Slashdot Mirror
Mars One: Final 100 Candidates Selected
hypnosec writes "The Mars One project has picked the final 100 candidates for the next round of the selection process. Initially, 202,586 people applied and ultimately around 40 will undertake a one-way trip to Mars. “The large cut in candidates is an important step towards finding out who has the right stuff to go to Mars,” said Bas Lansdorp, Co-founder & CEO of Mars One. “These aspiring martians provide the world with a glimpse into who the modern day explorers will be.”
202,586 Idiots scammed out of their money.
"Who wants to be a space explorer?"
But there's no engineering solution to get them there, so it might as well just be a tv show.
Have they ever put out a viable plan to reach Mars? Why are we re-printing this crap?
I know the idea of going to Mars is pretty awesome but this just reeks of scam. They are claiming they will launch the first people by 2024, a mere 9 years from now. You will note that except for a Donate link there is no mention of funding. They even say "No new technology developments are required to establish a human settlement on Mars", which is demonstrably false.
Why is slashdot giving scammers like this the time of day? This is not a real mission to Mars. This is not even a credible attempt at one. There is no funding, no realistic plan, no details, no technology development, and nothing else that should even give the slightest hint that this is anything more than a scam.
But hey -- since it is a TV show all they need are some special effects and to put the "contestents" in a room somewhere. Since the trip is supposed to be one-way, all we need a little "accident" at the end to add drama and silence the witnesses.
Douglas Quaid: Wait, who are you?
Agent: We were buddies in the agency back on Mars. You told me that if you ever went missing, I was to come find you and deliver this suitcase to you. So, here I am, and goodbye.
Douglas Quaid: Wait! What was I doing on Mars?
[the agent hangs up]
Douglas Quaid: Shit!
It's never going to happen. This selection process is just reality tv.
Captcha: condom
I hope she made the final list.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
But...I can't decide if that bothers me or not. The sheer *audacity* of this project impresses me. I kind of want to see it happen.
Unfortunately, the mission is basically a death-sentence for the people involved. And not because of the one-way nature of the mission, but because the people behind this don't have a clue. I would be amazed if anybody actually made it to Mars alive. Hell, I'll be amazed if they make it into space alive.
Why would people agree to let their spouse leave knowing that they will never see or speak to them again?? It seems like to me that the emotional and biological factors involved leaving your spouse in this manner and living with that decision can lead to poor decision making and could potentially endanger everyone else.
IMO assuming this isnt some hoax and they really are going to send people there, then its a mission for people who are totally unattached with no kids so that they can focus on staying alive and making the right decisions.
If for anything, because their selection process is not published under the GPLv3 license.
Can't help but think of douglas Adams when i read about this venture: These tales of impending doom allowed the Golgafrinchans to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population. The story was that they would build three Ark ships. Into the A ship would go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the B ark would hold everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitizers. They sent the B ship off first, but of course the other two-thirds of the population stayed on the planet and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
"The Marching Morons" :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons#Plot_summary
And that has always been what baffles me about this ... how is it even legal?
This isn't a "sign up for something which carries some risk". This is a "you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to die".
Seriously, WTF ... how is it legal for that??
This is a corporation/foundation/whatever they are who has NEVER even launched a single thing, has no expertise, no technology, no track record ... and somehow they've gotten thousands of people signing up to die.
This is completely ridiculous, and more than a little scary ... anybody signing up for this almost can't be in their right mind.
I'm sure the TV ratings of them all dying on Mars will be awesome, assuming they make it to Mars.
But the stunning lack of technology, skills, track record, regard for the lives of those who will be sacrificed as a PR stunt ... it just boggles the mind.
The whole thing defies common sense or belief.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'll be amazed if they ever see the inside of a rocket.
These people will be collecting Social Security long before any rocket to Mars happens, and if not, NASA or the governments that fund the project, will choose professional astronauts.
Really, it's a "fun" thought, but simply not realistic.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Or the outside of one for that matter....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I get it now. They're going to kill the candidates before they launch them. No need for food, water, air or a safe landing.
Birth is a death sentence.
This isn't a "sign up for something which carries some risk". This is a "you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to die".
Hey, you can say the same thing about the maternity ward at the hospital.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
When it hits the fan, and it will, you'll almost certainly see this:
"Mars One, Earthlings Zero"
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
How sad the default state, in some peoples' minds, for exploration is to get on bended knee to government.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And that has always been what baffles me about this ... how is it even legal?
