Mars One Delayed 2 Years, CEO Releases Video In Response To Criticism 89
CryoKeen writes It's interesting how different news sites spin #marsgate. From Yahoo News: "The private colonization project Mars One has pushed its planned launch of the first humans toward the Red Planet back by two years, to 2026. The delay was necessitated by a lack of investment funding, which has slowed work on a robotic precursor mission that Mars One had wanted to send toward the Red Planet in 2018, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp said in a new video posted today... 'We had a very successful investment round in 2013 that has financed all the things that we have done up to now. And we have actually come to an agreement with a consortium of investors late last year for a much bigger round of investments. Unfortunately, the paperwork of that deal is taking much longer than we expected,' Lansdorp said in the video." This Astrowatch article is a lot more scathing and to the point: "Mars One, the Dutch company planning to send people on a one-way trip to Mars, that recently selected a group of 100 hopefuls, struggles with criticism. In a Medium story this week, Mars One finalist Joseph Roche presented multiple reasons as to why he believed the entire operation is a complete scam. In response, the company published a video Thursday in which Bas Lansdorp, CEO and Co-founder of Mars One, replies to recent criticism concerning the feasibility of Mars One's human trip to Mars. He also revealed that the mission will be delayed for two years. Roche said that the 'only way' to get selected for the next round of the Mars One candidacy process was to donate money. 'My nightmare about it is that people continue to support it and give it money and attention, and it then gets to the point where it inevitably falls on its face,' Roche told Elmo Keep for Medium."
Capricorn One 2: Electric Boogaloo (Score:1)
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You could probably do it - with enough computer graphics and skill. But that would cost a buttload of money (which they don't have) and require the expertise of hundreds of people (like a modern movie). Wouldn't be a secret for very long.
Besides, after a month or so, one of the stars would be photographed at a Burger King in Honolulu and that would be the end of that....
Similar to pay-upfront job scams (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have to pay a fee to get the job -- it's a scam. Except in this case, they're not even bothering to guarantee you the job. Because it's so exciting, they need only promise you the opportunity. And then further down the road, they'll likely ask for more money, "to get further up the ladder, still".
http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/694333
next you will be an Independent contractor and hav (Score:4, Funny)
next you will be an Independent contractor and have to pay for all your tools and other stuff needed to do the job. And once on mars you can't go to court.
Re:next you will be an Independent contractor and (Score:4, Funny)
And once on mars you can't go to court.
That would be Martian H1-B status, since you are an alien there.
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If you have to pay a fee to get the job -- it's a scam. Except in this case, they're not even bothering to guarantee you the job. Because it's so exciting, they need only promise you the opportunity. And then further down the road, they'll likely ask for more money, "to get further up the ladder, still".
http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/694333
Maybe Mars One should partner with Amway.
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delay (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words: the scam is working nicely, and we'd like to milk this cow for another 2 years.
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Exactly, the whole fact that they are doing the "selection" process first is classic scam.
Why the fuck do you need select people BEFORE you've even proven you can put robots on the planet.
Re:delay (Score:5, Insightful)
1) you want to popularize reality snuff tv shows
2)You want to embezzle the funds and flee to a country with no extradition laws
3)You want to blow investor money on pseudo legal expenses like corporate bentleys and 'business trips' where the per diem includes hooker and blow expenses.
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taking a wage is not embezzlement. they can take in wage and try to look for investors when on said wage and it's all nice and legit.
of course it would be nice to have more money, so you offer a chance to get on the 100 list for more money.
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taking a wage is not embezzlement. they can take in wage and try to look for investors when on said wage and it's all nice and legit.
of course it would be nice to have more money, so you offer a chance to get on the 100 list for more money.
That's why i separated 2/3. But no self respecting CEO just takes a wage. They spend millions on shit like bad deals, which on closer inspection are you rub my back ill rub yours methods of fleecing investors - completely legal and extremely difficult to prove its fraud. Or millions on expenses where they benefit directly, but it's of little or no value to the shareholders.
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I can certainly understand the skepticism, but I think a lot of the skeptics are not up to speed with the latest in NewSpace. [wikipedia.org] For example, SpaceX is on the verge of proving the viability of reusing booster stages... that alone will drop the cost-per-pound to orbit by an order of magnitude.
There are dozens of companies such as Masten, Sierra Nevada, Armadillo, XCOR, MoonEx, Bigelow (etc) some of which have been profitable for many years, working on various aspects of the overall project (for their own purpos
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Reusable boosters are nice, but they don't even have a realistic plan for the landing stage, which is much harder. The Curiosity rover used a complex landing procedure using the 'sky crane' concept, and that thing was only 1 ton. To keep a few humans alive for a while, you'll need a much more massive lander, and you need to set it down very gently.
