Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts 216
First time accepted submitter techfilz writes "The Mars One Project has selected 1058 second round candidates out of more than 200 000 applicants from over 140 countries. There are another two selection rounds to go before the lucky few get a one way trip to Mars. Starting in 2018, four astronauts will leave for Mars every two years to begin a human settlement partly funded by crowdsourcing and a reality TV show."
Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know, I know, everyone is going to be dogpiling Mars One for feasability, but...
The shoestring budget they'll get out of crowdsourcing and a TV show will launch people into space just long enough to kill them.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
The shoestring budget they'll get out of crowdsourcing and a TV show will launch people into space just long enough to kill them.
Sounds like the gladiatorial arenas of Rome, except we're doing it in space. Send our "braves" in and watch them get slaughtered to the sounds of clapping and cheering. Oh sorry, forgot... we've evolved beyond the need to watch people get killed for our entertainment, right?
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's kind of the point. They'll be making a reality tv show to make some people some big bucks down here on Earth. Then launch the corpses into space.
I wonder if life insurance policies can be terminated for getting selected to be on that show :)
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it'll even get them that far. There's the aspect of having a man-rated craft, a man-rated booster, and a man-rated habitat to deploy once getting there. If these three things aren't met then they can't even launch.
You know why military contractors don't usually change products, even when they're obsolete? Because it costs a lot of money to re-certify those products, especially things with life-support or energetic applications. You can't change even something as trivial as going from an SAE thread pattern on a hole drilled in a mounting ear to a metric thread pattern without re-qualifying, if that hole was provided pre-tapped. There are old products that have been granted exemptions to environmental law specifically because it's less costly to pay the environmental waiver than it is to qualify a new material or process that isn't bad for the environment.
If they can't demonstrate that they can launch a crew, convey them to their destination, and provide them with some form of functional shelter then they will never get off the ground.
Re:reality show? (Score:4, Insightful)
Realty show has a bad connotation to it. It's more like a documentary program.
Anyway, I'll never understand why people are such naysayers about Mars One, especially on sites like Slashdot. At the very least, they are keeping extraterrestrial colonies in the public consciousness, something we should be celebrating. Even if this project ends up with some fatalities, name one human migration that didn't result in some deaths, or one exploration mankind has undertaken that wasn't risky. Early efforts of course are going to be dangerous, perhaps unwise, but if we were too scared to take risks we'd still all be living in African treetops.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in failure, Mars One will teach us things we didn't know before, and lay the groundwork for future endeavors. If this isn't a worthy goal, I don't know what is. If they succeed, all the better.
What I don't understand is the people saying they shouldn't even try. I'm just glad our ancestors didn't think that way.
A scam for the gullible (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is the people saying they shouldn't even try.
The problem isn't that someone shouldn't try. The problem is that we know a fair bit about how difficult an endeavor this is and what a credible effort would have to look like. We know that the technology to do this just isn't there yet and there is no credible evidence that it will be in the next 5-10 years. Sending even an unmanned probe to mars costs billions of dollars. These people are claiming their are going to send people there inside of 12 years? And they are going to do this by crowdsourcing what amounts to a suicide mission? Your bullshit detector should be in high alert.
This just reeks of a scam to separate gullible people from their money.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is the people saying they shouldn't even try. I'm just glad our ancestors didn't think that way.
People say they shouldn't try because they don';t think that it's a credible attempt. We won't learn anything from it that we didn't already know (mainly, that it's not a good idea to base a manned space mission on plans for a reality TV show envisioned by two guys with marketing degrees and no understanding of science), and it'll poison the well for future legitimate attempts ("we already fell for that mars one scam, what makes you think we'll fall for your copycat attempt and sponsor you too?").
Why does it have to be 100% safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Going on ANY ocean voyage before the 20th century was risky in a whole bunch of ways. The food might kill you. The weather might kill you. The ship might kill you. Someone else you run across on the water might kill you. The crew might kill you. Whatever you run into wherever you go might kill you, be it people, animals, or geography.
Why the hell would we hold launching a rocket across the solar system to another planet to elementary school safety standards? Of course you could be killed. Climbing into a metal tube filled with 7 million pounds of rocket fuel and lighting it is inherently dangerous, even more so when you plan to travel across 40 million miles of space.
If we wait until it's as safe as riding an elevator we'll never get there. Exploration should never wait until it's proven safe.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between you and I is that I don't know if it will work. You seem convinced there's no point in even trying. You're like somebody saying a ship will fall off the edge of the world if they sail off beyond the horizon. I'm saying, let's go find out.
Virgin is a for-profit company concerned very much with image. Their business model is entirely based around getting people back to Earth again safely. They're inherently risk-averse, because their passengers are paying to get home again.
NASA and other world space agencies lack the political support to do much of anything at all, and they are even more risk-averse than a company is, because what little support they do get is the result of a fickle public that's terrified of dead astronauts.
It seems to me, Mars One is a different beast entirely. It's a one way trip, and they seem very up front about the risk. I'm sure all 1058 volunteers in the second round are keenly aware they may die at any stage in this experiment, and have accepted that risk. It's a privately-funded, non-profit entity that doesn't need to worry about public approval, just public interest.
As for figuring it all out, we've known how to get to Mars for decades now. We've made great strides in landing technology, and awareness of radiation exposure with the latest Mars rover, among other missions. Their efforts to build the habitation structures on Mars will happen before they ever launch a live colonist, so if they can't do it, nobody will even be put at risk. Regardless of outcome, we'll have learned a great deal, found out where our limits are, and maybe pushed them a bit further.
Frankly I'm fed up with the complacency of this species, at everyone's willingness to just stay put on our fragile little world, and never try anything hard or dangerous. At least these guys are trying. Maybe they're naive, maybe they've under-budgeted and this will cost a lot more than they think, maybe things will go wrong, maybe some brave explorers will die. At least they'll have found where our limits are, instead of just guessing and naysaying when somebody thinks they can do better than those who came before.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference between you and I is that I don't know if it will work. You seem convinced there's no point in even trying.
Nope, he's not saying there's no point anyone trying. He's stating that these specific people are scammers and there is not point in them wasting people's time because all it will do is hurt the credibility of anyone else who will try.
Re:Why does it have to be 100% safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a big difference between 100% safe and 1% safe
Yes, but there was no way to tell that a couple hundred years ago. His point about exploration is valid. Did Columbus really have any way of saying it was an 18% "safe" expedition? How do you even begin to quantify those risks with the information they had then?
So many of the great explorers had absolutely no idea what the dangers were going to be, only that they would face them.
The fact that we can begin to quantify the risks is turning us into pussies. Would the next Chuck Yeager break the light speed barrier if some egghead said there was a proven 23.234% chance his nuts would shrivel up and fall off?
It's not like this is some sort of a redneck hold-my-beer stunt. They're only going to go if they have met a minimum amount of safety standards and have access to some pretty impressive technologies to bring with them.
Fucking Columbus didn't even understand biology and antibiotics, knew that people got very sick and died on long voyages, and still boarded the boat. Lewis and Clark had no idea what to expect going across the US. Whatever chance they had, it was going to be with their wits and what they brought with them.
The unknown that previous explorers faced was a lot more intimidating than the journey being contemplated by Mars One.
Telling somebody that has vastly more information and technology at their fingertips that they are morons for even attempting something like that is a little offensive, IMO. If you want to do that, then you must say that all of our great explorers in the past simply missed out on being awarded their Darwin Awards.
Man Up.