If Mars One makes you skeptical, you might be dead inside—like me [View all]
Op-ed: Do we scoff at dreamers because we lack imagination, or are they actually crazy?
by Lee Hutchinson - May 8 2013, 1:30pm EDT
... The running budget of Project Apollo from 1960 to 1969 was $16,130,420,000 ... Mars One's estimate of a $6 billion price tag seems ludicrously low in light of what other government-funded space agencies across the world have spent to accomplish far smaller goals ... Altogether, Mars One's $6 billion will need to cover multiple Falcon Heavy launches, multiple Dragon vehicles, and at least one Mars Transit vehicle to ferry the crew from Earth to Mars (which, at least so far, sounds like it will have to be designed from scratch). Also, Mars One will need to design and manufacture environmental suits (nothing in any existing space agency's inventory will work for them, as every "production" spacesuit in the world is currently geared for short-term microgravity extravehicular activity, not long-term planetary exploration), rovers, and all the other things listed on the its site ...
... with one exception, every human being who has walked on another world has been an extremely skilled test pilot or naval aviator ... This kind of background made the astronauts not just adept at flying planes and lunar landers, but also powerfully sharp observers and communicators, able to process lots and lots of inputs simultaneously and make extremely quick and informed decisions in response to rapidly changing situations. Beyond being incredible pilots, most were also brilliant ... In contrast, Mars One is holding a popularity contest for random Internet applicants ...
Maybe I'm having such a hard time with it because it seems fantastic and silly, and in real life, fantastic and silly plans usually meet with harsh and unfunny ends; maybe the mention of "reality TV" automatically poisons my entire picture of the project ... I do know that .. the US spent more than $100 billion in adjusted 2010-era dollars to send the very best people it could find to the moon ... and now we're going to canvas the Internet for folks who want to go die on Mars and make a TV show out of it ...
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/05/if-mars-one-makes-you-skeptical-you-might-be-dead-insidelike-me/
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