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Can Mars One succeed? Neil deGrasse Tyson gets a mission briefing from CEO Bas Lansdorp, from how Bas came up with the idea to fund the mission via reality TV, to a mission timeline detailing exploration, base construction and more. Neil also talks with Ryan MacDonald, an astrophysics grad student at Cambridge who is one of the 100 candidates hoping for a one-way ticket to the red planet. Meanwhile, former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino and co-host Eugene Mirman are more than a little skeptical about the project. Astro Mike, a veteran of two Space Shuttle flights, discusses the risks to the Mars One crew that include radiation on the flight, and the risks to the project’s financing if the viewing public gets as bored with watching Mars One as it did the Apollo and Shuttle programs. Mike and Bill Nye remind us that exploring space is dangerous: NASA figured the odds of the total loss of the Shuttle and crew for one of Mike’s flights at 1/75, and a recent MIT study concluded that the first Mars One astronaut will die within 68 days after landing. Is it, as Eugene says, “a pyramid scheme, or is it sort of reasonable?” Listen and decide for yourself.
NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Colonizing Mars with Bas Lansdorp.
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