- I see, so you don't believe that people and not the state are ultimately owners of their own bodies can decide what to do with themselves (including killing themselves if they want to)?
You know, if something is legal it doesn't mean it's right and if something is illegal it doesn't mean it's wrong.
You can't handle the truth.
"you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to die".
Aren't we all?
Isn't that what happened to the crew of the space shuttle Challenger?
And wouldn't the moon be a more logical choice, considering it is closer? Sorry, but this just looks like empty promises and a money grab to me.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
And that has always been what baffles me about this ... how is it even legal?
Well, so far they haven't actually put people at risk, they're free to claim that they will be able to send people to Mars safely in the future as theoretically that may be possible. I'm sure they've got the necessary loopholes that if they can't actually offer you the alleged trip they owe these candidates nothing too, so nobody has a valid fraud claim. Don't worry I'm quite sure this scam won't ever involve an actual rocket.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I started my project called Earth One. 7 billion+ winners of the space lottery!
you are working yourself into a frenzy over nothing. No spacecraft capable of carrying humans to mars is going to be made in the next nine years; solving engineering problems for such a thing will take decades and the financial resources of a superpower. This is just another scam / ponzi scheme. Put it out of your mind
They should make this into a Reality Series. Mars 100.
Such words don't apply to this scam, but when the day comesthat people can be sent one-way to mars there is no ethical problem at all. your concerns are groundless. People die all the time exploring, from free climbing to mountain climbing to rafting. Accepted risk by the participants, you have no right to project your cowardly values on them.
This isn't a "sign up for something which carries some risk". This is a "you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to die".
Hey, you can say the same thing about the maternity ward at the hospital.
I'm hungry. Let's trip the *whoosh* meter by biting this troll :)
*Earth* maternity wards give the average person a 60 to 70 year life expectancy. We often have outliers who see 105 years on Gaia.
Could the "same thing" be said about martian maternity wards? lunar ones? Ganymedian? Deep space?
No. Here is why: Earth's brightest have not remotely solved even the problem of disconnecting our front yard's International Space Station from cyclic supply and unexpected maintenance / repair services. Crew member countries would force their astronauts to vacate the ISS if whoever is in charge of deliveries managed to interfere unilaterally with all those costly but vital launches.
That's essentially what it is.
All you jackasses saying "Well, birth is a death sentence." can fuck off.
All pithy sayings aside, a one way Mars mission at this point is little more than a multi-victim snuff film.
These people aren't going to die of old age or related causes.
They're going to die of asphyxia, starvation, decompression, etc, as they're going to be shot out there with little to no actual means of support.
It's not like they can just get out there and live off the land.
So, great, we get video of people dying horribly in an alien environment with no hope of rescue, as the nearest people are at least 35 million miles and a MINIMUM of 40 days (with a maximum of 289 days and a median of 162 days) away.
Anybody who actually volunteered for this was an idiot.
Anyone who actually goes through with this is a suicidal idiot.
Anyone who actually facilitates these suicidal idiots is a sonofabitch and a murderer.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Speak for yourself. I plan on living forever. Been going just fine so far.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Anyone who survives the trip, won't survive the duration. They will either turn into blind mice or boneless spongebobs.
Is all.
Ever catch the TV series Ascension?
Maybe this Mars One project will be a reality show where 40 people will think they are going to Mars but are actually on a fake ship inside a studio.
But...I can't decide if that bothers me or not. The sheer *audacity* of this project impresses me. I kind of want to see it happen.
The only audacity is the balls it takes to scam stupid, credulous people out of their money. Anyone who cannot see that immediately is a weapons grade idiot.
Unfortunately, the mission is basically a death-sentence for the people involved
There is no mission. There never will be from this "organization". This is a scam and nothing more.
Have they ever put out a viable plan to reach Mars? Why are we re-printing this crap?
Because Space Suicide Pact! It's News!
Seriously, I would like to go to Mars myself, but only as a tourist. I've seen pictures of the place and know what the environment is supposed to be like. Its like living in red Death Valley, only without the cheery warmth. With extra radiation.
Did I mention, it's red *every where*?
So, yeah, not where I want to strand myself for the remainder of my brief existence.
An Independent Assessment Of The Technical Feasibility Of The Mars One Mission Plan
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&...
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Perhaps this will end up being the long awaited sequel to that scifi classic Caprica One.
