Mars or Bust: Mars One Busted and Other Hopefuls

Knowing that I'm a planetary scientist and a space enthusiast, numerous people have been asking me about Mars over the past couple of weeks. Mars seems to be capturing people's attention and imagination, especially with the NASA Orion and Mars One news lately. People within the industry can't agree about what to make of it all, so the news media simplifies what they pick up and bits and pieces get out into the public conversation. When a marketing friend sent me a text message on Friday with a question from her boss about the group of astronauts going to Mars in five years, I knew I had to write about it.

To set the record straight: astronauts are not going to Mars in the next 5 years. Astronauts are not going to Mars in the next 15 years. I heard a news clip the last week where the anchor stated that it's widely accepted that the generation of our youth will land on Mars. This is not generally accepted nor is it a presumption we can make. I hope that astronauts land on Mars while I'm alive to see it, though nothing is certain.

Robotic probes have been to Mars. We have several active orbiters and rovers on or around the planet right now, collecting data for science. More scientific missions will launch to Mars in the next few years. Whether humans go to Mars depends on human considerations: funding priorities, technological advances, perseverance, and most importantly, political will.

The biggest Mars newsmaker at the moment is Mars One, the European company that wants to send a group of civilians on a one-way trip to the planet and fund the expedition with profits from a reality TV show. In the news lately is the list of 100 candidates who may be selected for the expedition, two of which are from my doctoral alma mater, one of which is a former classmate and lab colleague of mine. I've eaten in his home, met his wife and first child, and visited his church with him; he seems like a perfectly sane and rational person to me.

Making smaller headlines is the news about the MIT study that outlines how these potential astronauts might die very quickly and news that the original reality TV show production company has dropped the idea after they failed to agree on a contract. Others have also reported that they have very little raised in funds, no known hardware built, and contracted engineering studies with reputable companies have not been continued. The chances of them launching an expedition to anywhere other than this planet anytime soon are laughable. The fact that they launched a IndiGoGo crowd-funding campaign a year ago to take money from the wide-eyed and believing public takes the laughter out of me and makes me very wary of their intentions.

Just today, I read an article featuring one of the 100 candidates calling Mars One a scam for encouraging the candidates to donate money to the company and buy merchandise in order to increase their selection rankings. He also reports that the 100 candidates have had no training and were selected based on an initial video and a 10 minute video call. I had been using the phrase, “one step up from a scam,” but I applaud the courageously blunt wording.

I met the CEO of Mars One, Bas Lansdorp, at a conference two years ago. He was a keynote speaker at the the International Space Development Conference in San Diego. I was working as VIP Relations and handled all of the keynote speakers. I ended up having lunch with him and chatting with him even more about his goals and mission. I received standard answers that didn't really address my questions or provide any additional information. My impression even at that time: great skepticism. “Quite honestly, I don't think that it will happen, but I hope that he proves me wrong,” I wrote in my personal journal. My skepticism has only increased.

Buzz Aldrin asking Bas Lansdorp a question. I'm in the red dress on the left.

I had forgotten about this encounter until I refreshed my memory by reading my personal journal. Buzz Aldrin was sitting a few seats from me in the front row of Bas Lansdorp's talk. During the question and answer period, the Apollo astronaut suggested that Mars One could partner with the Golden Spike Company, a private lunar travel company aiming to send astronauts to the Moon. Bas seemed interested in the idea. Using my phone, I immediately sent an email to Golden Spike CEO Alan Stern about it. Alan wrote back immediately, so I talked to Bas about it after his talk and introduced them via email after. All of that happened within a matter of minutes. That is what happens when a millennial is sitting in the front row with the internet at her fingertips!

I have no idea if anything became of that exchange, but I digress. My point is, Mars One's actions over the past two years have only increased my skepticism of their plans. Buzz Aldrin has his own Mars transportation concept which will likely remain a paper project. Dennis Tito's fly-by Inspiration Mars mission with an older married couple seems to also have fizzled and died, or if anything is still being worked on, it's unknown to me. Last I heard, he asked NASA to help fund it, which is laughable because NASA can't even fully fund their own missions.

Which brings me to NASA's Mars ambitions. NASA certainly is serious about exploring the red planet and has sent many precursor robotic missions, but funding and political direction have been lacking and I see no signs that this will change. There was so much publicity surrounding the Orion capsule Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) launch in December. A close friend of mine was working that mission and I was excited for her. But NASA PR was on overdrive, and not in a good way. Little of what was reported was truthful about the complexities of the mission and the future of NASA's human exploration program.

NASA is a government agency. Simply, the President sets the direction and Congress gives the money. The Presidential Administration and Congress have not been in agreement about NASA's direction since as long as I've been alive. President Obama said, “Let's go to an asteroid!” pretty much because it was something different than what President Bush had said (his direction was Moon-bound). Congress has been fighting him ever since. NASA is hopelessly lost until the Presidential Administration and Congress agree about the intermediate steps. But we all agree that Mars is the ultimate goal, someday, somehow. It certainly won't be in the budget and time frame they propose.

I'm only discussing human missions to Mars here. There are several robotic missions on the red planet operating right now: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, MAVEN, and an Indian probe called Mars Orbiter Mission. The European Space Agency will launch ExoMars in 2016 and 2018. NASA's Mars 2020 rover is under consideration. NASA and partners have had huge successes in recent years sending robots to Mars. This is a great and crucial first step to human missions.

When I was working on my doctorate in planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad. The regolith (dirt) is too light and unstable to withstand blasts from retrorockets, so something as heavy as the Curiosity rover is about the limit that the ground can take. A human-carrying lander would blast a crater so unstable that they wouldn't be able to land. Somehow, we need to send a robot up there to build a landing pad before we land humans. There's also talk of using a robot to autonomously build other infrastructure such as habitats for humans when we land. The technology to do this is in the works but it will take us decades before we figure out how to do it.

I blasted regolith-like granular materials (in this case, beach sand) with jets of gas and watched the crater form.

I took microscope-scaled images of the regolith materials. This one is called JSC-Mars-1.

I do have faith in one man to accomplish what he sets his mind to: Elon Musk. Whether it's PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, or any of his other ventures, that man gets things done. By modifying one of his Dragon capsules, he thinks that he can land humans on Mars with the help of NASA in a mission called Red Dragon. He is almost always overly optimistic with his schedule, so this won't happen any time soon. He has his own rockets, his own lander, and his own money, though he likely will need NASA's assistance. His goal is to retire on Mars and I hope he gets there. Though I'll have to see it to believe it.

Very little of what I see in the news about humans on Mars is realistic or honest, and that's disheartening. It's one thing to have a serious discussion about whether we as a society are willing to commit to a multi-decade, tens-of-billion or hundreds-of-billion dollar mission to send humans to Mars. It's another thing to give soundbite answers about how we're sending humans to Mars in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. But the latter claim is what catches headlines and gets people excited.

I want people to get excited about space exploration! I worry that the kind of unrealistic discussion that has been promoted lately will turn people off and reenforce the notion that space exploration is a waste of money. As space advocates, if we're not honest sources of information about the industry, then why should the public and our legislators trust us? Let us further an honest dialog and further humanity's progress in our solar system.