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https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-project-2dfef95217d3

No money, no process, no explanation: An insider speaks out on the hopelessly flawed scheme.

Dr Joseph Roche is one of the finalists to go on Mars One's much-hyped mission to the Red Planet. And yet he says he's never had an in-person interview, had to organize his own physical exam, was only tested on prepared questions, and is being encouraged to give more and more money to the group. That's why he's decided to quit.

“When you join the ‘Mars One Community,’ which happens automatically if you applied as a candidate, they start giving you points,” Roche explained to me in an email. “You get points for getting through each round of the selection process (but just an arbitrary number of points, not anything to do with ranking), and then the only way to get more points is to buy merchandise from Mars One or to donate money to them.”

Yeah, sure sounds like a scam  ;D

**gets to mars after a oneway journey**


"Fuck I've made a terrible mistake" - every person on mars one.

Damn, this is really disappointing. I was hopeful this wasn't going to be some crackpot venture, but it's really in far worse shape I would have thought. Some guy's pipe dream that grabbed media attention it didn't deserve.

I haven't really been following it much, but from what I understand, this is a privately funded venture, right? If so, how can the volunteers really get mad for being asked to help with the expenses? IF the journey actually happens, I am willing to bet the people going won't be complaining about the food they will be eating or the water they will be drinking or the air they will be breathing. It's not really any different than someone having to pay for an airline or cruise ship ticket. Well, I guess the difference is that those two aren't usually permanently one-way  8).

I will concede that whoever thought this thing up should have had more of a plan for funding and training. And because he/she failed to do so, I seriously doubt this trip will happen.

Sofaking sad.

Told you guys it was fucking ridiculous didn't I? There's no way that a legitimate space mission would operate this way or even bother going to Mars for a first project, the news organisations that all promoted this bullshit without vetting them properly should be ashamed of themselves, but as usual, they aren't going to make an apology and go onto the next news cycle hoping no one noticed.

I'm glad it's a scam, until we develop past the point of strapping people to rockets to get into orbit...we shouldn't think about going to other planets.

I say that because, when you think the chinese invented solid rocket propulsion for fireworks hundreds of years ago and that's what NASA (basically premise of solid rocket tech) and all other agenices uses for space orbit, we look ridiculous in space.  I am dissapoint.

Because there are standards in aerospace, that apply as much to a simple Cessna 150 as the hypothetical Mars trip.

Any venture or proposal can be measured against such standards.  It's totally reasonable to declare it a scam if it falls short of a reasonable level of compliance.

This would be the ultimate scam. Ppl will be happy because of they got scammed and no one will come back to complain. Smart.

It's not only that, but the complete lack of disregard for the lives of people taking part should have been enough of a warning sign, it either meant it was a very unrealistic plan that was likely to fail anyway and they really would all end up dead or they were just fishing around for gullible and stupid people to fall for it. What amazes me is that there were people who actually signed up for it and weren't even intelligently considering what they were taking part in, I'm still more pissed off at the news organisations, particularly the ones that should know better like the BBC and so on.

The space age isn't ready for the private sector yet. yeah sure ships can be built by the private sector but a huge project to visit the moon or another planet is feasible without a population to tax.

So now the insiders have started accepting what the experts have been saying all this while.

An article published a month back

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2960096/Why-Mars-One-NEVER-ground-Lack-funding-no-spacecraft-no-rocket-makes-mission-fool-s-dream-claim-experts.html

Why Mars One will NEVER get off the ground: Lack of funding, no spacecraft and no rocket makes mission a 'fool's dream', claim experts

There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the concept of one way trip, but first you must have a livable environment for those people.  Doesn't have to be great.  They had nothing but vaporware.

How much does the mission cost?

After discussions with potential suppliers for each component and close examination, Mars One estimates the cost of putting the first four people on Mars at six billion US$. The six billion figure is the cost of all the hardware combined, plus the operational expenditures, plus margins. For every next manned mission, Mars One estimates the costs at four billion US$.

- See more at: http://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/how-much-does-the-mission-cost#sthash.JvGcOe4d.dpuf

Well, that looks very low. I´d have guessed hundreds, certainly dozens of billion $.

Yes it is obviously a scam. That is why 100% of the event is going into the 'selection process' because that is the bit they can do and turn into a TV program. Then the project will get shelved after they've made a big pile of cash

To me, this is/was a desperate attempt to appear legit.  They have lost all credibility with me.   :-\

When I first heard the project Mars One, I knew it can hardly come true.

A non-government institution are trying to do what NASA or China can't do, the results can only be failed.

Yes, that's pretty bad and honestly everything about this project stinks to high heaven, but the part that REALLY bothered me was the fact that it would take 100 yrs to prep for this expedition, not 10 yrs like they claimed. Which (to me) means, they expected to receive money for the project with absolutely no realistic intention of following through with it. Obviously it's just an elaborate scam!

I don't believe for a second they can't do it...

They just don't want to budget for it.

Yes, it's costly, even a government can't afford it, Apollo Project took 25.5 billions(not adjusted for inflation) in total, this could be even more.

And the theories and technologies of Mars landing and living need to be verified first before sending people to space.

