Mars One finalist says the project may be doomed

The much-hyped Mars One project may crash and burn before it even gets off the ground. Joseph Roche, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin and one of Mars One’s 100 finalists, recently spoke out on the project, and it’s starting to sound more like a pyramid scheme than a space exploration endeavor.

Mars One: revelations and implications

While Mars One originally led the public to believe that candidates were undergoing a strenuous vetting and interview process, it turns out that candidates have actually been ranked on a “points” system that has more to do with how much money they raise for the project than anything else.

Mars enthusiasts may have to turn to someone besides eccentric billionaires to make their space exploration dreams come true.

Roche, who holds PhDs in physics and astrophysics, said he had originally signed up for the project out of curiosity, but he found himself increasingly worried about all the media coverage the project was receiving. One of his most striking revelations involves a press guide provided to the finalists in February, which asked that they “donate 75% of profits” from any speaking engagements to Mars One. According to Roche, the “Top 10 hopefuls” featured in The Guardian in February were simply the candidates who had brought in the most money for Mars One.

Additionally, Roche said that he was never made subject to any rigorous testing or psychological evaluations. In fact, the entirety of his interactions with Mars One staff boiled down to one ten-minute Skype interview with Dr. Norbert Kraft, the project’s chief medical officer, during which he was quizzed on material that had been given to him a month before.

Elmo Keep, who spoke with Roche and who has reported extensively on Mars One in the past, summarized Mars One’s current situation beautifully:

So, here are the facts as we understand them: Mars One has almost no money. Mars One has no contracts with private aerospace suppliers who are building technology for future deep-space missions. Mars One has no TV production partner. Mars One has no publicly known investment partnerships with major brands. Mars One has no plans for a training facility where its candidates would prepare themselves. Mars One’s candidates have been vetted by a single person, in a 10-minute Skype interview.

While Roche said coming forward was difficult, he felt he had too since he feared that “people (would) lose faith in NASA and possibly even in scientists…If I was somehow linked to something that could do damage to the public perception of science, that is my nightmare scenario.”

In a world in which the US Senate’s Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works throws a snowball on the Senate floor to supposedly disprove climate change, Roche’s concerns are frighteningly resonant.

Mars One candidates are just a few million ribbon-cutting ceremonies away from landing in the shadow of Olympus Mons.

Aurora and Mysterious Dust Cloud around Mars Detected by MAVEN

Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing the “Christmas Lights Aurora" on Mars. MAVEN observations show that aurora on Mars is similar to Earth’s "Northern Lights" but has a different origin.

Image Credit: 

University of Colorado

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has observed two unexpected phenomena in the Martian atmosphere: an unexplained high-altitude dust cloud and aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere.

The dust at the altitude of about 93 miles (150 kilometers) to 190 miles (300 kilometers) above the surface was not predicted previously, The source and the composition of the dust are still unknown 

The cloud was detected by the spacecraft’s Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) instrument, and has been present the whole time MAVEN has been in operation. It is unknown if the cloud is a temporary phenomenon or something long lasting. The cloud density is greatest at lower altitudes. However, even in the densest areas it is still very thin. So far, no indication of its presence has been seen in observations from any of the other MAVEN instruments.

Possible sources of the dust are Phobos and Deimos the two moons of mars; dust wafted up from the atmosphere; dust moving in the solar wind away from the sun; or debris orbiting the sun from comets. However, no known process on Mars can explain the appearance of dust in the observed locations from any of these sources

MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observed what scientists have named "Christmas lights." For five days just before Dec. 25, MAVEN saw a bright ultraviolet auroral glow spanning Mars' northern hemisphere. Aurora, known on Earth as northern or southern lights, are caused by energetic particles like electrons crashing down into the atmosphere and causing the gas to glow.

The source of the energetic particles appears to be the sun. MAVEN's Solar Energetic Particle instrument detected a huge surge in energetic electrons at the onset of the aurora. Billions of years ago, Mars lost a global protective magnetic field like Earth has, so solar particles can directly strike the atmosphere. The electrons producing the aurora have about 100 times more energy than you get from a spark of house current, so they can penetrate deeply in the atmosphere.

A map of IUVS’s auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface. The map shows that the aurora was widespread in the northern hemisphere, not tied to any geographic location. The aurora was detected in all observations during a 5-day period.

Image Credit: 

University of Colorado

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