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[Jimmy]

More than 100,000 want to go to Mars and not return, project says - CNN; Aug 9, 2013

So a project has officially started taking people's money and promising to send them to mars. They claim to plan to fund it privately through rights to reality TV of the four successful members getting trained and making the trip.

Anyone here signed up yet? Applications are still open.

[10ebbor10]

We had a thread about it some time ago/

Point is, I don't see them being allowed to launch, ever.  I mean, they're blatantly ignoring possibly lethal dangers. Also, legally, The Netherlands are responsible for anything they do. If something goes wrong, they have to pay.

"The risks of space travel in general are already very high, so radiation is really not our biggest concern,"

Read, there are many other ways you can die, so we ignore the rest of them.

[miauw62]

Also, reality TV. Making a pioneering mission into some sort of shitty "reality" show is just a terrible, terrible idea.

[10ebbor10]

Also, reality TV. Making a pioneering mission into some sort of shitty "reality" show is just a terrible, terrible idea.

Mainly because well, it's extremely boring. People aren't interesting in watching people remove dust from solar panels, even if it's on Mars.

Adding to that, they're choosing their show via reality show too. A crew made from underdogs isn't going to function very well.

[freeformschooler]

It would be extremely humorous if the first manned mission to Mars was for reality television.

[10ebbor10]

It would be extremely humorous if the first manned mission to Mars was for reality television.

Can we vote people out? Please...

[Frumple]

Mainly because well, it's extremely boring. People aren't interesting in watching people remove dust from solar panels, even if it's on Mars.

Adding to that, they're choosing their show via reality show too. A crew made from underdogs isn't going to function very well.

Isn't it? I mean, it seems pretty damn obvious that it wouldn't, but has the hypothesis been rigorously tested yet? Do we know with reasonably certainty that "reality show" isn't a sufficiently effective method of choosing interplanetary crews? I'm fairly sure it violates all sorts of ethical guidelines regarding experimentation, but if they can get away with it and it generates some empirical data to work with going forward, re: candidate choosing, well...

[Drakale]

The whole thing is clearly just a money grab. They ask for an application fee from the participant, they will use the funds to make a shitty reality show about choosing the "astronauts" and then the project will die for some reason already mentioned. The founder is still going to make a pretty buck though.

[10ebbor10]

Everyone can join, and the public can vote on who goes into the rocket. Somehow I doubt that that'll result in a good working crew, like what would happen if you actually did a study about it.

On a side note, they're sending 4 people crews. Which means that if you want a safe flight, you need at least 2 qualified surgeons on each flight. (You need a backup, if the doctor gets sick. It's rather hard to operate yourself.)

On another note, they're supplying a nonsufficient Mars base, with no option to dismantle and return. What happens if they run out of funds halfway through?((_{According to international Space law, the Netherlands would be responsible to get everyone back.} ))


Also, reality shows thrive on conflict between characters. They always choose people with conflicting personality traits, otherwise there's no show.

The whole thing is clearly just a money grab. They ask for an application fee from the participant, they will use the funds to make a shitty reality show about choosing the "astronauts" and then the project will die for some reason already mentioned. The founder is still going to make a pretty buck though.

Technically, it's a nonprofit organization. But yeah, they've a program, but none of the technology they plan to use has been developed yet. For one, they plan to do a really fast transit (230 days), but don't say how.

However, they are the majority owner of the television company that's going to broadcast the reality stuff.

[GlyphGryph]

On the other hand, I do feel like a big part of the reason we haven't colonized mars already is an unnatural concern for "safety" - this from countries who send people to die every year for significantly less in terms of rewards (can you imagine if we had astronaut safety-level requirements for people to join the military?), and who waste the cost of a manned mission blowing up empty chunks of desert. This weird ultra-conservative approach to manned exploration, while simultaneously robbing the travelers of any potential benefit, that most governments have adopted, well...

It's really kind of silly. There wouldn't be a USA if this had been the attitude to exploration our ancestors had had. There... wouldn't be much of anything, really.

We're all dead, eventually - what really matters is what you do before it happens. Dying on Mars is a lot more appealing than most of the possible deaths that await me here on Earth...

[10ebbor10]

The answer is not to ignore all kinds of safety. The only thing that will have as a result is a tragedy, which will knock back public support and safety for years.  Also waste a lot of money.

[GlyphGryph]

There's a difference between the apparent huckster's approach from this scam-group and the approach NASA takes though. Which is "if there's more than a 3% increase in risk of you dieing from cancer we won't do it AT ALL".

This may be a scam that won't work out, but ANY colonization effort is going to have to end up being private, because no government space agency is willing to take the risk. I think what we need is government money sponsoring private organizations, much like in the previous age of exploration, so that if the mission fails the company can take the popularity hit and we can go on to sponsoring the next group, but we're rolling the dice often enough to get some successes.

[10ebbor10]

That's still a rather large number. Especially because it's an averaged value.

[miauw62]

Also, reality TV. Making a pioneering mission into some sort of shitty "reality" show is just a terrible, terrible idea.

Mainly because well, it's extremely boring. People aren't interesting in watching people remove dust from solar panels, even if it's on Mars.

Adding to that, they're choosing their show via reality show too. A crew made from underdogs isn't going to function very well.

The point is, reality TV isn't reality. One person is going to be casted until (s)he becomes the underdog. There will be one person casted to be an asshole etc.

[LordSlowpoke]

Ahaha, oh wow. I'm not eligible even if I did my best at faking it, but seriously, selected through reality TV. Why. For what purpose. I hope they at least screen the people they throw into the grinder so they don't end up with someone unacceptable in space because the public willed it. Hell, if I were them I'd like the people who I do send to start up a colony to have some dignity left, but here's for the glory of capitalism, ho! I think I'm bitching too much about capitalism recently, but that may be because I don't enjoy the materialist society it shoved in my face since birth. Sorry if you mind.