Birth is a death sentence.
Doesn't mean we let you scam other people out of their money in order to help them reach death sooner.
You have to be a serious sociopath to give that little of a shit about your fellow humans.
I'm pretty sure you can sign away your rights, including those of your estate, to sue for injury or death. That said, I would guess that any life insurance policy would be null and void the minute you signed one of these.
I'd be willing to more than quadruple that list for the purpose...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The first 10 volunteers for open heart surgery were told they were going to die. They did it anyway, because they had nothing to lose. 1 out of the next 10 survived. Today? Heart *transplants* are done all the time.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's ironic that people are excited and proud of this, but turn around and become mad at the very notion of assisted suicide. In the best case you're going to survive for a bit on Mars.
Just by definition, the ability to have vision, to dare something, which nobody has done, to inspire fulfilling a dream and possibly fail is is something which is not for everybody. Every entrepreneur, artist or scientist, explorer or adventurer trying to do something which nobody else has done yet, bears risks with possibly fatal or ruining consequences. Maybe, the negative and critical comments (as of them are here) provide are helpful and even needed to select the right people and even motivate them to do such extraordinary things. The word "extraordinary" already tells it. Early settlers establishing new life in "new worlds" were always considered crazy by the majority, operations might have been called a "scam". Many of them died early, many did not arrive. Tragic would be, if we would start to forbid things. One can imagine a time, when more risky sport activity like mountain biking, skydiving or climbing a mountain would be forbidden, because it is too risky. The question is whether we would become happier in such a locked down world. Back to Mars One: it would be a fantastic thing so see humans live permanently on an other planet. But it would only be really fun if there are enough nay sayers who proclaim it to be impossible or idiotic.
Anyone who actually facilitates these suicidal idiots is a sonofabitch and a murderer.
Leave my mother out of this!
There's no legal problem as long is any accident happens in space or on Mars - since nobody has legal jurisdiction there, and any country trying to claim legal jurisdiction would be challenged by a crapload of other countries.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Yeah but it only takes a small slip to ruin the whole project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
They've chosen 100 out of the 202,586 idiots that applied. I'd hate to see their future junk mail.
Birth is a death sentence.
Who's liable when you die?
I can pretty much say we're all guaranteed to die. Might as well accomplish something along the way.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
There was a TV show in the UK a few years ago, Space Cadets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
In that show, only people utterly clueless about space were allowed. This seems like it could be a more "Truman Show" variant...
Wrong. The Bush Crime Family has already claimed it. If you go to Mars without their permission expect them to kill your entire family. They hate us.
But you forget how long the fought was to be allowed to do so. The Republicans oppose healthcare. They don't want us to have access. They've fought for decades to try to make transplants illegal. That is why they bombed so many transplant doctors. They hate us. They hate us and want us to die.
Have No Space Suit—Will Not Travel
This could shuffle in an era of death as entertainment. Let's NOT go there.
They should do a Kobayashi_Maru simulation, see who is up to the task of making an ultimate "command decision".
I would advise people to give this a chance.
Let me clear up some things about Mars One. It is often claimed that Mars One is a scam and has no scientists, engineers, technology, timetable, suppliers or plan. This is just not true!
Scientists and Engineers:
Lansdorp received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Twente University in 2003. For five years Lansdorp worked at Delft University of Technology and in 2008 founded Ampyx Power in order to develop a new, viable method of generating wind energy.
Lansdorp is also a successful entrepreneur. Here is a ted talk about his last company.
Arno Wielders received his Master of Science in Physics from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1997. He was soon hired by the Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, to work at Dutch Space in the Very Large Telescope Interferometer Delay Line project.
Gerard 't Hooft, Nobel laureate and Ambassador of Mars One
Gerardus (Gerard) 't Hooft is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Norbert Kraft, Chief Medical Officer, Mars One
Norbert Kraft is an American Medical Doctor with over 17 years of experience in aviation and aerospace research and development as of 2012.[1] His primary area of expertise is developing physiological and psychological countermeasures to combat the negative effects of long-duration spaceflight.[1] He has worked for the Russian Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and NASA.[1]
Grant Anderson, Sr. VP Operations, Chief Engineer and Co-Founder, Paragon Space Development Corporation 28 years of experience in spacecraft systems design, requirements formulation and preliminary and detail hardware design. Founded or help found 5 companies, two of which are still operating.
Time table: http://mars-one.com/en/mission...
