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Well, 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 assessmen

Well, 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 ago
Imagine people having some sort of debilitating disease wanting their last moments to be on a trip like this.
- detaro 8y ago
  Except Mars One wasn't interested in not fully healthy people.
tempestn 8y ago
I 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 ago
  I 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.
  - y4mi 8y ago
    > Why? i'm not a rocket engineer, but at least some reasons are pretty obvious. 1. you need less than half of the fuel. Yes, you will need less fuel to take off of mars, but its still a massive amount of fuel you need to safely transport to mars, as its an exponential curve of fuel consumed per kg of fuel transported 2. you don't have takeoff infrastructure on mars. your space vehicle would have to be able to safely lift off without any external help.
    - walrus01 8y ago
      very rough calculations: https://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png https://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png interestingly, while it takes something like 9800m/s delta V to get from earth sea level, at the equator, to LEO, it's more like 3800m/s delta-V required from surface to achieve low orbit of mars. I think most mars return missions presume the ability to produce fuel locally through something like the sabatier process, and not haul it from earth -> LEO -> mars transfer orbit -> mars surface.
      - TuringTest 8y ago
        Cool image! That looks like the subway map of the solar system. Is that your own? If so, what software did you use to paint it?
        walrus01 8y ago
        Not my own, it actually came from a forum for Kerbal space program players who've installed a mod that changes things to a 1:1 scale model of the real solar system.
    - mcv 8y ago
      You may not have to take your return fuel from Earth to Mars. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan is to first send a return vehicle to Mars together with some hydrogen and a plant that generates methane and oxygen out of CO2 and hydrogen. Let it work for two years, then send another one, while also sending the manned mission. If all goes right, the first return vehicle is ready for take off when the manned mission arrives, so they can evacuate right away if necessary. If something is wrong with the first return vehicle, they can spend their planned two years on Mars and by then the second return vehicle will be ready to take them home. Otherwise the second return vehicle waits for the next manned mission.
- Faark 8y ago
  > would be fascinated to watch I'd expect it to get boring quick, just like watching rocket launches. New exciting images can only happen every so often. You probably want some drama or tension for better ratings. That's a pretty big mismatch of incentives combined with tricky power dynamic. I'd stay away from that unless that reality show is just a small side venture. And no way it could ever significantly finance a mars base in the first place.
  - yreg 8y ago
    About as fascinating to watch as media produced on the ISS. So after the initial hype, not mainstream.
  - tempestn 8y ago
    Yeah, I agree. Like almost everyone else I assume, I'd watch the launch and initial landing. And I'd be interested in major milestones (but I probably watch more rocket launches than the average person too). But yeah, day to day I expect you're dead on that it'd be about as exciting as watching the live ISS footage: ie, not very. Edit: Was my sibling that made the comparison to ISS, not the parent. Either way, apt.
- r3bl 8y ago
  Bone loss, changes in bone structure, muscle atrophy, and changes in the inner ear are just some of the suspected negative effect of spending extended periods of time in weaker gravity. They'd have to spend hours each day working out to counter those effects. Their day would primarily consist of sleep and working out, with a few hours of time for everything else. That doesn't make for a good televised program. On top of that, a minimum-energy launch window appears every two years and two months (or 780 days), making it way more realistic to send people on two year long missions.
  - fouc 8y ago
    The working out etc part is only necessary if they ever plan to go back to Earth.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- lisper 8y ago
  > a one way colonization mission to Mars isn't insane Actually, it pretty much is. 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 we don't do it because even that is borderline insane (at the very least, economically irrational). No rational person should take Mars colonization seriously until, at the very minimum, someone puts a colony in the middle of the Nevada desert that manages to sustain itself for a few years with no outside help. No one is doing that because it's both unsexy and stupid. But being sexy doesn't make colonizing Mars any less stupid.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Why does it have to be without outside help?
    - lisper 8y ago
      Because that's what you'd have to deal with on Mars. (OK, you can have a low-bandwidth, high-latency internet connection and one small shipping container every two years.)
Odenwaelder 8y ago
What on Mars are you talking about?

