Move over Survivor and Big Brother! Forget about the Kardashians! A Dutch company, Mars-One, is planning to establish a human colony on the Red Planet in 2023, and you′ll get to watch the whole thing on Reality TV! The enterprise has the backing of the 1999 Noble Prize winning Dutch physicist Gerard ′t Hooft and Reality TV mogul, Paul Romer, who created the Big Brother series. They describe the plan for a colony on Mars as a ″media event″ and ″media spectacle.″ If all goes well, the first four astronauts will blast off and head for Mars late in 2022, arriving the following year after a 7-month journey. This will take place after a series of supply and equipment craft land on Mars before the humans depart from Earth. Every two years after the initial colonists land on Mars, another group of four will join them, bringing the total number to 20 by 2033.
What makes this scheme different than previous ones considered by NASA and other groups is that its a one-way ride for the colonists. Those who volunteer and pass the rigorous selection process are making a life-time commitment. They will be going to Mars to stay for good and start a whole new life.
Mars-One was founded in 2011 by Bas Landsdorp, an entrepreneur and researcher in alternative energy. Together with co-founders Arno Wielders, a physicist, Bryan Versteeg, a graphics designer and Suzanne Flinkenflogel, a marketing expert, they intend on making a human colony on Mars a reality. Even a Reality TV series! Already several major networks are expressing an interest in carrying the series. They have also lined up several contractors to supply them with the hardware and technology needed to pull it all off.
So if you feel an urging for adventure, and for fame as a Reality TV star, then the Mars-One program may be just the thing for you! The Dutch private company is getting serious and ready to begin recruiting astronauts to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. If all goes according to their plans, the first four colonists will land on the Red Planet in 2023. Every two years following that, when Earth and Mars are close to each other, another team of four astronauts will take a one-way trip.
June 5th, 2012 at 10:51 am
I’m very skeptical of this, this ain’t gonna happen – as much as I want it to.
The founder of Mars-One did an “ask me anything” on Reddit and the team seems to be VERY inexperienced for something like this. He couldn’t answer how they came up with the estimates, or give good responses for anything technical. He couldn’t even answer how they came up with the date 2023. You need a team of thousands of HIGHLY intelligent individuals to pull something like this off.
My money is on ‘biggest hoax of all-time’.
June 5th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
They are a long way, a VERY long way, from getting started. But who knows? There was once a guy, a goldsmith, who got investors to back him in an enterprise to sell trinkets at a religious pilgrimage. Only problem was he arrived a year too late. So he told his investors he had another idea. The guy’s name was Gutenberg and his other idea was building a movable printing press that used uniform sized letters.
June 5th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
And here I was merely hoping that Obama would blast off to the moon. Now I need to shoot for the stars!
June 5th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
SNow;
“My money is on ‘biggest hoax of all-time’.”
10 years go you’d'a beer rich off gerbil warming.
By now, Vegas should be beach front property
June 5th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
I want off this rock. Hopefully my son sees that day and the moonbats can have what they’ve always said is theirs.
June 6th, 2012 at 3:46 am
Yes, Micky! I believe that your son will one day be able to escape Earth. In the long run, the two deciding factors for space colonization will be money, with hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of minerals and cheap energy out there, and politics. One day soon, a group of wealthy Libertarians, maybe those nasty Koch Brothers, will build a self-sufficient colony that offers a level of freedom yet to be imagined.
June 6th, 2012 at 7:07 am
Seems like a retirement timeline! In 11 years when they fail everyone can retire with shame and big bank accounts