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A BRITISH-DUTCH company planning to install a community of humans on Mars has said that its project will be delayed by several years.
The Mars One consortium said its first manned mission to the red planet would now not happen until 2031, having previously targeted 2026.
Its first unmanned mission has also been delayed by four years to 2022.
The delays are due to a “new financial strategy” linked to Mars One’s sale to Swiss financial services company InFin Innovative Finance AG, which was announced last week.
Currently, Mars One consists of two entities: British public limited company Mars One Ventures and the Dutch not-for-profit Mars One Foundation.
Mars One’s controversial project aims to send pioneering colonisers on one-way trips to the Red Planet to set up a permanent human settlement.
Reality TV show
Some 200,000 hopefuls from 140 countries initially signed up for the project, which is to be partly funded by a reality television show.
Those have now been whittled down to just 100, out of whom 24 will be selected to make the seven-month voyage of no return.
Irishman Dr Joseph Roche lost his place on the shortlist after criticising the project.
The chosen candidates, who will leave Earth in six groups of four, will have to find water, produce oxygen and cultivate their own food.
So far, the only Nasa missions to explore Mars have been unmanned.
Nasa is currently working on three Mars missions with the European Space Agency and plans to send another rover to Mars in 2020.
However, Nasa has no plans for a manned mission to Mars until the 2030s.
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Can’t wait to see the mad yoke with the three t”ts !
Once the radiation kicks in you might grow a third hand
The water charges on Mars would be insane.
@Liam Dunne: __ I didn’t know One Direction were going to Mars.
Politicians should be the first to go….. Tell them its a free trip….
No way William, we’ll have to pay their travel expenses.
Who didn’t see this coming? The original date was clearly a pr stunt.
The only way Humans will set foot on Mars will be with the backing and financial support of nation states. The current technology to get there and sheer cost is effectively more than any private company have. And it’s investors would have to wait decades if not centuries to see a possible return on any investment.
@Mick Jordan: Ever watch the truman show? It wont necessarily bring a profit but it could cover large parts of the costs.
Also, some companies are richer than nations. Infact, most are. Most nations are several billion in debt.
A group of nations, crowdfunding and television deals can cover the cost. It just depends on whether they have enough to last them until 2031.
No Andy you can’t have the R&D that only a state can provide. Plus the truman show was a MOVIE i.e. fiction based on fiction. Importance of separating this I can’t stress enough
How much $£€ is wasted on this fake, pseudo-science nonsense. I’m sure it could solve many of the world’s problems.
@Patrick Mac: That argument has been used on pretty much every space exploration mission from some circles, including the space race. Sometimes it is worth doing, even when the world always has other problems. Besides, our politicians could solve homelessness and the housing crisis if they actually pulled the finger out, even without funds to go to Mars and colonize if they had any inspiration or spine.
The dividend from these kinds of projects are the scientific breakthroughs that acrue from so much R&D. In the end they more than pay for themselves.
It’s a scam!
Disappointing but not surprising. 15 years may not be a whole lot on the grand scheme of things but it’s ages away.
It ample time to announce another delay later
They’ll have someone living on Mars before rural Ireland gets it much promised fiber broadband.
Reminds me of an old joke. Somewhere, sometime in the future on board a spaceship one passenger turns to the next and says, “where are you from? ” “Earth” “Heh, do you know. …”
Won’t somebody please think of the children!
@Irish Soccer Lad ⚽️: Priests lol.
That was a bad idea the first time..
I bet there’s a Starbucks
The established challenges are far too great to surmount. Radiation alone will kill the inhabitants.
@Micheal OLainn: Sshh, you’re killing the Mars colonisation circle jerk vibes.
It will kill them EVENTUALLY, just like the rest of us will all die eventually, except we’ll have achieved a lot less for humanity.
@Neal, not Neil.: within months of arrival. It is not possible to shield against the high radiation doses. It would be a miserable existence. It would contribute nothing.
It’s a scam, and a distraction. This will continue to be postponed.
Who’s doing the real estate?
Donald Trump
Is Steorn providing the propulsion system?
Alpha… It works as long as you don’t actually examine the engine…
The whole project is just a pyramid scheme financial scam.
Dunno folks,how about fixing some of this worlds problems before exporting them..
@Kieran OKeeffe: The world always has problems. Ironically, moving to Mars may be humanity’s best hope of lasting beyond the next few thousand years.
Several years, anything outside the Earth’s magnetosphere is bombarded with solar and cosmic radiation. To get to Mars will take 9 months in a craft with 6 foot thick walls of lead but might be less if they use Berylium with it…
Crazy?
Can’t deny science…
@Alois Irlmaier: Beryllium itself has an atomic signature, encasing a human with it for 9 months is definitely not the solution!
@Rodan: Could in space with lead?
Well it wasn’t going to happen anyway, i have waiting for this since i was 12.
Until the brains figure out a way to shield humans from the absolutely massive amounts of radiation that would be coursing through their bodies in interplanetary space, this would be a suicide mission.
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