Bas Lansdorp, the man behind the ambitious Mars One project to send humans on a one-way mission to Mars, has today released a video giving some more details behind the project. Mars One has faced widespread scrutiny since its birth in 2012, with scientists and space enthusiasts divided in their beliefs as to whether it is a scam or not.
The video, which you can watch for yourself at the bottom of the article, covers a number of key points with regards to the contentious Mars One mission. Lansdorp started by discussing Australian journalist Elmo Keep, who recently accused Mars One of skewing their facts.
"The suggestion was made that our candidates were selected on the basis of how much money they donate to Mars One, and that's just simply untrue."
"We offered Elmo Keep as the first journalist ever to have access to our list of 200,000 applications. She was not interested in that, so it seems to me she is more interested in writing a sensational article about Mars One than in the truth."
With the aim of funding the mission through media broadcasting, it is crucial for Mars One to agree a deal with broadcasting companies. The company has spent significant time of late trying to market a documentary series on the candidate process to broadcasters.
“We have worked with a new production company since November of last year. They are currently selling the documentary series to an international broadcaster. There is no deal in place yet but it is looking very promising and there is a lot of interest.”
Lansdorp ended the video with the announcement that the company’s plan to land humans on Mars had been delayed by two years, to 2027.
“Unfortunately, the paper work of that deal is taking much longer than we expected. I now think that it will be completed before the summer of this year, which means that we will not be in time to finance the follow up studies that Lockheed Martin needs to do for our first unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.”
Whether you believe Mars One to be a scam or not, the mission is certainly one of the most ambitious projects laid out in spaceflight for many decades. Only time will tell as to whether this will go down in history as one of human’s greatest endeavors, or simply another failed project.
The video, which you can watch for yourself at the bottom of the article, covers a number of key points with regards to the contentious Mars One mission. Lansdorp started by discussing Australian journalist Elmo Keep, who recently accused Mars One of skewing their facts.
"The suggestion was made that our candidates were selected on the basis of how much money they donate to Mars One, and that's just simply untrue."
"We offered Elmo Keep as the first journalist ever to have access to our list of 200,000 applications. She was not interested in that, so it seems to me she is more interested in writing a sensational article about Mars One than in the truth."
With the aim of funding the mission through media broadcasting, it is crucial for Mars One to agree a deal with broadcasting companies. The company has spent significant time of late trying to market a documentary series on the candidate process to broadcasters.
“We have worked with a new production company since November of last year. They are currently selling the documentary series to an international broadcaster. There is no deal in place yet but it is looking very promising and there is a lot of interest.”
Lansdorp ended the video with the announcement that the company’s plan to land humans on Mars had been delayed by two years, to 2027.
“Unfortunately, the paper work of that deal is taking much longer than we expected. I now think that it will be completed before the summer of this year, which means that we will not be in time to finance the follow up studies that Lockheed Martin needs to do for our first unmanned mission in 2018. This unfortunately means that we will have to delay the first unmanned mission to 2020. Delaying our first unmanned mission by two years also means that all the other missions will move by the same period of time, with our first human landing now planned for 2027.”
Whether you believe Mars One to be a scam or not, the mission is certainly one of the most ambitious projects laid out in spaceflight for many decades. Only time will tell as to whether this will go down in history as one of human’s greatest endeavors, or simply another failed project.