] https://oewf.org https://oewf.org
- akhilcacharya 8y agoThe idea is so absurd I really hope it's a comedy.
- mark_l_watson 8y agoI don’t know much about this subject so excuse a naive question: why Mars and why not the asteroid belts where I have read that there are raw materials and large amounts of ice? Is it because of negative health effects living in zero gravity and/or problems creating artificial gravity with rotation?
- pseingatl 8y agoThere can't be a Mars colony without a legal code for Mars. Shanghai in the 1930's is the existing framework. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. See, marslegalcode.org.
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- tempodox 8y agoEven extraordinarily exorbitant fads finally fade.
- pfdietz 8y agoPerhaps the point of this was to build a database of people who are demonstrably gullible, to be targets of future scams.
- adrianhon 8y agoI know that for everyone here, it was obvious from the start that Mars One was never going to fly. What really gets my goat is the utter gullibility of the media. Here are a few of the articles from The Guardian: 22 Apr 2013: Life on Mars to become a reality in 2023, Dutch firm claims 19 Jan 2014: Why we want to spend the rest of our lives on Mars 9 Feb 2015: Mars One mission: a one-way trip to the red planet in 2024 17 Feb 2015: Mars One shortlist: the top 10 hopefuls 19 Feb 2015: Why I want to be a passenger on Mars One 30 May 2015: Can Mars One colonise the red planet? It was always complete bullshit, anyone with a smidge of technical or scientific background said so repeatedly, so why they did write about it so many times? Yes, I know the proximate reasons – Mars One had a good PR agency, The Guardian wants clicks, etc. But The Guardian is meant to be a good, trustworthy news source, and here they were giving credibility to what I can only describe as a scam artist, or at best, a completely deluded entrepreneur. It should never have gotten as far as it did, and I blame the media for this.
- tim333 8y agoIn fairness to the Guardian they were skeptical: "how can you not be suspicious of a bloke who has no rockets or spacesuits but says he’s off to Mars soon" and it's quite an interesting story.
- lisper 8y agoOne indication that no one is even remotely ready to think seriously about colonizing Mars (including Space X): There are vast tracts of uninhabited land on earth, notably in the American West. Colonizing those would be vastly easier than colonizing Mars, and yet no one is even talking about that. A self-sustaining colony in the middle of the Nevada desert that was able to get by with no outside help for a few years would be about 1% as hard as colonizing Mars, and yet no one has done it, and no one AFAIK is planning to do it. This to me is the smoking gun that no one is really taking Mars colonization seriously. Everyone is caught up in the sexiness and glamour and no one wants to get down in the dirt and solve the really hard problems of how humans are actually going to survive when they are totally isolated from civilization for years. Yes, I know about the HI-SEAS project. That was not isolated nor self-sustaining, and it only lasted 8 months. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/mars-simulation-hi-seas-nasa-hawaii/553532/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/mars-sim... That's actually not even the sort of thing I'm talking about. Forget simulating Mars. I want to see someone just colonize an uninhabited part of Earth without relying on help from the outside without any other constraints. Until we can do that, Mars is hopeless.
- woah 8y agoUmmmm... how do you think that things were hundreds or thousands of years ago?
- Retra 8y agoIt's not clear what you're trying to say. All human colonization to date has been dependent upon fertile lands or extensive outside support. If we want to colonize Mars, we should prove we can survive without these things, and since nobody has done that on Earth, why should anybody they think it can be done on another planet?
- lisper 8y agoIn the Nevada desert? Pretty much the same as they are today: uninhabited.
- kakarot 8y ago
- ng-user 8y agoThis reminds me of the Fyre documentary.