There are currently two established players in the race to Mars: NASA and
Mars One. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the USA’s
national space agency and are greatly respected in their opinions about the
Mars mission. Conversely, Mars One is a crowd funded, Dutch based initiative,
and they hold different views on the Mars mission to NASA…
Mission Launch Dates:
Mars One expects to send
their first astronauts to Mars in
the year 2026, NASA on the
other hand is estimating a
launch in the early 2030s. NASA
estimates their launch to
happen nearly a decade later
than Mars One’s. NASA, having a high reputation in the scientific community
should be giving an accurate estimate. That being said, how can the crowd
funded Mars One initiative be years ahead of NASA? The most logical answer is,
Mars One is wrong or they will fail. Mars One has been losing traction in recent
times, and the general public is beginning to believe Mars One may be a hoax.
Even if Mars One is a legitimate operation, they are likely to fail based on how
accelerated their mission time-line is compared to NASA’s.
Estimated Cost:
Mars One’s estimated mission cost is $10 billion US, whereas NASA is
estimating $100 billion US ~ ten times that of Mars One’s estimation. There are a
few reasons for the two figures being so far apart. Firstly, Mars One plans for their
astronauts no never return to Earth. This lowers their mission cost as the “main
part of traditional cost estimates is
allocated to the return mission from
Mars back to Earth. Since the Mars
One crew will stay on Mars, mission
complexity and the weight of the
hardware that needs to be sent to
Mars are a lot lower compared to
return Mars missions.” Also, Mars
One’s estimated cost only accounts
for the cost of an initial mannedmission, a second manned-mission