Posted on 06/04/2012 7:51:37 PM PDT by garjog
A Dutch firm wants to build a colony on Mars and fund it with an international reality TV show.
Historically the Dutch financed exploration of the new world established business colonies in New York and Australia.
Sounds like a good idea.
Watch 4 minute promotional video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6QoEEGySGm4
I nominate the Trump and Kardashian families to be sent as the 1st two tribes competing.
Top Gear goes to mars.
“As is customary on Top Gear, we left our fallen comrade to fend for himself.”
Not too awful far from the plot of the Anime “Starship Operators”. Reality show funding space endeavors.
More power to them, but good luck with the financing. Would greatly suck for colonists to have the funding cut/show canceled.
Look, if Obama wins in 2012 we might all want to volunteer for a one way ticket to Mars.
/johnny
I wouldn’t want to be the poor bastards to go there because they would be a bankruptcy away from death.
What a terrible idea. This is a classic case of running before you’ve learned to walk. Establish a lunar colony to get the kinks out (where you’re within reasonable rescue range) or even independent space stations in the Earth’s Lagrange points. Build your Mars-bound ship from there and you’re not dedicating needless resources to overcome escape velocity. Yes, the first Martian “settlers” will spend the rest of their lives there. The problem is that it’s likely to be a very short period of time.
they are full of *
They couldn’t even do a colony on the moon. They sure as hell ain’t doing a colony on mars.
Let’s do it.
What could go wrong?
Nah, they’d be useless without private everything, including maids.
“What a terrible idea.”
Yes, establishing a Martian colony is a terrible idea — just like sending small, rickety wooden boats across the Atlantic in the 1400 to explore the new world.
They had no idea what they would find, and faced the possibility of a short life due to hostile native attacks, stormed or starvation.
Really terrible idea.
Much better to stay put in nice, safe Europe for a few hundred years until the get the kinks out.
I might even watch that show.
Good thing he did it or Elizabeth Warren would still be living with her tribe.
Aren't we all?
“You don’t run a marathon without taking a few laps around the block.”
If you are saying that trans-Atlantic sea travel had been perfected by Columbus’s time I would question that. These ventures were quite risky.
It is a false analogy to say that space exploration is like a runner who hasn’t prepared for a marathon.
Space travel has been developing for the last 60 years, with the moon landings, shuttle program, space station, pervasive orbiting satellites, un-manned robotic crafts and recently privately financed space ships.
Now is the time for another leap forward.
Who says that we can’t take a giant risk, especially if it is with volunteers using private money?
This program is similar to pioneers crossing the continent in covered wagons — not long after Lewis and Clark mapped it.
The robotic drones will go to Mars first to set things up.
Sounds doable to me.
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