Mars One plans to establish human settlement on Mars in 2023
June 3, 2012
Mars colony in 2025 (credit: Mars One)
Help wanted: astronaut. Must be willing to relocate to Mars — permanently. Hire date: 2013. Benefits: make history, start new planetary civilization, star in reality TV show. Apply to: Mars One.
Netherlands-based Mars One hopes to establish the first human settlement on Mars in 2023. It has created a technical plan for this ambitious mission that is “as simple as possible” and says it has identified potential suppliers, such as SpaceX, for every component of the mission.
Mars One plans to fund the mission by making it a reality TV show, in the “biggest media spectacle in history” with help from Mars One ambassador Paul Römer, co-creator of the globally successful Big Brother reality TV show (a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world). Everyone will get to watch the astronauts make their journey, and also choose which candidate gets to go (as in the Big Brother show).
Here’s the plan
2013: Crowdsourced selection of first four astronauts; a replica of the Mars settlement built in the desert to help the astronauts prepare and train, and to test the equipment — all carried on TV.
Simulated Mars base (credit: Mars One)
2014: Production of the first Mars communication satellite.
2016: Supply mission launched for Mars — to land October 2016 with its cargo: 2500 kilograms of food.
Supply mission (credit: Mars One)
2018: Robotic exploration vehicle lands on Mars to pick best location for the settlement.
Mars One rover (credit: Mars One)
2021: . Two living units, two life support units, a second supplies unit and another rover create a habitable settlement.
Robots create Mars colony habitation (credit: Mars One)
2022: Liftoff on the future SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy.
2023: Landing on a lander built by SpaceX, likely a special variant of the Dragon capsule.
2025: Second group of four astronauts lands.
“Mars One is an extraordinarily daring initiative by people with vision and imagination,” says Mars One Ambassador and physics Nobel prize winner Gerard ‘t Hooft. “This project seems to me to be the only way to fulfill dreams of mankind’s expansion into space.”
Mars One founder is entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Ampyx Power, a technology start-up company that is developing the PowerPlane, a device that can extract energy from the wind more economically than wind turbines.
Comments (40)
by ram
thats a nice place for a penal colony hahahaha
by jose
how i will live this gorgeous planet to go to the empty place ?????
by NakedApe
I dreamed of going into space since I was a boy and I never lost that dream. What better person to send into space than a middle aged man who has enjoyed a long and healthy life on Earth and is approaching the inevitable end of it. By all means, use me as a human guinea pig and send me to Mars or on a voyage of no return to the nearest star. If it should spell my demise then so be it. What a magnificent way to go…
by Peter Simmons
Is Bas volunteering? Does he see himself spending the rest of his life in an inhospitable baking desert? Hmmm.
by ernie
Quite to the contrary, Mars is not a hot desert but rather colder than a deep freeze day and night.
by Aezel
I don’t see much there to protect them from getting microwaved on the surface.
by AlphaBetaGamma
Or on the way there. They better start digging when they land and have lots of chemotherapy on hand. I don’t think I’d like watching people die a slow or quick death on TV, but I’m sure a lot of people would.
by Chrispium
You know the reason people watch Big Brother and the like, is to watch stupid, evil people behave in stupid and evil ways. Hardly anyway to found a new civilization.
When people on Mars have to be rational and efficient the viewers will quickly tire of the show. Can’t really use landscape pictures to keep the attention, Mars is rather dull. Back in the days of the Apollo program they lost the audience in 4 or 5 trips only.
Aside from this I do hope for a Mars settling.
by Lord Penguin
Right now is a good time to make a space-based reality show. Interest in space from the general public has greatly increased, if not as much as during the space race. I just hope that the show would be able to hold that interest for, literally, a lifetime.
Once the get onto the planet, they won’t be abandoned for lack of funds if the past is any indication, more likely a group will form to send supply ships, whether its in the Netherlands, the US, or elsewhere.
However, living on mars presents many problems other than need for supplies currently on Earth, such as meteors, long-term exposure to radiation that is normally weakened by the magnetosphere and ozone layer on Earth, and machine failure.
To minimize risk, all living units should contain radiation shields, material for which could be taken from the Mars landscape. Mars bound asteroids should be tracked to the ground as well as our current equipment allows, and the settlement shouldn’t be built anywhere near projected impact sites. Preferably, the “buildings” could be moved if a new meteor threat is detected. And, of course, all systems should have as much redundancy as possible.
by cacarr
Regarding VASIMIR, Zubrin makes a compelling case that it’s a scam.
by Gorden Russell
I certainly hope they have a bigger vehicle by then. I’d hate to make that long trip in a Dragon.
Check out the wiki on VASIMIR, the engine is going to be tested on the space station soon.
by Laura C.
