Mars defends: HUMANS to SEND UFO to Red Planet by 2016

Mars One will be actually sending something to the Red Planet in the next three years, according to co-founder Bas Lansdorp. Mars One, credit Mars One The foundation, which has the ambitious goal of setting up a human settlement on Mars in 2023 despite not having any spacefaring experience so far, is aiming to send up an …

[Oh Homer]

Vulture 3

Sounds like a job for the Special Projects Bureau

[Anonymous Coward]

The way to do it is to send a tunnel boring machine to dig down and deep. Then all they need to send is a life support system and a door.

[tony2heads]

re:tunnel

Go sideways into a mountain. The cave is a well known habitation mode for early human settlement.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ AC

Then in 10,000 years we can have Earth vs. the Martian Morlocks!!

[Nikolasboole]

Though, even that isn't an especially easy prospect...

They'd also need a large power supply that doesn't rely on water or plentiful sunlight or a dense oxygen-rich atmosphere... so maybe hydrazine?

(Because TBMs take a fair bit of power to work)

[Anonymous Coward]

We know and they know

It's very unlikely to happen, but if they are clever and crowd source the money to do this they can live well buy new cars, houses, watches and jewellery until they make an announcement that there are too many technological challenges to go.

[Lusty]

Re: We know and they know

What do you mean unlikely to happen. Two years is plenty to design, test, build and launch a completely new space going vehicle, surely?

[LarsG]

Re: We know and they know

Would only happen if the Martians give them planning permission.

[Martin Budden]

Re: We know and they know @LarsG

Fortunately, planning permission isn't required for underground* dwellings :-)

*I started typing "subterranean" and then realised my mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Vulture 3

Only as long as SPB drops the backronym thing and names the next ship "Ack! Ack!! ACK!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Capricorn One?

Or is it more like "Last year's winners: Whitman, Price and Hadad" from "Running Man"?

[SpeakerToAliens]

They have to call the colony ship "Ark Fleet Ship B"

And the crew of reality TV stars should be called the Golgafrinchans.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They have to call the colony ship "Ark Fleet Ship B"

"And the crew of reality TV stars should be called the Golgafrinchans"

Can I be the first to vote Piers Morgan on ( although many of the other celebs.will no doubt kill themselves on the trip)

[Andrew Newstead]

Re: They have to call the colony ship "Ark Fleet Ship B"

Or him...

What was that, a faulty spacesuit? Too bad, got to clean it out now.

[JDX]

re:Can I be the first to vote Piers Morgan on

No because the 'nauts have to be smart and capable enough to deal with the mission... the plan is those selected will undergo numerous years of intensive training in everything from medicine to gardening.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Of course they have to say that...

Because the main mission simply won't happen. They've got to come up with some new slightly more credible story to delay the inevitable day when the gullible media types endlessly reporting this pipe dream realise that it is all smoke and mirrors.

This is self-serving publicity tripe of the highest order. It isn't worth spending a second more even considering.

To that end, that is all.

[Ellz]

Re: Of course they have to say that...

I wonder what the locals said when people said they were going to sail to the other side of the world

I think even if it's a scam, it's putting hopes and ideas into peoples minds, and it's actually getting people to realize that people can talk freely about the idea without ridicule.

Every single word and conversation about this gets us one step closer, think about it and you'll understand one day.

It's not like we spend our money on anything important other than consuming resources or selfishly indulging ourselves to our deaths.

[No, I will not fix your computer]

Re: Of course they have to say that...

>>I wonder what the locals said when people said they were going to sail to the other side of the world

Something along the lines of "These ships work really well, if you've gone through half your resources without finding anything, come back"?

>>I think even if it's a scam, it's putting hopes and ideas into peoples minds, and it's actually getting people to realize that people can talk freely about the idea without ridicule.

Nope, it's a ridiculous leap of faith, when you can't keep the ISS in LEO without 18 hours of maintenance a day, you *know* the tech isn't up to it yet, perhaps better (more) space stations, something outside of LEO (Lagrange perhaps?), a moonbase that you can actually leave and come back from?

>>Every single word and conversation about this gets us one step closer, think about it and you'll understand one day.

Absolutely! but sometimes that conversation has to be "This is a shit idea, lets do some walking before we can run", at some point when we're quite good at walking then running will be on the menu.

>>It's not like we spend our money on anything important other than consuming resources or selfishly indulging ourselves to our deaths.

