The Mars One Project will soon begin taking applications for its first Martian colonists. Already, interest in the slots has been heavy. Mars One intends to begin the settlement of Mars in 2023 by sending a four person crew to the Red Planet on a one-way trip. The project is to be funded by various revenue streams, but the main one seems to be fees gained by a reality style television series that will follow the project from the selection of the first candidate colonists all the way through the early days of the first settlement.
OPINION: I'm sorry, but as of now, I see the Mars One effort as a publicity stunt. Perhaps the people involved are sincere and committed-- and perhaps they will even succeed. I hope they do; their success would usher in a potentially remarkable new era in human history. However, I think they are vastly underestimating the complexity, difficulty, and enormity of the task they've set for themselves. We don't yet even know yet all the factors involved in living on Mars. Sending people out with no way back under such circumstances is morally questionable at best. Basing funding partly on the ongoing success of a television show also seems strange.
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