Times to get Zubrin’s brilliant “Mars Direct” book (The Case for Mars) back off the shelf.
by David U
I am glad that we are not being forced to pay for this trip with our tax dollars, like the moon reality show was.
by Arctic Poppy
It’s so easy to be negative
by giorgio gaviraghi
http://www.marspapers.org/abstr/Gaviraghi_2003abstr.htm
please check this page
idea originally submitted in 2003
to make it work we need more thana reality show big brother style , also an The apprentice style research for candidates and team to submit technical proposals
by MK
I hope the kardashians arent on this reality show…
by Editor
No, but I hear Snooky of the Jersey Shore reality TV show is being recruited to test sun tans at the desert test site.
by David U
I hope they are. because they will probably die. ;)
by Chris
I hope they are! I’ve seen enough of them on this planet to last a lifetime.
by Giulio Prisco
I wish the very best to this deliciously creative, irreverent, and subversive project, and I will follow it with a lot of attention.
Of course I suspect that the real business plan may be cashing out and disappearing after the first reality show for the selection of astronauts, but I really hope it is for real.
by Giulio Prisco
@Mark re “This “show” can’t just be cancelled if it’s a ratings flop.”
I hope they are betting on success.
@Carbone re “This [crowdsourced selection of astronauts] will be the whole reality show then it gets canned.”
Of course there is this possibility and, even worse, perhaps this is the real business plan. In today’s scamonomy, I wouldn’t be surprised. But let’s stay optimist for a while, I totally love this project.
by Gophernevich
What a brilliant practical plan for colonizing the solar system!
Where is my checkbook? I think a billion dollars will cover basic costs.
This is for sending action figures to Mars right? Not people?
by Editor
No, I think they should send the tiny humanoid robots, which will cut down on rocket size.
by Chrispium
Food goes up in 2016, but nobody arrives to consume it before 2022? Yuck!
by Allanx
There are plenty of foods out there that have a very long shelf life when stored properly. I’ve eaten decade-old emergency food bars, and I thought they were delicious.
by Desdemona
So, I guess it is time to move KurweilAI.net from my “Serious Science” bookmark folder to the “Fringe for fun” folder.
by Editor
You may find a follow-up blog post on this tomorrow of more interest.
by Mark Parker
I love the notion but funding this through a reality tv show is a pathetic joke. This “show” can’t just be cancelled if it’s a ratings flop. The colony might not be self sustaining for decades, which means lots of expensive resupply missions. And if there are insufficient funds for resupply, people die. That’s not the kind of reality show any sane person wants to watch.
The challenges for colonists on Mars will dwarf those faced by the early Dutch and English colonists in North America — and they died like flies. A project like this can’t be planned on a shoestring. Massive redundancy and triple or quadruple cost overruns must be anticipated (and then doubled again in all probability). And if the Mars One company goes bankrupt on Earth, will there be an insurance policy to help finance efforts by whatever government/private agency responsible for keeping the colonists alive? I don’t know… It’s a pretty idea but is not as easy as they would like us to believe.
by DC
It seems reasonable to me that thousands may die in colonizing Mars. When a plant sends out seeds, none come back and most of them die. Why will people seeding Mars be any different?
by Giulio Prisco
@DC – This is true, but I prefer few deaths to thousands of deaths, and I prefer no deaths to few deaths.
by Mortran
I prefer that it is done in the first place, no matter how many deaths.
by Giulio Prisco
If I could be part of the colonization of Mars, I would go even if the probability of dying is very high. But “no matter how many deaths” is not a nice thing to say, especially if it includes persons who have not freely chosen the risk.
by Peter Simmons
So you’ve volunteered right? Oh was it ‘other’ deaths you were talking about?
by Peter Simmons
No one asks the seeds to volunteer.
by Mortran
If the ratings flop, the candidates will be voted out of the airlock.
So you better keep the audience happy.
by Giulio Prisco
They say sex in a lower gravity is fun to watch.
by cacarr
“But with testing of the VASMR plasma engine soon with the supposed capability to cut down the trip to less than 40 days, it might not take as long.”
Now all you need is for VASIMIR to actually work like they say it does, and a 20-megawatt nuclear reactor in space.
by The Watcher
The trip time still sounds like the traditional time it takes to get to mars now. But with testing of the VASMR plasma engine soon with the supposed capability to cut down the trip to less than 40 days, it might not take as long.
by Peter Simmons
Thinking is the best way to travel …
by Carbone
“2013: Crowdsourced selection of first four astronauts; a replica of the Mars settlement built in the desert to help the astronauts prepare and train, and to test the equipment — all carried on TV.”
This will be the whole reality show then it gets canned.