I've said it was a scam from the start. No idea how he even thought he could get away with this but I'm guessing he's got the free publicity and a little in donations and crowd funding but the question is has he done anything ilegal? Looks like it to me. Hope he gets investigated and taken down. The people who applied to this probably have some sort of mental issues as well... or are probably just really dumb or fame hungry.

Shit. I mean lol but there're real candidates who bet their lives on that project  :(

Does not really matter.  There are a lot of questions about whether man can live on mars.  For example, the dirt is similar to bleach, it is an oxidizer.  So what happens if you get it on you?  You get rashes.  What happens if it gets in your lungs?  So forth and so on.

I think some animal tests would be in order, plunk them down on the Red Planet with some months of supplies and a test program.  At the end of the test period, they would be killed - if they lived that long.   Anyone who says that's not practical because of the long trip to get there better back off and think about how that applies even more strongly to humans.

No, testing Mars with animals is not good. If we could afford to transport animals to Mars we can do it with humans at the same price probably.
And while this mission may be suicidal - but truth to be told everyone signing for this kind of adventure know they may not live long.

I don't think the technology is there yet to fully sustain life on mars but hey maybe we can in a few hundred years.

Well, I seriously doubt that technology and money will be available any time soon to get men safely to the planet Mars  ;D

I saw somewhere that they believe the rating for the "Mars One" reality show is supposed to have more viewers than 10 olympics combined.

It is a money grab and nothing else.

Well at least they're not going to die in alone in space now, but I don't have any sympathy for them on any time or money they may have wasted on this project. I've said it was a scam since day dot.

Mars One is a scam. LOL, it was obvious from the very beginning.

lol

They have delayed their timetable by two years, stating "insufficient investors".   ::)

http://slashdot.org/submission/4285545/mars-one-delayed-2-years-ceo-releases-video-in-response-to-criticism?utm_source=rss1.0&utm_medium=feed&sbsrc=firehose

Testing Mars with animals certainly is good.  Number of reasons for this.

First of all, understand that these animals will die.  Just like the early space tests with dogs and monkeys.  The animals will not be brought back to Earth.  This is no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

The big advantage is that one of the hibernating animal species could be used, such as marmots, ground squirrels, praire dogs.  This means they would be asleep during the transit to Mars.   We know from LEO operations with humans how humans do for six or eight months in weightlessness, that is not an issue.  The questions have to do with sustaining life on the surface of Mars.

After their arrival a number of useful tests could be ran on the animals.  Possibly food, water and breathing air could be provided for a year or so.  They'd be split into a number of test cells.  Some might have the local surface dirt injected into their environment, others might be exposed to the direct sun rays.

Something tells me this is going to take a lot longer than two years to materialize. I'd really love to know what their true intentions were behind this. Was it just to scam some money out of people or does he actually believe this could have been possible had it got the funding? One thing I do believe is that he's done it for the publicity whether to scam or just feed his ego or fantasy.

Money comes from the printer. We would have the technology already but space programs being cut
and all money spent on weapons and surveillance.

But that causes inflation. I don't think it would be wise to affect the world economy so that a reality show can happen in other planet.

If there will be any actual research, then it should be done properly.

Doesn't seem to stop them... just look at quantitative easing, though there's not much money to be made from space exploration and it's very costly with little financial reward and america would just like to pump up their defense budget every year where they can make money for corporations on costly wars.

As soon as I seen the application fees of 40 dollars I knew, you weren't picking astronauts, you were sucking people out of their money.
About 8-10 million worth, not even enough to build 1% of a rocket, let alone launch one into orbit.

OMG they were able to raised $1m+, such a terrible way to scam people.

It would be the greatest achievement in the history of man kind if it does but i doubt it will happen. I'd have more respect if they where using proper astronauts and scientist instead of making it a competition.

Yes, I believe world military expenditure amounts to something like 1.5 Trillion dollars per year.And the death and suffering and destruction that this causes is incalculable. What a tragic waste.

$18+ trillion in debt and the hole just keeps getting deeper.
As far as the space program, I'm afraid we peaked with the Apollo missions.

I'm surprised this program hasn't been widely denounced as a hoax or at least blatantly not possible. Anyone who knows anything about space travel would know such an organization such as this could never pull a mission like this off nor would they ever be able to get even a fraction of the funds needed to do so. It's a complete joke.


Has there ever been a time when America wasn't in debt? I'm sure they were billions if not trillions in debt during the other missions too. The thing with debt is its never meant to be paid back fully nor would it be possible to do so. It's all about just trickling the money back in a constant cycle.

It makes me wonder if it was indeed a scam. Aren't there any investigations going to happen in the company involve?

Also known as kicking the can down the road. Not sure about how long that can last, there´s probably a tipping point there at some point. I would expect increasing frequency of market crashes of 50% magnitude or more.

2003, 2008 it´s overdue at this point most likely. Which probably explains the increasingly desperate warmongering these last years.

Cost is even worse than I thought
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm)
(bottom of first paragraph)

$10,000 per pound to get something into space  :o
When I go backpacking my pack normally weighs 35 pounds, that is the cost of a decent house  :D

Hum. Rough but reasonable.