Introduction
A warning in advance! This Article may shake your worldview. It is not save to read if you want to remain in a nice comfortable Mars fantasy bubble. Also if you are determined to believe in Mars One, you can stop reading right here and save a few minutes of your time (but you will regret it later).
To all others: Perhaps you came here because you already had the feeling that something might be not quite right with Mars One, there are actually many informed sources, who argue against such a plan and they are not found in the mainstream media, but rather in expert forums. Certainly one could go into very detailed discussion as to why it is impossible from an engeneering point, but here I tried to compile the most basic problems, because often researching can be more difficult and time consuming than simply watching a promotion clip and read all those articles and dream and hope and believe. If you are open minded you also might not care for any grammar and spelling error’s that occure because english isn’t my first language. So let’s begin:
Why is Mars One a scam? – Technology:
Compare how long it took Virgin Galactic to build their Space ship Two and make it safe. This is suborbital and they are already 5 years behind schedule. Similarly it took SpaceX nearly 10 years to develop a cargo version of the Falcon 9 and it will take nearly 14 years from the beginning to fly a crewed version. SpaceX is very ambitious and this is proven tech and only to low earth orbit. Years of delays is normal in space industry. The more ambitious and complex the longer it takes, because of long supply chains.
There is no indication that Mars One has any idea what kind of technology would be necessary or how this needs to be developed or integrated (and integration is key). Thousands of aerospace experts need to work continiously, which is a very costly standing army and amounts to billions of dollars per year alone. This money has to be paid upfront.
You cannot simply shop for components and hope that it will magically combine, fly and work. So far Mars One only has letters of interest from mentioned companies, absolutely no guarantee that they can deliver the necessary components. By the way, where is Boeing (one of the biggest aerospace companies) on their list?
Mars One plans to use a 5,2 meter diameter dragon capsule, which is not going to be developed by SpaceX in the near future and certainly not human rated, so the house of cards is collapsing right there, but for fun let’s go on a little bit, because it becomes better:
There is no EDL (Entry Descent Landing) technology for Mars in the near future, certainly not a 5,2m dragon capsule in 2018. A Mars super sonic propulsive landing must be demonstrated first and OFTEN before you can send humans or they will die on impact. It is unknown if landing big masses on mars even works with current technology. There is only a proposal for a small mission for Spacex’ Dragon (3,2m) capsule (called Red Dragon), to test this kind of landing in 2018 at earliest, but no funding yet.
Rolling out solar cells? I wonder how many much solar cells must be rolled out, so that enough electricity is produced in dust seasons? Yes, there are dust storms for months which cover the whole planet! But why not roll out some solar cells?
Dust is also a serious problem in another way, as it will damage the machines and materials and effect the health of the fanbo… astronauts if inhaled, as experienced by Apollo astronauts on the moon, because it is very fine grained and most certainly toxic. But why not simply use a vacuum cleaner? Degradation of space suits in a matter of weeks, will be a similar problem.
They seriously underestimate the robotics that is necessary to build the base. MSL manoevering takes a lot of time, because of radio delay and many other concerns. MSL is driving a few meters per day and has little time to do other things.
How will a big rover land on Mars, if NASA says it cannot land bigger masses than MSL? If Dragon could land on mars, a rover cannot simply pop out a dragon hatch. The MSL landing was a very complex and costly manouver (for one rover alone).
How will such a big rover handle and carry around big capsules (15t, 5,2m) collecting them from a 10 – 50 km landing ellipse. How will such a rover be powered? Solar power or a nuclear reactor? Coal or marsian dust?
Mars One Scam 