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Mars One Delayed Its Mars Mission -- Again (time.com)

Mars One says its project to start a human colony on the Red Planet will be delayed by five years. The Dutch company says it will send its first crews to Mars in 2031 instead of its previous target date of 2026. From a report on Time: The venture is delaying its missions so it can raise more money, according to CEO Bas Lansdorp. "Of course the whole Mars One team would have preferred to be able to stick to the original schedule, but this new timeline significantly improves our odds of successfully achieving this mission roadmap," he said in a statement. This is far from the first time Mars One has delayed its project. Despite Lansdorp's confidence, other scientists have expressed significant doubts about the mission's feasibility.

18 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. just send them more money by known_coward_69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that's all they need to get back on track

    they pinky swear they won't steal it

    1. Re:just send them more money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, so..

      Have they solved the problem of how to get people there with out giving them cancer? No.

      Have the solved the problem of how to live on Mars with out getting cancer? Otherwise you'll be spending your life on Mars underground.

      Gonna grow some vegies there? Better take some nice heavy dirt with you, the soil on Mars is toxic.

      Enjoy wasting everyones money on something pretty pointless.

    2. Re: just send them more money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unfortunately, there are some people who haven't actually taken a look at the board of directors and realised that only a handful of them has a relevant degree and many of them have only marketing degrees (basically a piece of paper that means nothing)

  2. New idea for reporting on Mars One by trawg · · Score: 2

    I'd like to only read news about Mars One when they /do/ do something, not when they don't do something. Especially when what they're trying to do now is raise more money.

    Don't get me wrong, I hope they go to Mars, but this project seems like a massive moonshot (ahahaha) and I think I had enough of project delay updates with Duke Nukem Forever.

  3. Lame article about a crooked company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What a scam! Shut these fuckers down... Don't give 'em a dime, except to make a call to their lawyer..

    C'mon Slashdot, you're posting some pretty crappy stories here. Put this one in the tabloid section

  4. Moller Air Car by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh, hell, sure - we're still going to do this thing, we just need another round of funding. I swear just a few million (billion) more and we're going to absolutely get this to fly. Right after I finish paying of the yacht.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  5. Have they actually prodcued anything? by HangingChad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know they have concepts and maybe some engineering drawings but have they actually contracted out for the development of anything? There has to be some supporting equipment they could be accumulating right now, right?

    I wonder if they ever considered partnering with a company like SpaceX?

    I could see this going somewhere with the right mix of companies, but right now I just don't see one organization pulling it all together.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:Have they actually prodcued anything? by braindrainbahrain · · Score: 2
      They released some study contracts to Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology , but the contracts were not for producing any real hardware.

      http://www.mars-one.com/news/p...

  6. What? by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is personally really bad for me. I was one of the people who were selected to go and was all ready and trained. I am not sure what could be the problem here, we had a good plan and website. Maybe just a temporary snag?

    1. Re:What? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      There's been a last minute change to the colour of the uniforms.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:What? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Darn. I looked so good in orange too.

      They're all "red shirts" now . . . as in:

      "Captain Kirk, Spock and a few "red shirts" will beam down to the planet now.

      . . . later . . .

      "Two to beam up."

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:What? by Salgak1 · · Score: 2

      Dammit, Scotty man, we need more redshirts, I mean, CONTRIBUTORS, now. . . .

  7. Is slashdot trolling us? by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does this obvious scam continue to get headlines from slashdot? Or anyone else for that matter. This is nothing more than some crooked and/or delusional people preying on the credulous. Without the resources of a nation state backing the project there is absolutely no way this could possibly happen. The technology to make it happen does not (yet) exist and the organizations who are capable of developing it (read NASA and peers) aren't involved with any of this. Furthermore any credible mission to Mars will cost tens and more likely hundreds of billions of US$ to even have a prayer of working at all much less in such a ludicrously short time span.

    Seriously, why does this drivel keep getting the time of day?

    1. Re:Is slashdot trolling us? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2

      That is completely untrue. We've been sending heavy things to Mars reasonably reliably since the late 1970s

      Yes - We know how to send metal things to Mars. And even in that case, the list of failures in the last 20 years is impressive -

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      What we don't know how to do is send soft squishy humans to Mars, and, perhaps more importantly, bring them home again.

      (Yeah, yeah, I know the Mars One plan is meant to be a suicide mission...)

    2. Re:Is slashdot trolling us? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      If by heavy things, you mean something the size of a sub-compact car, sure. Now go live in a sub-compact car for 6 months, including all air, water, and food you'll need for 6 months. No cheating! I'll stick you in a vacuum chamber and weld the door shut for 6 months!

      But I'll let you have a 3D printer.

      Wanna do it?

      So sorry, the technology DOES NOT exist yet, your fixation on unrealistic sci-fi dreamed up by software nerds notwithstanding.

  8. Scaaaaaam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The instant they announced a fee to "apply" to be one of their "astronauts," anyone with half a brain could see these idiots were grifters. Of course, the other option was pie-in-the-sky delusionals, but at least that would have been honest.

  9. It's a scam. Nothing to see here. by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know they have concepts and maybe some engineering drawings but have they actually contracted out for the development of anything?

    No. It's a scam and an obvious one. Do not take any of it seriously. It's annoying that they keep getting headlines in spite of their lies.

    I could see this going somewhere with the right mix of companies, but right now I just don't see one organization pulling it all together.

    Unless one or more of the bigger nation states gets involved there simply won't be adequate funding to make it happen. We're talking tens to hundreds of billions to actually pull off a mission to Mars. For profit companies aren't going to get involved because shockingly enough there is no profit in such a venture even if it were a serious endeavor, which it is not. Private funding wouldn't remotely be sufficient and governments aren't involved. The only organizations that are capable of developing the technology to make a Mars mission happen are not involved with Mars One.

  10. We do not have the technology by sjbe · · Score: 2

    That is completely untrue. We've been sending heavy things to Mars reasonably reliably since the late 1970s.

    There is a huge difference between sending a robot the size of a car and sending a human landing party with the VAST amount of equipment they would need to survive the trip to Mars. It's like the difference between sending up a sounding rocket versus the Apollo program. You're talking orders of magnitude difference in complexity and cost.

    We do NOT have the technology to send humans to Mars at this time. We don't have the life support systems, we don't have the landing craft, we don't have the radiation shielding, we don't have a return system, etc. All that could (probably) be developed with enough time and money but we're not even close to having it ready. Without a crash government program we aren't going to have it ready in the next 10-15 years either. The only thing we have the technology to do today is to send a dead human body to Mars which is a pretty useless exercise.