Waterloo graduate Ben Criger was among the one hundred finalists selected to go on the Mars One mission, an ambitious attempt to colonize the Red Planet with the first crew leaving in 2025. Exciting news, isn’t it?
Well, maybe for the University. But as far as actually colonizing Mars goes, probably not.
Since the Moon landings, scientists and engineers have envisioned a manned mission to Mars. While the jump from the Apollo missions to a possible manned mission to Mars isn’t exactly a small one, technology has advanced enough that a mission to Mars is certainly possible. So why hasn’t one happened yet? Such was the thinking of Bas Lansdorp and the rest of the Mars One team. According to the Mars One mission statement, the project will hopefully help to unite humanity, as well as inspire future generations that anything is possible.
So far, however, the Mars One project isn’t looking so possible, at least with the current imposed budget and time constraints. Mars One estimates that the cost of putting the first four people on Mars will be around $6 billion dollars, which is ridiculously conservative considering the budget for Project Apollo was over $20 billion dollars in 1970 (about $109 billion in 2010 US dollars). Furthermore, most of the budget is expected to go towards launching the rockets. Realistically, a lot of money will probably go towards R&D as well. We might have the theoretical knowledge to develop the colonization modules and spacesuits the crew will need to survive on Mars for an extended period of time, but no working prototypes of those necessities currently exist, and developing them will not come cheap.
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