Mars One Does Not Renew Contracts For Robotic Missions

braindrainbahrain writes Mars One is, of course, the highly speculative, low credibility project to land humans on Mars after a one-way trip. In 2013 they had announced that two contracts had been awarded to the aerospace industry to develop a Mars orbiter and a Mars lander to carry a science experiment payload to the surface. Both contracts have been completed, but so far, Mars One has no immediate plans to renew the contracts and pursue further development of the crafts.

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This Just In!

[CohibaVancouver]

This just in - Getting humans safely to the surface of Mars is way wicked hard and totally expensive.

What will really happen

[7bit]

If the funders are really serious about creating a Reality TV experience about volunteers taking a one way trip to Mars then this is the only way they can do it at this time:

1. They will publicly do exactly what they have been doing so far, all the while screening the applicants for those most likely to buy in to what they are being told.

2. Once they have the final applicants sequestered and completely removed from the public and communication with the outside world they may or may not give hints to the public about what is really going to happen:

What will really happen:

The "Winners" will be totally isolated from communication with the public with the exception of very carefully screened media and family communications etc.

They will be constantly filmed documentary style, which they already expect.

After the Training "Season" and drama they will be boarded onto what is described to them as a top secret craft built by the Russians or whoever and carefully told that space travel technology is actually far advanced of what the public has been told and that they will be Pioneers in space exploration.

They will actually be entering an expensive yet economically viable simulated ship (ala Ascension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... where they will then spend a number of months "traveling" to Mars with cameras in every room.

After that season they will have a dramatic yet fright-filled arrival and landing at Mars. I assume at this point that they will pull a Capricorn One in some desert. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... ).

At some point, as each person dies for some reason, the truth will be revealed to each one and we will have the Drama of them having their 'Second Chance' at life.

-- If done successfully and done right I would actually watch this drama. So everyone, please, shush! Don't tell those final 100 anything!

time to learn from history

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

The Darien Scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s. The aim was for the colony to have an overland route that connected the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. From the beginning the undertaking was beset by poor planning and provisioning, divided leadership, lack of demand for trade goods, devastating epidemics of disease, and failure to anticipate the Spanish Empire's military response. It was finally abandoned in March 1700 after a siege by Spanish forces, which also blockaded the harbour.[1]

As the Darien company was backed by 25–50% of all the money circulating in Scotland; its failure left the entire Lowlands almost completely ruined, and was an important factor in weakening their resistance to the Act of Union (completed in 1707). The land where the Darien colony was built is virtually uninhabited today.

history lesson:

some time in the next few centuries, there will be an interplanetary exploration/ colonization pyramid scheme that will bankrupt millions of people, maybe even a nation or two