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Remember Viking I and II? They didn't need complicated airbags/sky-cranes and such because they used a "brute-force" powered landing just like Apollo. But SpaceX now claims to have a Super-Draco thruster that can ignite under supersonic conditions... IOW, SpaceX claims it's Dragon.V2 capsule can land propulsively on "any surface" in the solar system, including (especially) Mars. Based on recent performance in the last few years, how much money would you be willing to bet that Elon Musk is wrong about this?
T
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Did you ask yourself why NASA didn't use the successful Viking I and II landing system for Curiosity ?
Re:delay (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously they didn't have SpaceX's capabilities available when they approved the Curiosity mission over a decade ago.
Having a rocket thruster that can ignite in supersonic mode is a game-changer, especially for Mars. Most people in "the business" didn't think it was possible until SpaceX proved them wrong. This is just another example of folks not realizing how much the game has changed while they weren't paying attention.
We are on the brink of massive changes in aerospace... I just hope enough people will "tune in" before it's too late.
Re:Viking vs Curiosity (Score:4, Interesting)
Several reasons:
* Curiosity has almost twice the landed weight of the Viking Landers
* Rocket thrusters firing at ground level would contaminate the soil, which they wanted to analyze
* Curiosity is a rover. You either are carrying dead weight from the propulsion system, or need a roll-off ramp
* Curiosity's wheels and suspension allowed landing on rougher ground by landing on them directly. Rocket thrusters might have damaged the wheels by throwing rocks around
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Ditto.
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SpaceX claims it's Dragon.V2 capsule can land propulsively on "any surface"
Alright! I'm sick and tired of winter. Let's land on the sun.
"You can't it's too hot!"
We'll go at night.
It can't land on Jupiter, either. 30 miles of clouds, then 13,000 miles of hydrogen and helium that changes from a gas to a liquid. Ditto Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Might want to start calling Pluto a planet again.
Re:delay (Score:4, Interesting)
Elon Musk wants to build a Mars Colony too, but he has a rocket factory (SpaceX), and several other businesses that can earn lots of money *and* supply hardware for Mars: Tesla (electric cars on Earth, electric rovers on Mars), Solar City (home roofs, and soon high efficiency cells for Earth and Mars), and the Gigafactory (batteries for vehicles *and* nighttime backup for solar panels). So his plan is a lot more feasbile than Mars One's.
The real question is where is Mars One going to get the $6 billion they estimate for their project? If they have that money, they can hire the right aerospace companies and engineers to build real hardware. But without it, they just have pretty pictures on a website, and aren't going anywhere.
And as someone who helped build the Space Station, and written a book on Space Systems Engineering ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... [wikibooks.org] ), Mars One isn't being innovative *enough* to really bring down costs.
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Looks like a very interesting book, thanks for the link.
Mars One isn't being innovative *enough* to really bring down costs.
My point was that Mars-One doesn't have to bring down costs because the industry is already doing that. Lansdorp is just betting that the costs will be within reach by the time he has to start bending metal. That gives him a few years, realistically, to ramp up the TV show and start generating some revenue. In the meantime, SpaceX will have upended the launch industry with the advent of reusability and Dragon.V2 will have flown astronauts to the ISS. Y
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In other words: the scam is working nicely, and we'd like to milk this cow for another 2 years.
As the saying goes don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
There are countless harebrained startup ideas launched everyday, why can't Mars One be one of them?
Re:delay (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of funding (Score:5, Insightful)
The delay was necessitated by a lack of investment funding
Maybe because they don't have a rocket, a ship, a way to land, a way to ferry supplies, a way to fund those supplies, or a way to live on another planet long term. Only a fool would dump money on this adventure.
Re:Lack of funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Only a fool would dump money on this adventure.
ahh so its a perfectly viable business plan with a wide consumer base. I was worried there for a minute.
Re:Lack of funding (Score:5, Funny)
come on, they only need couple of months for the paperwork to go through and then the nigerian space program will transfer the funds.
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Well.... Twitter and Amazon still aren't viable either.
Twitter isn't a business in any non-insane sense of the word, and Amazon is a business that is based on an eternal "jam tomorrow" model. Apart from blind faith in The Future, there is no reason to invest in either of them, nor this Mars scam.
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Or a way to get this supposed reality TV from mars to earth. Much less in any way 'live', which was supposedly central to all this.
And they aren't even talking to the people actually doing this, despite that even 10 years from now this will still all be new, if not prototype technology. All their promotional materials still show what's basically scaled up gen 1 Dragon spacercraft. Meanwhile SpaceX has changed plans, shifted it's roadmap, yet aren't in any sort of talks with SpaceX.
Who'd a thunk (Score:3)
although it would make for a great survivor sequel, albeit a single episode.