Suppliers: http://mars-one.com/en/partner...
Technology they want to use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
They don't plan to develop much of the technology themselves, they're planning to buy it from other companies mostly such as SpaceX. Most of this technology exists already. They have written statements of the companies that they are willing and able to supply these things.
Price/Funding:
All they need is the funding, and they plan to get that through broadcasting and sponsor deals. His argument is that the olympics got 6 billion dollars in sponsor deals, so wouldn't a colony/trip to mars get the same? It would certainly help them get funding if people didn't denounce it as soon as they hear the name. The mission is so cheap (6 billion dollars) because it's a one-way trip. Sending people from Mars back to earth is very expensive. Also, they're not a big wasteful government agency.
The falcon heavy for example costs only $77-135M to launch (2013). Technology has come a long way, this combined with the privatization of space has caused costs to drop significantly.
Comparison Olympics/Moonlanding:
http://www.theguardian.com/med...
According to this the 2008 olympic openings ceremony was watched by 1 billion people. According to wikipedia in 1969 (the world population was only half of what it is now, and people weren't as well connected as they are now) the moon landing had 500 million people watching. So, just imagine, how many people would watch a landing on Mars in 2023.
Other:
Not saying they're actually going to be able to pull it off, but there's no evidence that their efforts aren't sincere.
Here is a press conference that answers most of the questions you may have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I am aware that reddit AMA was badly received and too
It's all just a show, put on for entertainment value of the masses. There will be no real launch mission because there is too much liability. They will take it as far as they can and as long as they can if it keeps bringing them money. But they will always stop short of legal liability. They will put some money forward for appearances, such as paying actual space engineers and scientists for "advice" but mostly just to be able to put those names on their public list of contacts. The chosen finalists will be people who were on the company payroll from the start and planted in the initial volunteer list. They would have to be, because anyone else would actually have to quit their job and change locations to start training for the actual mission. When it is finally revealed that it's all just a show, if they had real volunteers they would probably sue the company for wasting years of their life.
The saddest thing is that some people I work with (most with university degrees) are actually buying into the story.
Also I'm willing to bet a significant portion of the finalists are aware this will never happen, and they are just going along for the ride.
Recommended read, interesting spec on how Apollo missions handled the particles.
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/tnD7080RadProtect.pdf
Wasn't there enough radiation going outside the magnetosphere that NASA used Promethium in the switch levers to illuminate the tips. (Mostly shielded).
Passing through the Van Allen belts produce the greatest effect just do it fast was the plan of the day.
It's less audacious than a church promising eternal life in heaven for everyone.
I know this is a troll, but come on - have some self respect. If you're gonna troll, focus! Focus, people!
Oh, stop being a moron.
Name me one terrestrial example in which you could sign up with a private enterprise for an endeavor which would 100% result in your death. The reality is, there isn't anything even similar. Not even close.
Sorry, this isn't about people exercising their rights, this is about signing up for something which pretty much would be illegal in any civilized country.
But, hey, maybe you should sign up and prove to us it's a great idea?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The extra radiation should warm you up quiet nicely -- quit your moaning!
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Don't worry, they're not even going to get to the point of launching anything, never mind threatening anyone's lives.
Fear not, there will always be Children's Crusades.
That's unlikely to be true. The Outer Space Treaty includes references to UN international law and if it became an issue before a more formal declaration was written up, maritime conventions would probably apply. For private vessels not subject to other jurisdictions, the law of the country they're registered in usually applies. That's usually gotten around with a flag of convenience, so maybe you could register your spaceship in Kiribati or something, after getting them to pass laws in your favour. But then you have to figure out where to launch it from: the countries that have launch facilities generally also have fairly strict laws about space launches, especially when humans are involved.
With the maritime law justification, I don't think there would be many objections if, for example, the US government took legal action against a US company that had sent a bunch of people to die on or enroute to Mars. Particularly not after it was broadcast to the world.
I don't know about the US, but you can't do so in Canada. Waivers are more proof that you were informed of the risks, rather than actual waivers of your rights.
Not exactly -- you can acknowledge that an activity is risky, but you cannot sign away the right to sue for injury or death due to negligence or malpractice. If the other party doesn't take reasonable steps to keep you safe, there's still a case to answer for. The legal argument would be that the whole endeavour was negligent, as the risks are too high.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
If the goal is to establish a colony on mars, then your claim that it would 100% result in your death is false. There is high risk that the first attempt will fail, but that is not the same thing as a 100% guarantee.
