Mars One Mission (Photo : www.dailymail.co.uk)
If Mars One is successful, people will be moving there in 2020; however, the high-profile Dutch firm behind the ambitious plan of colonizing Mars met intrigue this week through its shortlisted candidate for its one-way trip.
A physicist at Ireland's Trinity College, Joseph Roche has revealed his personal take on what he sees as serious problems with the mission. Mars One is planning to launch its first un-manned mission in 2018 to be followed by a manned mission six years later, the New Scientist reported.
Roche, in his interview with Matter Magazine, said that all applicants were selected according to the number of points they were able to accumulate during the multi-stage process. The points are gathered trough donating money to the Mars One project or purchasing merchandise from its mother firm.
The high-profile candidates were those who have donated the most, the Professor said.
On top of this, he has also raised concerns regarding the selection procedure because it only involved a Skype conversation with the project's chief medical officer.
Mars One's Suzanne Flinkenflögel, in an aim to defend the integrity of the project, said that all accusations were false.
"Candidates' donations do not have any influence on the astronaut selection process. Many round 3 candidates have never contributed financially beyond the application fee, and there are many that did contribute significantly, but were not selected to proceed to the next selection round," she shared.
Applicants were, also, encouraged to respond to interviews and donate 75 percent of their appearance fees to the project.
