More than 1,65,000 people from 140 countries, including 8,107 Indians, have signed up with Mars One, a private enterprise, expressing their willingness and readiness to “migrate” to Mars, where the company claims to set up a permanent human settlement by 2023. They have volunteered to be part of this one-way ticket to the Red Planet.
“Our aim is to establish a colony in Mars in the next ten years,” a spokesperson of Mars One told the media. However, space scientists in India scoff at the promise for a settled life on the Mars. “Easier said than done. I feel like laughing at claims and offers like this,” Devi Prasad Karnik, space scientist and spokesman of Indian Space Research Organisation, told The Pioneer.
The greatest scientific and technological achievement made with respect to Mars till date is Curiosity, the spacecraft sent by the US-based NASA. The Curiosity is very much active on the Red Planet and keeps on providing data about the planet. Interestingly, the Mars One project comes at a time when even the NASA is yet to conceive about a manned mission to Mars.
Mars is 225 million kilometres away from Earth. One needs man-rated launch vehicle and spacecraft which could offer foolproof safety and security to the prospective astronauts. The spacecraft should have logistics like food, water, air, medical aid for months-long odyssey to Mars.
Though the space agencies have understood the conditions in Moon, full details about the atmospheric and ground conditions in Mars are yet to be ascertained. The Mars One project has no known space scientists or engineers who can convince the world about their capability to execute such a mission. The company's website has profiles of the top echelons which do not evoke any confidence. There are two young postgraduates in mechanical engineering and physics with dreams written on their eyes. They have roped in a visual artist and a medical doctor and two journalists to hard sell the concept. Setting up a colony in Mars in ten years is a wild wild dream, say space scientists.
“I will not rule out a human settlement in Mars. But it is a long way off. There are limitations for all kind of endeavours," said Karnik. Had it been a space agency like NASA which announced this mission, it would have been an entirely different story. Since the offer is only for a one-way trip to the Mars, the volunteers should be those who had enough of Earth. But those who have heard of Richard Branson's SpaceShipOne project to send humans to space as tourists would have thought many times over before signing this contract.
Santhosh George Kulangara, a Kerala-born travel buff has been signed by Virgin Galactic, the company floated by Branson to send people to space as tourists. Santhosh had to undergo number of physical and medical tests before he was selected for the astronaut training programme at Kennedy Space Centre in USA. He completed the G-tolerance and zero gravity training programmes which ordinary human beings would definitely fail. Though the selection process was over in 2009, the SpaceShipOne flight, world's first space tourism mission is yet to take off. "This mission of a colony in Mars could be a futuristic dream. We cannot restrict people's freedom to dream and visualise. If not in our period, the Mars Mission may materialise in the next 50 years or so," said Santhosh over telephone from Kottayam in Kerala.
But Karnik has his own reservations. "Being in the field of space research, I can speak with authority that this kind of claims are only to get media attention. Space exploration is not an area where you can make comic claims," said Karnik. Having read about Saritha Nair and Baiju Radhakrishnan who swindled crores from the big and mighty in Kerala by promising them solar energy, the Mars One programme is neither inspiring nor entertaining.