Well, we in the privileged west might, and we have money to spunk on stupid things, if we put all our money into a manned mission to Mars we'd currently have a bunch of dead astronauts and no rovers.

The Chinese plan to go to the Moon, is great, *nobody* has the tech to get a human on the moon yet/anymore and they are planning a base, imagine what they're going to learn, and imagine how applicable that is going to be to a Mars mission.

[JCitizen]

Re: Of course they have to say that...

All they need is a crew dumb enough to get killed; and I'd bet long lines would result. I got to admit - what a way to go!

[Anonymous Coward]

has to be

'"We also have consumer firms that are interested in becoming 'the first brand on Mars'," he claimed.'

I can see it now...

"A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play"

[hplasm]

Re: has to be

I couldn't eat a whole Mars...

[Steve Renouf]

Re: has to be

"I couldn't eat a whole Mars..."

Nor me. I'd have to eat it a bite at a time. (Only if I really wanted to ingest all those chemicals).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: has to be @Steve Renouf

I'd be interested to hear of a food with no chemicals in it.

[John Smith 19]

I hate to spoil a good story but.

Some years ago JPL were looking at ways to increase the number of probes they could sent out. Mars is a regular target and like all targets outside LEO needs a fair bit of delta v. Serious delta v means a)lots of clever orbital slingshots or b)Big rocket or c) Both (if the payload is big).

That said they were looking at packages that could fit on the secondary payload adaptors of the EELV, up to 6 100Kg packages IIRC, and something similar with Ariane 5.

The worked out that yes it is possible for such a package to do the trip, if it hitches a ride on a comm sat payload to GEO.

Doing it in 2 years OTOH......

[Mystic Megabyte]

wrong!

"physical aptitude for the hellishly rigorous life they're choosing,"

physical aptitude for the hellishly rigorous short life they're choosing,

FTFY

[Captain Scarlet]

This can't end well

Just don't send Captain Black

[dorsetknob]

Re: This can't end well

I would Sign on as Captain Black as long as Captain scarlett ( johansson ) was my co pilot.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hope they don't choose who they send based on votes, this is a one way trip right?

So I really hope they are sensible and send either 2 long term couples, a polygamous group, or just a higher ratio of woman to men...

Can you imagine sending men & women on this trip who were NOT in a sexual relationship and would not be open to having one?

Well that is a recipe for disaster....

[Flip]

RAH

"Well that is a recipe for disaster...."

Or for the creation of Michael Smith.

[Anomalous Cowshed]

Bloke says - if anyone needs to get something to Mars, talk to me

Oy! I want in on this bandwagon, before it's too late.

I plan to send a lander to Alpha Centauri come 2020. It won't get there in 2020. But the plan is to launch it in 2020.

I will need 10 billion pounds to fund this amazing mission, a first for mankind. So if anybody wants to get some stuff up to the stars, talk to me.

I know some governments have been interested in stars in the past, we could accommodate them. Toddlers also like stars - twinkle, twinkle! - so there are lots of parents out there who will be well advised to contribute a nominal donation, say £1000 per toddler, in return for which we will offer their sprogs a slither of immortality by entering their names in our Star Exploration Contributors database, a copy of which will be carried aboard the lander on a radiation-shielded USB dongle, hand-crafted in an exclusive workshop in Shenzhen, China. Entries in the "Premium Star Exploration Contributors Hall of Fame", an exclusive table in the database, will be available to rich mugsdiscerning philanthropists for £1,000,000 and above. For this you will not only have your name and status up in the stars, forever, but you will get your own copy of the entire database on a gold-plated USB stick, so you can see which of your mates have also contributed. Get in quick, before space runs out: the database we use is a super-secure, NSA and virus proof one-off edition from a leading software house called 'Maocrosoft' in Guangzhou and is specially designed to only hold up to 1 billion records.

To contribute, head to your local Western Union branch...

[teebie]

'"We also have consumer firms that are interested in becoming 'the first brand on Mars'," he claimed.'

shut *up*, goldenpalace.com

[E 2]

24x7 comms

What about when Mars is occluded by the sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Send

Some Cockroaches, If they can survive a nuclear blast, they should be good for a couple of hours before they explosively decompress, good TV!

[mIRCat]

"mankind will have started its first offworld colony by building a community on Mars made up entirely of reality TV stars."

Ah, so that's how the Martians come to the conclusion there is no intelligent life on Earth.

Let me be the first to welcome our reality TV watching alien overlords.

[Dr?]

All reality TV stars should be forcibly sent to Mars.