(Image Credit: NASA)
200,000 people have applied to colonize Mars, according to The Mars One Foundation who is pursuing the undertaking.
The company’s CEO Bas Lansdorp said on Tuesday that the first step to achieving this goal is an unmanned mission which could be scheduled for 2018. This would involve sending a robotic lander and a communications satellite to the red planet.
Lansdorp told CNN the unmanned venture is the “most important and most difficult step of actually getting humans to Mars.” He added that if the mission is successful, then it’s theoretically possible for the first pioneers to land on the planet in 2025.
“The first step in Mars One’s overall plan of establishing a permanent human settlement on Mars,” he said.
According to Lansdorp, the first mission could cost as little (!) as 6 billion, however Space Law expert Michael Listner stated that the cost would be much closer to 1 Trillion, which is more than the gross-domestic product of most countries on Earth.
Does this goal sound achievable, or is Lansdorp ‘reaching for the stars’?
Read the original article here at The Epoch Times.