devoply 8y ago

Imagine people having some sort of debilitating disease wanting their last moments to be on a trip like this.

detaro 8y ago
Except Mars One wasn't interested in not fully healthy people.

tempestn 8y ago

I 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 ago
I 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.
- y4mi 8y ago
  > Why? i'm not a rocket engineer, but at least some reasons are pretty obvious. 1. you need less than half of the fuel. Yes, you will need less fuel to take off of mars, but its still a massive amount of fuel you need to safely transport to mars, as its an exponential curve of fuel consumed per kg of fuel transported 2. you don't have takeoff infrastructure on mars. your space vehicle would have to be able to safely lift off without any external help.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    very rough calculations: https://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png https://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png interestingly, while it takes something like 9800m/s delta V to get from earth sea level, at the equator, to LEO, it's more like 3800m/s delta-V required from surface to achieve low orbit of mars. I think most mars return missions presume the ability to produce fuel locally through something like the sabatier process, and not haul it from earth -> LEO -> mars transfer orbit -> mars surface.
    - TuringTest 8y ago
      Cool image! That looks like the subway map of the solar system. Is that your own? If so, what software did you use to paint it?
      - walrus01 8y ago
        Not my own, it actually came from a forum for Kerbal space program players who've installed a mod that changes things to a 1:1 scale model of the real solar system.
  - mcv 8y ago
    You may not have to take your return fuel from Earth to Mars. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan is to first send a return vehicle to Mars together with some hydrogen and a plant that generates methane and oxygen out of CO2 and hydrogen. Let it work for two years, then send another one, while also sending the manned mission. If all goes right, the first return vehicle is ready for take off when the manned mission arrives, so they can evacuate right away if necessary. If something is wrong with the first return vehicle, they can spend their planned two years on Mars and by then the second return vehicle will be ready to take them home. Otherwise the second return vehicle waits for the next manned mission.
Faark 8y ago
> would be fascinated to watch I'd expect it to get boring quick, just like watching rocket launches. New exciting images can only happen every so often. You probably want some drama or tension for better ratings. That's a pretty big mismatch of incentives combined with tricky power dynamic. I'd stay away from that unless that reality show is just a small side venture. And no way it could ever significantly finance a mars base in the first place.
- yreg 8y ago
  About as fascinating to watch as media produced on the ISS. So after the initial hype, not mainstream.
- tempestn 8y ago
  Yeah, I agree. Like almost everyone else I assume, I'd watch the launch and initial landing. And I'd be interested in major milestones (but I probably watch more rocket launches than the average person too). But yeah, day to day I expect you're dead on that it'd be about as exciting as watching the live ISS footage: ie, not very. Edit: Was my sibling that made the comparison to ISS, not the parent. Either way, apt.
r3bl 8y ago
Bone loss, changes in bone structure, muscle atrophy, and changes in the inner ear are just some of the suspected negative effect of spending extended periods of time in weaker gravity. They'd have to spend hours each day working out to counter those effects. Their day would primarily consist of sleep and working out, with a few hours of time for everything else. That doesn't make for a good televised program. On top of that, a minimum-energy launch window appears every two years and two months (or 780 days), making it way more realistic to send people on two year long missions.
- fouc 8y ago
  The working out etc part is only necessary if they ever plan to go back to Earth.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lisper 8y ago
> a one way colonization mission to Mars isn't insane Actually, it pretty much is. 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 we don't do it because even that is borderline insane (at the very least, economically irrational). No rational person should take Mars colonization seriously until, at the very minimum, someone puts a colony in the middle of the Nevada desert that manages to sustain itself for a few years with no outside help. No one is doing that because it's both unsexy and stupid. But being sexy doesn't make colonizing Mars any less stupid.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Why does it have to be without outside help?
  - lisper 8y ago
    Because that's what you'd have to deal with on Mars. (OK, you can have a low-bandwidth, high-latency internet connection and one small shipping container every two years.)

Odenwaelder 8y ago

What on Mars are you talking about?