Obviously civilized societies need to take risks, especially when scientific investigation is concerned.
Though this point is moot, I will go one step further and say that in a civilized society, people *should* be able to organize their own deaths. Self-determinacy should be a core value of civilization. We all face death; we should be free to choose how and when.
Ignore nitwits.
I see what you did there.
You entirely miss the point. After all, wasn't there a time when other colonies rebelled for their independence, rather than "obey the law"? There's ample jurisprudence for that. If you can't enforce the law, it's not really a law, just a suggestion.
Look at ISIS, look at Ukraine ...
All the treaties are "treaties of convenience", to be obeyed until one party decides it's to their advantage to violate it. I sure don't see ISIS obeying the Geneva Conventions.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Of-course it is about exercising individual rights. Nobody is forcing these people to do any of it, they are volunteering to do it and the fact that they are volunteering to do it not with any government office but with another private individual or a company doesn't matter one bit, it's their body and it's their lives. By default we are the owners of ourselves, this is the ultimate capitalism - the capital is your body and you are the private owner of it. You may want to have a totally socialist/fascist/dictatorial system if you like, fine, but I do not agree with it. People own themselves, nobody else does. In fact what you are proposing is that people do not own themselves but instead they are property of the state and I oppose it completely.
You can't handle the truth.
I think that is an exaggeration to say that is a "Space Suicide Pact". There are to strong possibilities
(well the first is much stronger than the second), the whole project is a scam in which case nobody live it's at risk,
or is technically sound project and there are negotiations taking place with providers, sponsors, tv networks, advertisers, etc.
In the later case is an extremely risky endeavour, granted, but the project contemplates that the astronauts will live
and work towards quasi self-substantiation. They can't return to Earth, but if everything goes well they gonna live in Mars.
Of course, even if it works out well, I expect the life expectancy in Mars to be substantially less than in Earth if not
only for the reduced health care facilities in the extraterrestrial colony. But to go to a harsh environment with poor health care
its hardly suicidal. It's only a bit risky.
But there are tons of men who perform risky activities, with reduced life expectancies, not only for fun but also for a living.
Finally there is another choice: the efforts of Mars One are sincere, but the ones in charge are technically clues and seriously
underestimated the risks. In that case only this turns out to be a true suicide mission.
Lastly I want to say that this project sounds like a scam to me, but is true that I have the expertise to comment in the
technically feasibility and the risk estimation, and neither can I estimate the magnitude of the revenue that can be obtained thru television.
Because the funding of the mission is critically tied to its capacity as revenue generation.
But the stunning lack of technology, skills, track record, regard for the lives of those who will be sacrificed as a PR stunt ... it just boggles the mind.
The whole thing defies common sense or belief.
They said the same thing about Obamacare but look how well that worked out.... Oh wait... nevermind.
Well, there's only 4 Canadians, so MarsOne might be saved by luck of the draw.
In order to be a Martian, you must be born on Mars. duh... every Martian knows this.
This really seems like a well worded excuse for people with no common sense and highly gullible to send money to people with a lot of common sense and few scruples. I bet a lot of the people that applied for this trip are also owners of star deeds and maybe even plots of land on the moon.
Any scientific organization taking part in this effort, under the prepositions which are assumes now, is, in my opinion, unethical. The life and health of humans involved must be the first priority in any experiment; and this is what it is - its an badly planned, underfunded, and dangerous experiment.
My wife works in pharmceutical research, and if they did the same thing to mice (namely put them in a badly expected experiment without a clear purpose, but a high change of dying in an uncontrolled and unpleasant way), they would not get the approval.
This is a long con where the end result is going to be a reality TV show.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Your examples are all of established colonies that were longstanding, self-sufficient and successfully rebelled. If you unsuccessfully rebel you end up very much under the jurisdiction of the parent government. Also, you're presumably talking about crimes committed in the colonies by the colonists, not negligence committed by the organizing group who stayed at home.
Sure, if Mars One managed to actually put settlers on Mars, they lived there independently for an extended period of time (decades at least) and then declared their independence both from any Earthly nations AND the Mars One organization, that colony could reasonably be considered under it's own jurisdiction. If a Mars colony member murdered another, since there's no way to ship him home to stand trial, the colonists could basically make up their own legal system.
