Our lodger is also in the 1058 people. I'd thought getting to Phase 2 was simply a case of weeding out the obvious joke applications and crazies, but to have gotten rid of 98% of applicants suggests otherwise, unless there really are very few people willing to go.

I am very skeptical this will ever get off the ground metaphorically, let alone literally. I am waiting for them to announce selected applicants will need to bring funding of $250k each or something like that.

Personally I would happily become a colonist on Mars, but I sure wouldn't want to go with this program.

However, if anyone is serious about colonizing another planet, then they shouldn't be sending males. Well, at least not all of them. The only parts of a male that are actually useful or important on another planet are a small number of cells, and the delta-v spent to carry ONE adult human male and all the life support needed for his trip would send enough preserved cells for hundreds of unique genetic samples.

Why do you think they're only sending males?

Personally I would happily become a colonist on Mars, but I sure wouldn't want to go with this program.

However, if anyone is serious about colonizing another planet, then they shouldn't be sending males. Well, at least not all of them. The only parts of a male that are actually useful or important on another planet are a small number of cells, and the delta-v spent to carry ONE adult human male and all the life support needed for his trip would send enough preserved cells for hundreds of unique genetic samples.

Why do you think they're only sending males?

You missed my meaning when I said 'not all of them'. I mean not all of a single male. The only part of a male human that needs to travel from earth to another planet for a colony is sperm cells. Any more is useless and redundant material that would be far better spent as part of a female as we don't yet have technology for artificial wombs, and the last I heard long term storage and deployment of sperm is far more viable than going the other way with the process.

The only colonists that make sense to send from Earth are females with as strong a family history of child birth as possible. If they aren't able or aren't willing to donate the use of their womb for nearly continuous pregnancies then it means you spend more fuel getting them there than needed as the colony would require others go along with them.

Female only colonies are the most cost effective way of establishing a viable genetic population off planet. A single male can only ever support his own gene pool, where as a female can support their own and provide host to other donor genes.

I doubt that reproduction is very high on the immediate priorities list, or even allowable. Fist they've got to get enough agriculture and industry developed to prove that the initial colonists can even survive themselves.
A pregnancy is just going to incapacitate one if your very few workers, be a huge medical burden and risk, and has an unknown chance of success. Any studies ever been done on low-gravity gestation/births/upbringings?
One of their rockets will surely be carrying a lifetime supply of contraceptives!

Female only colonies are the most cost effective way of establishing a viable genetic population off planet. A single male can only ever support his own gene pool, where as a female can support their own and provide host to other donor genes.

That's assuming that the sole purpose of the trip is to produce new humans to live there, and also that human work is not needed in larger capacity than is possible with a constantly pregnant population and later with a vast number of children growing up. I find it much more likely that we want some skilled work done right away, requiring previously trained personnel, and also that the real purpose of colonizing another planet is to move earth-dwelling humans to that planet rather than simply increase our overall numbers in a new space.

You realize Mars One is a scam right? They have no way of getting supplies let alone people to Mars. A livable environment would also take billions to create. It would also need to be under the ground and shielded to be viable for a longer than a year. (2 years is essentially a 5% increase in chance of cancer).

Any studies ever been done on low-gravity gestation/births/upbringings?

No better study than actually doing it I guess :)

I would rather just use these planets as launching pads to other planets and then finally out of our solar system. Travel to Mars in about 30 days (by 2025), hang out for a month or so. Then jump to one of Jupiter's moons, etc. But we need breaks to spend time in larger places or we'll go crazy.

Just living on Mars for the sake of living on Mars seems a little pointless.

Just living on Mars for the sake of living on Mars seems a little pointless.

why would it be pointless? if we can prove we have the capability to create a successful colony on mars, doesn't that prove we should be successful at doing it anywhere?

I like the idea of mars, but as was said in previous threads, i think a colony on the moon, or on a space station(i'm talking on scales much larger than the ISS), would be better as a first step to proving our capabilitys of surviving and creating livable environments compared to mars.

however, at the same time, mars has some stuff going for it that we wouldn't get on the moon, or in space. such as a closer to earth gravity field, an actual atmosphere to shield us from some radiation, potentially easier access to water.

why would it be pointless? if we can prove we have the capability to create a successful colony on mars, doesn't that prove we should be successful at doing it anywhere?

I like the idea of mars, but as was said in previous threads, i think a moon, or a space station(i'm talking on scales much larger than the ISS), would be better as a first step to proving our capabilitys of surviving and creating livable environments compared to mars.

however, at the same time, mars has some stuff going for it that we wouldn't get on the moon, or in space. such as a closer to earth gravity field, an actual atmosphere to shield us from some radiation, potentially easier access to water.

I've also heard of a proposed mission where humans could establish a colony on Venus, in an habitat hovering at around 50km of altitude in the thick atmosphere (which would also shield the colonists from a lot of the ionizing radiation, and is a very earth-like environment in general). Personally that seems more realistic to me than a Mars colony, but either way anything that gets us off this rock we call home is a huge step forward.

Ultimately if the human race doesn't die out I think we will have colonized most of our solar system within 300 years, but I don't think we should just start catapulting humans everywhere just now. I also believe we should first work on propulsion and life support systems, but one has to keep in mind that without public attention, space missions are difficult to fund. It's not that they are expensive (the worldwide military budget of 2013 alone would be enough to finance several dozen large-scale projects) but they are not perceived as having any tangible value and a lot of people probably think they are just a waste of money to satisfy scientific curiosity. So in my mind Mars One could go both ways: it could increase public interest in space exploration, and even if it fails, become a catalyst for the funding of other, more plausible missions, or it could severely hurt the near-term future of space exploration.

I could see this become possible if Red Bull would buy the project.

Anyhoo, a practical question (I don't have time to read through the project). The teams (the final Mars team or the probe colonies on Earth) would have males and females too? How are they planning to solve the sexual urge (and medical need) that males can have regardless of the environment? Women+men, or a jerk-off room, or castration (real, or chemical, or just some suspending medicine)?