How much is Mars planet worth

The latest? Tesla TSLA CEO Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars by 2024 via his SpaceX company.

Even I want to set foot on Martian soil one day. So when I stumbled upon the Mars One website a few years back, I was beyond excited. But, sadly, some things are too good to be true, and establishing a permanent human settlement on Mars by 2030 Mars Ones mission may very likely be just a dream. Still, we might have NASA to thank:

Before I begin, let me provide a few details about Mars One. Its a foundation organized with the goal of establishing the first human settlement on Mars, which is 140 million miles from Earth (on average, depending on the position of each planet). Settlers going there wouldnt return to Earth; they would live on the Red Planet permanently.

This year, a robotic lander and a demo orbiter were supposed to be launched, tasked with demonstrating key features of the project, such as limited Earth-Mars communication, including sending and receiving videos, images and other telemetric data.

Two years later, a rover would be launched to pinpoint and prepare the surface for a location of the settlement and, along with it, another orbiter to enhance communications, solving the radio-silence problem during the Mars solar conjunction.

In 2020, after the location has been successfully determined, settlement modules, including life support and supply and habitat units, would be sent along with yet another rover. A year later, rovers would begin the construction of the settlement, making sure it has a breathable atmosphere and enough water and other supplies.

The year 2022 was supposed to be when SpaceXs Falcon Heavy would be launched, carrying the first four colonists. The rest would be launched in regular intervals, and it was planned that by 2031, the number of colonists on Mars would grow to 20.

As you might presume, not everything is going according to plan. In fact, because of a lack of funding and other issues, all of the aforementioned dates have been pushed back some steps have been delayed for as long as four years. (Heres the new roadmap.)

As you will soon see, Mars One has plenty more obstacles to overcome, and the lack of funding is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Projects as demanding as this require a lot of money, and Mars One is no exception. Mars One estimates the cost of putting the first four people on Mars at $6 billion. NASAs experts have estimated that the costs of their Mars mission will be $80 billion to $100 billion.

Not only does $6 billion seem unrealistically low, but without a return ticket, the Mars One mission is actually even more expensive in the long run. That assertion stems from the fact that, to keep humans on Mars alive, we will need to regularly launch supplies, spare parts and tools, both for maintenance and life support.

What happens if the mission doesnt generate enough revenue to keep supplies coming, I asked Bas Lansdorp, CEO of Mars One and a Dutch national. He said: Our financial challenges will be before humans land on Mars, not after. Each Olympic Games is worth $4.5 billion from broadcasting rights and sponsorships and partnerships just these will easily finance follow-up missions for a long time. There are dozens of other business cases around our mission: donations (for the Mars One Foundation), which will increase over time as we accomplish more; merchandise; ad revenues; IP rights and many more.

Im not convinced. No one can guarantee the stellar success and profitability of any project, and if Mars One is struggling to persuade investors at this stage, it may be even harder for them to do so years, or even decades, after the initial hype dies out. With it, colonists may lose their lives as well.

Needless to say, this raises ethical issues. But lets not rush too far ahead.

Money issues

The concern for the feasibility of the project comes not only from the comparison with NASAs own plans, but also from Dutch Nobel laureate Gerardt Hooft, a theoretical physics professor and Mars One supporter. Although he does support the general idea of the project, the Guardian quoted him saying that it will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved, I told them: You have to put a zero after everything.

Indeed, multiplying Mars One costs by 10 brings us much closer to NASAs own calculations. Too bad we also have to do the same with the dates in the roadmap. This means the first manned launch for Mars One may happen some 100 years from now.

When asked to comment on t Hoofts statement, Lansdorp said: Our road map is feasible with adequate funding, which is currently not in place yet. It was only for financial reasons that we had to announce delays to our road map before. We are making good progress on our next investment round and hope to be able to share news on that soon. Of course, Mars missions have plenty of opportunity for delay our road map is certainly not etched in stone.

On the donation page, results from April 27 show that since Dec. 20, 2013, Mars One has received $906,735, a mere 0.015% of the needed amount.