The real situation is more like a cruise ship sailing into international waters (or an international airline flight). The cruise ship is governed by the laws of it's registry nation and nobody is going to take it the least bit seriously if it declares independence. If that ship sinks due to the negligence of the owning corporation, that corporation and its officials are likely to find themselves under the jurisdiction of any and all nations where they maintain a presence.
I'd sit thru a lot of Brand X commercials to see Jerry Springer 2.0.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
I'll be surprised if they get off the planet.
I'll be extremely surprised if they land on Mars successfully.
I'll be absolutely flabbergasted if they survive more than a year.
Pro-tip: Everybody is 100% guaranteed to die.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
It's a SCAM. Pure and simple. People are not volunteering for this after having been given all the facts. Being stupid is not the same as giving permission to be killed. There is no libertarian utopia that would allow this.
IYour "living independently" as a requirement for declaring sovereignty doesn't even hold up here on dirtside.
How many countries are living independently, with no trade of food, energy, cars, consumer goods, medicines, capital, knowldege, etc.? None. Doesn't stop them from being sovereign nations :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's a high risk if people who know how to do these things get involved. It is murder or manslaughter if people are conned into joining by people who have no clue how to do a mission like this. This is Heaven's Gate on a larger scale.
This would be true if this were a legitimate operation. Instead it involves no one with any knowledge or experience conning people into joining their team for essentially entertainment purposes. If these were legitimate people they've be doing the basics of space exploration the same as other private space exploration companies. Instead they're claiming to be jumping to the end game when they haven't even learned to drive.
And that has always been what baffles me about this ... how is it even legal?
This isn't a "sign up for something which carries some risk". This is a "you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to die".
What business of yours is it if people are dying for a chance to go to Mars?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
...and what is the survival probability of a soldier on the front lines of war?
they're allowed to sign up for the military. i don't hear you arguing the military is illegal.
So what, many things are scams, it's up to individuals to decide what they want to do, scam or no scam. Governments are scams and plenty of people subscribe to that model.
You can't handle the truth.
...and what is the survival probability of a soldier on the front lines of war?
Surprisingly, pretty good. I've seen figures of less than one bullet in a thousand fired in combat even hits a person, even with highly trained soldiers on both sides that are even trying to aim... like was the case at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II or fighting in the trenches of World War I with aggressive attacks. For soldiers in some of the more recent wars that the USA has been in, you have a much better than 90% chance of surviving combat engagements, and for some units definitely higher than 99% of the soldiers will return home without any combat injuries of any kind beyond PTSD. If you can get a medic to get ahold of you and pull you from the front line, your odds of survival even with combat injuries are pretty damn good.
This is a pretty lousy example to give.
But then you wonder how this compares to our ban on assisted suicide for the terminally ill and of chronic disease. One group can decide to make a fairly perilous trip, and another cannot choose to end theirs.
As a systems engineer, I live on planning forever. It'll be going just fine someday.
no support infrastructure. humans have the entire biosphere of earth, and all the technological capacity you could want. humans on mars would have at most a few tons of manufactured goods and biological products. if any one item brought over begins to fail, and cannot be replicated with the supply chain on mars, then the colony dies a slow death. this is either a scam or (if the money is eventually put into publicizing human space travel), a publicity stunt. Before i would travel to mars to live, i would want a set of robot factories installed there, that had been working to create necessary goods for at least 20 years, and which have the AI capacity to self repair and improve processes somewhat independent of human direction. maybe about 1,000 robot launches of goods and machines, and multiple redundancies (perhaps as many as 100 back up sets). the whole unmanned colony could do r & d, much of which could benefit us here (robotic remote rescue, etc). I would want to live in tunnels deep enough to completely block radiation. perhaps after a couple of centuries of terraforming, we might have a workable atmosphere a la kim stanley robinson. remember, we only just recently launched our first manufacturing device, a 3d printer, into earth orbit.
Sending 4 at a time starting in 2018 every 2 years seems not a productive strategy for colonization. The last four in the mix will have waited nearly a lifetime before getting aboard. Hopefully the management has sorted out possible reproductive pairings such that life can perpetuate without too much consanguinity issues.
-- I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
Birth is a death sentence.
Survival is the slowest form of suicide.
Seriously, does anyone here think they are actually going to be launching by 2025? They are currently BEGGING to raise $50,000,000 just to "get things rolling". this is sounding a lot more like a pitch for a bad reality show a la Big Brother than it is a real attempt to send an expedition to Mars.