Slashdot Mirror
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.
abandoned it's plans to build a vehicle and are now building a giant horeshoe magnet to pull the planet closer to earth so that they can board it with wooden planks ..
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!
So far there's no evidence that it's an outright fraud; it's just REALLY wishful thinking. But that's almost equally bad, because when it inevitably fails it's going to hurt the space community because they will be permanently associated with failures and scams. This is why I think the onus is on the space community (The Planetary Society, the Mars Society, etc.) to quickly refute and bury Mars One as fast as possible.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.