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The title of the episode is : We export idiots
sadly, we don't have enough spaceships
Costs? (Score:3)
Mars one claims $6B to put 4 people on mars.
On one side -how do they plan to raise that amount of money? They use the Olympics as an example,but that is an event with an enormous viewership. Are they claiming they can get anything like a similar number of viewers for a bunch of guys living (or slowly dying) on mars?
On the other side, what technology do they have that makes a mars mission cost $6B, not the hundreds of billions that NASA estimates? Sure they may be able to do for somewhat less money, but a factor of 100??? Where is their demonstration of technical expertise to support such a claim?
Its just a scam.
Re:Costs? (Score:5, Insightful)
On one side -how do they plan to raise that amount of money?
After the selection process, the candidates will enter a "rocket" that's really a cardboard prop with hidden cameras. During the journey, they'll face some challenges that will force them vote for the next candidate to be pushed out of the airlock.
Re:Costs? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, this gets me thinking... what's really the minimum necessary for a person to stand a chance of making it to the surface of Mars alive? Let's say:
1) 150 days transit
2) Passenger remains drugged out of their gourd during the whole voyage so that they don't go crazy in the ridiculously small amount of space they're allocated, nor burn more than a minimal amount of consumables.
3) No extra radiation shielding; craft keeps its thickest end toward the sun and puts its consumables around the passenger but otherwise does nothing special
4) Landing hardware done as an exact duplicate of MSL, no re-engineering. MSL used a 4 tonne spacecraft to deliver a 900kg payload to the surface. An incredibly cramped capsule may fit that payload profile.
5) No attempt to get back or even survive for any significant length of time. Passenger has to be someone who wants to die on Mars.
Normal O2 consumption is 0,9kg/day; let's say 0,7 due to #2. Consumption of pure fat for say 1500 calories per day is 166g; let's say 300. I don't have numbers on CO2 scrubbers, let's put it at the same as O2. Let's say 3 liters (3kg) water consumption per day, 2kg recovered from the air via a chiller, 1kg lost to excretion, so 1kg total per day. Let's say 1kg other consumables per day. No complex recycling systems or anything that could seriously inflate your costs. We're at the ballpark of 3.7kg per day, so 555kg for the journey there, which doesn't need to be landed. Give them 600kg for some margin and a little time alive. These figures probably wouldn't size your spacecraft out of an affordable launch vehicles.
So yeah, if you really wanted to, I bet you could have a moderate chance of delivering a suicidal human alive but very ill to the surface of Mars to live for a short period of time for only a couple billion dollars in development + launch costs.
Who wants to sign up? ;)
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1. We don't have the ability to keep someone in a coma for 150 days in zero-g conditions.
2. Infections from the foley catheter - who's going to diagnose and treat it when the patient can't complain?
3. Blocked foley catheter - who's going to flush it?
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I did not say "in a coma". I said "drugged out of their gourd". This does not imply "comatose". No catheter.
If they were comatose, their consumables would be even less.
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Yeah, coming out of a ketamine tranq state to a zero grav toilet with six pages of instructions ought to be good for at least one episode.....
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A person can be hopped up out of their gourd and still manage to use the restroom. It happens every day on this planet already.
We're talking a mix of drugs that make a person happy, content, and sleepy, which won't kill them in under half a year. There's no shortage of possibilities.
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Yes, this too happens every day on the planet. And others urinating in bus shelters, elevators, their pants, on cars, and pretty much everywhere the "mood takes them." And take a dump in the subway car in front of other passengers.
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Which takes extra hardware and power, the two of which would be heavier than the O2 needed for a single person. It'd also raise your development cost.
KISS.
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That's a boldface lie and you know it. You clearly have no understanding of the Mars One project and should refrain from further participation in this discussion.
The prop will be styrofoam.
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actually, I think they would get similar viewership.
but who would foot the bill in advance? friggin nobody.
would they get to mars with 6 billion dollars? probably not.
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Mars one claims $6B to put 4 people on mars.
On one side -how do they plan to raise that amount of money? They use the Olympics as an example,but that is an event with an enormous viewership. Are they claiming they can get anything like a similar number of viewers for a bunch of guys living (or slowly dying) on mars?
Not that I really want to defend Mars One, but... the huge event would be the actual Mars landing, which would have the whole world watching. The first trip and the first establishment of a base would keep people interested for many months all the way from launch until they're settled, for no other reason than it's the first time ever like the first moon landing. The second biggest thing is the selection process, who gets to go. Who will be the next Neil Armstrong, the competition for first man on Mars woul
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Actually it's much worse than "who wants to be a billionaire." A show like that actually is plausible and wouldn't need to have 1000x as many viewers as the millionaire show.
