Mars One, the company that promised to take humans to Mars, has released a statement announcing that they’re bankrupt. There go our dreams of colonizing space.
The company’s statement explains that they are actively looking for a solution to bankruptcy and that they’re in conversations with potential investors who could help them secure their mission’s next steps.
Mars One will redirect its focus. For the execution of the actual voyage to Mars, the company will continue to seek strategic collaboration with renowned companies and organizations involved with the travel to Mars. Mars One itself will focus on the even more inspiring ‘being there’, the adventurous story of humans actually living on Mars, making The Red Planet their new home.”
Mars One was an ambitious project that gained a large following quickly, although many experts and scientists doubted them from the beginning. The project was first announced in 2012, gathering over 200,000 signatures from people who wanted to volunteer for the program. The initial goal was to send a rover to Mars by 2018 and land a ship and crew by 2022. Over the years, the project faced many hurdles, eventually forcing the company to realize their initial ambitions were way too optimistic. They first pushed the voyage to 2026 and then ultimately 2031.
RELATED: NASA Is Attempting To Fly A Helicopter Over Mars
CEO and founder Bas Lansdorp was criticized for presenting misleading information and for never explaining how he planned to get passengers to Mars. At one point, he suggested the development of a reality show of the project as a way of funding it.
Mars One was devised as a settlement mission, finding passengers who’d be willing to leave Earth and stay on Mars for a good amount of years, gathering data and creating a life in space. Although there are now several movies and shows set on Mars and everyone is interested in space travel, we still have no clue how to get there. Elon Musk? NASA? Are we getting to Mars before global warming consumes us all?
