Dutch Company Narrows Down Candidates to Colonize Mars

A few years ago, we wrote about a Dutch venture called Mars One that planned to send ordinary citizens to colonize Mars. Well, despite the idea being fairly crazy (they're not real astronauts!) and designed in large part to make a reality TV show based on narrowing down the contestants, they're still plugging along with their plan. NBC News has the latest update about their progress, stating that the company has selected 50 men and 50 women to compete to be the first to head to Mars - permanently - to begin a colony.

Look, I love the idea of space exploration, but there's a level of practicality that doesn't seem like it's being considered in this project. Here's a telling bit of info from the NBC report:

Mars One estimates that it will need billions of dollars to conduct its Mars missions, including a robotic rover mission planned for launch in 2018. The money question is the biggest unknown right now, but last year an MIT study concluded that the venture's plan to send humans to Mars and keep them alive was "overly optimistic" on technical grounds.

If the geniuses at MIT are saying that this probably isn't going to happen, I doubt very seriously that the Dutch are going to be able to somehow secure the billions of dollars necessary to pull this off. Not to mention the fact that they're apparently choosing civilians as their "contestants," not astronauts who have spent the proper amount of time learning and training to make a trip like this.

Again, I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't see this happening any time soon. The Dutch, meanwhile, claim that their manned missions could begin as soon as 2024. I guess time will tell if they'll be able to make it happen. What do you think?

(If anything, this whole story just reminded me of Michael Caine's funny quote from Austin Powers: Goldmember.)