Mars One will not go to space today

(Reference: http://xkcd.com/1133/)

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to live to see human colonization of space, at least in its infancy. I plan on devoting a huge chunk of my career to furthering the technology that puts people into space, and I've logged hours on the space simulator "Kerbal Space Program." Naturally, I'm thrilled that someone has come along and done what Mars One has done. Mars One is a not-for-profit that has generated immense interest in the form of an open application to be one of the first four permanent Martians via their planned trip in 2025. Support for Mars One's mission is planned to come largely from a reality TV show tracking the progress of the mission. Mars One's mission is just the kind of bold leap humanity needs to take it's first, clumsy steps towards permanent extraterrestrial colonization, and it's found a creative way to fund itself. It's going to fail.

Mars One is going to fail because it is not realistically assessing or addressing the problems inherent to starting a permanent settlement on another planet. Firstly, they've focused basically all their efforts thus far on securing funding and selecting a crew- both important goals- but neglected technical elements of the mission. As Canadian former astronaut Chris Hadfield pointed out, concerns about recycling water and oxygen, as well as about power structures, protection from radiation, and extended periods of inactivity in near isolation are largely unaddressed.
Supposedly. Mars One is courting companies including SpaceX and Lockheed Martin, but no solid contracts have materialized thus far, and though the actual mission is far off, contracts should have been long since signed in order to get the unmanned practice missions ready on schedule.

Even with this attention to funding, there won't be nearly enough.  Mars One forecasts the total cost of the trip to be about $6 billion.  That's quite a disparity from NASA's estimate of a similar mission, which was set at $100 billion.  Admittedly, NASA was planning a round-trip, not a one-way flight, but despite increased fuel costs, NASA's estimate should realistically be lower than the cost of actually creating a largely self-sustaining habitat for four on Mars.  With the budget Mars One proposed and current technology, the crew will die only 68 days into the trip, according to an analysis by students at MIT.

I still do hope that Mars One is successful, but I fear the worst, and hope that no one loses their life without being fully aware of the risks involved.  Realistically, extraterrestrial colonization should start closer to home, with the Moon, and move to Mars and beyond from there.  Companies like SpaceX are doing well, and gradually making space more available to common people, but expeditions to Mars are going to require the kind of huge investment with little immediate payout that only governments are likely to make.  If mankind is so eager to get to Mars, maybe we should increase our funding for Space agencies to at least a penny out of every tax dollar.