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Mars One mission may not be possible without advancement in technology, methods

Sending humans on a mission to Mars is hard, dangerous and expensive. No one doubts that, but the folks running the Mars One project believe it’s not an insurmountable venture.

Considered by many to be the most audacious and complex space mission of its kind, the aim is to select astronaut candidates from the general public, send them on a one-way journey to establish a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet and have the entire adventure broadcast and paid for as a TV reality show.

In order to pave the way for the first humans to Mars, the Dutch-based Mars One foundation plans on placing communication satellites, rovers and supplies on Mars.

The space exploration community at large has been skeptical about the Mars One mission and its ability to turn plans into reality, considering the many technical, financial and logistic hurdles.

And this week Canadian ex-astronaut Julie Payette poured cold water over the much-hyped plans by saying she believes “no one is going anywhere in ten years.”

Payette made the comments while giving a talk at a symposium in Montreal, pointing out the technology needed to safely conduct a human mission to Mars is nowhere near ready. She scoffed at the idea of a reality show selection process having the right stuff to conduct such a venture properly.

There has been a lot of hard skepticism aired about the foundation raising funds by doing a reality show on the training and the mission. What may be very telling is that no TV production company has signed on as of yet. Also no rocket manufacturing company contracts exist to build hardware that would take astronauts to the Red Planet.

One of the finalists for the mission — a university professor — supposedly leaked information about the selection process, saying that the foundation ranks its trainees by points, which are based on how much they donate or how much merchandise they spend. The more they spend, the higher their rank.

There have been no live selection processes other than a 10-minute Skype interview and others that were paper-based. No regional in-person interviews were conducted as originally planned.

While the Mars One founder has put out his rebuttal in a YouTube video, the allegations make it that much more difficult to vouch for the venture’s veracity.

Even if the unorthodox marketing methods are put aside, much of the technology needed to safely conduct a human Mars trip is still in its infancy and is only being tested at governmental and university lab settings.

Scrubbing breathable air within habitation modules, recycling water, setting up greenhouses that can indefinitely grow food for the crew, and extracting and manufacturing rocket fuel and oxygen from Martian soil must all be perfected before such a trip could take place.

With the enormous gulf of interplanetary space between our worlds measuring anywhere from 70 to 400 million kilometers, it can take anywhere from six to nine months just to make a one way trip. There would be no chance for a last minute emergency rescue mission or to order a replacement part of some kind.

Independence and resourcefulness would be the key to survival.

NASA may be the only game in town capable of pulling off a human mission to Mars. It is the only space agency that has Mars wired with landers, orbiters and rovers, collecting vital data needed to understand what it will take to keep astronauts alive and well on its surface.

The ultimate goal in travelling to Mars is to begin establishing a research outpost which would be continually manned in rotating shifts, much like the International Space Station or those now in Antarctica.

NASA sees its first human mission launching in the mid-2030s. Perhaps soon after, every three to four years, there could be missions rotating out both crew and supplies. This would allow the stations to gradually expand and include a variety of support staff like doctors, nurses, technicians, etc..

Many great minds believe that it is vital to get humans off the Earth before some kind of disaster wipes out our species. Inventor Elon Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking amongst others have warned that the long-term success of humankind depends on not being relegated to this single planet.