Plans to send a one-way mission to colonize Mars were delayed by 5 years Wednesday.
The company Mars One pushed back its first manned mission from 2026 to 2031, and is delaying its first unmanned preparation mission by four year to 2022. The project plans to send 24 astronauts on a one-way mission to Mars. The company plans to fund the venture via a reality television show, which it claims would be “the biggest media event of all time.”
Mars One had 200,000 astronaut hopefuls from 140 countries initially sign up for the project.
Ph.D. students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a study in 2014 that determined Mars One’s plan would almost certainly fail, with the astronauts likely starving to death or dying in a fire.
Scientists have noted since 1998 that a one-way mission to the Red Planet would be far less difficult and expensive if astronauts were not required to return to Earth. There have been numerous proposals to make the first mission to Mars not a visit, but a colonization. The idea of a one way trip to Mars has even been endorsed by the second man to walk on the moon, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
No organization besides the NASA has successfully operated a probe on Mars for longer than 14.5 seconds. NASA is currently operating two rovers on Mars, dubbed “Opportunity” and “Curiosity.” America’s space agency successfully landed seven different probes on Mars and only crashed two.
NASA is currently working on three Mars missions with the European Space Agency (ESA) and plans to send another rover to Mars in 2020. NASA has no plans for a manned mission to Mars until the 2030s.
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