So unless that next investment round Lansdorp mentioned brings in substantial funds, things wont change much, and there may be even more delays.

Luckily for those involved in the project, donations and merchandise revenue arent their only sources of money. The Mars One website says that the mission to Mars will primarily be financed through investments and the next step will be a listing on a stock exchange to enable supporters to own part of the mission to Mars.

As if it had already happened, the website says the investors are investing in Mars One because they believe in a return on their investment. Do they? When I asked Lansdorp about the state of investments, he declined to comment, so I did a little bit of research.

A part ($285,507) of the previously mentioned donations was raised through an unsuccessful Indiegogo campaign. The campaigns goal was $400,000, and of $313,744 collected from backers, Indiegogo took 9%, or $28,237.

Facing scrutiny from crowdfunding backers is one thing, but wooing serious investors is a different matter altogether. Due diligence reveals the project is currently but a flashy website, videos and PR. The Mars One website shows a list of suppliers, among them Lockheed Martin LMT and Paragon Space Development Corp. But aside from ordering feasibility studies from those companies and having orders finalized, no other contracts are in place, according to my research.

I asked Lansdorp about it, and he said Mars One has only just started its technical program. In such an early state, its unclear how they plan to sell the idea to prospective investors.

Technical issues

Most of the technology that Mars One needs to accomplish its lofty goals doesnt yet exist. For instance, to feed colonists, plants would have to be grown in their habitation modules. As we all know, plants produce oxygen, and in this case, it would easily reach unsafe levels. Having too much oxygen within the habitat would not only exceed fire-safety thresholds, but could also cause a chain of events that could easily lead to inhabitants suffocating within an estimated 68 days, according to an MIT assessment. To counter that hazard, a special air-filtration system that removes excess O2 would need to be used, but such a system has not yet been developed for use in space.

The same goes for a water-extraction system. The colonists are supposed to extract water from icy soil and use it for drinking. Engineers at MIT say that current technologies designed to bake water from soil are not yet ready for deployment, particularly in space.

Lansdorp, in response, said: While the food systems still need to be engineered thoroughly, there are no fundamental challenges. Mars One will build a copy of the Mars outpost on Earth where we can test the food growth/life support system interaction for prolonged periods in very similar conditions Mars has 40% of the gravity of the Earth and is not space. Were not planning to grow food on the way to Mars. In our plan, the first crew will find storable food waiting for them, so even if everything goes wrong with food production, the crews safety will not be at risk.

But if everything goes wrong with food production, the crews safety may very well be at risk. Having to regularly send food supplies could substantially burden the mission, from increased costs and the growing weight of payloads (more colonists = more mouths to feed), to the fact that missed launch windows may now result in dead or starving crew.

Flawed applicant process

Unresolved technology issues are just one part of the problem. The astronaut-selection process is hopelessly and dangerously flawed, says one of the applicants (a finalist), Dr. Joseph Roche, in a feature published by Medium.

Roche lists many flaws with Mars One, such as allegedly artificially inflated numbers of applicants for the mission (200,000 vs the actual 2,761), donation-based selection process consisting of filling out a questionnaire, uploading a video and getting examined by your local doctor. Talking about the procedure, Roche says that all the info they have collected on me is a crap video I made, an application form that I filled out with mostly one-word answers and then a 10-minute Skype interview. That is just not enough info to make a judgment on someone about anything.

Tech Insider reported that during the debate between Mars One and the MIT team in which they discussed the feasibility of the project at its current state, Lansdorp was asked about the funding.

Its a crazy enough project that positive surprises can happen, he said. Its so ambitious, and I think crazy is the right word, that we might actually get a phone call from a billionaire who says, I want to make this happen; I want the first city on Mars to be called Gates-ville or Slim city.

Although anything is possible, to me Mars One looks less like a viable scientific endeavor and more like an underdeveloped experiment.

Yet, Lansdorp said nothing is etched in stone. So the project may evolve over time. And it just might be feasible, especially if heavy hitters like NASA or SpaceXs Musk get involved. Ill be more than happy to revisit the project as Mars One grows and matures.

What do you think about Mars One? Let me know in the comment section below.

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