You don't need an actual billion dollars on-hand, you need insurance for a billion dollars. The premium for which needs to be lower per episode than the revenue for each episode, but that can be arranged by limiting the number of questions per episode, raising the number of questions before reaching the grand prize, and increasing the
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"That's where the money is."
--Willie Sutton
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What's the point of selecting the astronauts 10 years in advance?
They get ten years of fleecing the deluded would-be Martians with a never-ending series of requests for additional training costs and "donations", obviously.
Oh, please, (Score:1)
Stop posting thinks about this Mars One bullshit scam.
Worse than Biosphere2 (Score:1)
The Biosphere2 scam from the late 80s, early 90s was embarrassing enough - but this seems to be even worse.
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Biosphere 2 was pretty flawed but it actually did something. Even had some educational value.
This is just a scam. I think the only unknown is whether the founders believe it to be a scam or whether they're truly convinced by their own BS.
There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere (Score:2)
"It's interesting how different news sites spin #marsgate"
That's because there are quality news sites and there are blogs. There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere in their attempts.
Here's another medium article by the Mars One applicants refuting the conspiracy theory: https://medium.com/@oscarmathe... [medium.com]
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NASA and SpaceX are seriously working on it, but right now it's all still in early stages and planning to piggy-back on other technologies that are closer to being realized (Orion/SLS, Dragon/Falcon Heavy).
References? Because NASA is not seriously working on it. They have this [nasa.gov] but no real funding at the moment. They are half assed working on it. Plus they won't consider it for 20 years, so I call bullshit on mars one doing it 10 years out in anything resembling a safe manner.
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Current Mars100 Finalists refute Elmo Keep’s Mars One “conspiracy theory.”
Suckers are always the last ones to see they're being scammed.
The article is horse turds. Appeals to authority, such as #6, the lame excuse for limiting interviews to 15 minutes max online (#8 - either take the time to do it right or don't do it), speculation of what the training "might" include - example - "might cover emergency manual control of spacecraft if applicable." as a way to justify 10 years, even though the author can only speculate as to what this training may be - nothing has been released to
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And then there's this further down the page:
The most recent semi-final Mars100 selection occurred after being given multiple sources of technical and press release information about the mission and being told to memorize the knowledge elements for a personal 15 minute interview with Dr. Norbert Kraft, MD, JAXA initial candidate and NASA long-duration group selection expert. Once Dr. Kraft had interviewed all 663 candidates on technical knowledge retention and public speaking ability
So, they're selecting 100 people for a one-way journey to Mars based on being able to memorize and spit back press releases and a few facts that go along with them, and look good doing it.
Sounds more like the interview process for a Fox News reporter.
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A couple of Fox news reporters tossed out of earth gravity wouldn't be such a bad start.
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There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere in their attempts.
How about this quote from an article [medium.com] dated March 16 2015.
So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview.
What more evidence do you need?
Lets look at the article "refuting" the criticisms.
This is simply a polite request asking them to continue their support of Mars One, as they are now very close to being part of their project.
The subtext being that if they do not donate they will become less " close to being part of their project".
Even though it would be desirable that Mars One corrected every false statement, they cannot be held responsible for how the media interpret and phrase their reports about Mars One.
For statements like this it is the responsability of Mars One to correct such big misconceptions. But they will not as te false information helps them.
Whether they completed the application process to the video stage may be where you begin to see different numbers.
So anyone who clicked on "apply here" is counted in their numbers. That is completely skewing the numbers and they
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There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere in their attempts.
There is no evidence that there is not an invisible, massless teapot orbiting the Earth at twice the speed of light. It's not impossible that all our scientific theories are incomplete.
Even if it's not an *intentional* scam (Score:2)
Even if it's not an intentional scam, the numbers, timeline, and science just don't add up. NASA has a lot more experience with this kind of thing, and they're suggesting numbers nearly 20 times as big for a project like this.
I'd trust NASA's experience long before I'd trust some rich guy's wishful thinking. Especially if I were planning to put my life on the line. Not that an overweight 50 year old would qualify for such a project. :P
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I'd trust NASA's experience long before I'd trust some rich guy's wishful thinking.
In case you're wondering why anyone here on slashdot is giving this risible fraud more than a second's thought, it's simple: NASA = government. And government is always wrong.
It's the Ayn Rand school of argument. If it's Some Rich Guy versus The Government, SRG is always right.
Psychos only (Score:2)
Its not a scam stupid. (Score:1)
Gee the funny thing is that space is expensive, who knew? If you are planning to send humans to Mars on a pittance then you need to scrape that pittance together first. They are planning to do this for about $10 billion - some of NASA's (admittedly not very efficient) plans have budgeted for over $1 trillion for getting humans to Mars. $10 billion isn't Ryan air its more like the space version of 'boat people'..
Saying all the above $10 billion is still actually a lot of money, and raising it and even spend