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A reality TV Mars landing may be silly, but at least it's on the right track A reality TV Mars landing may be silly, but at least it's on the right track
(5 months later)
Resurgent pop colossus David Bowie can look forward to even more royalties from Life on Mars? if a Dutch project called Mars One goes according to plan. This week it announced it would start taking video applications from members of the public who want to go on a one-way trip to Mars in 2023 for a reality TV show. Among the hopefuls might be British people forced out of their council flats by the "bedroom tax".Resurgent pop colossus David Bowie can look forward to even more royalties from Life on Mars? if a Dutch project called Mars One goes according to plan. This week it announced it would start taking video applications from members of the public who want to go on a one-way trip to Mars in 2023 for a reality TV show. Among the hopefuls might be British people forced out of their council flats by the "bedroom tax".
On Mars, the four initial residents – having been voted winners by the viewers from a pool of 40 – will get a roomy 50 sq m apartment each. Going off-planet is certainly one radical solution to the housing crisis. Strap a few hundred Barratt Homes developers onto a giant rocket as well and the red planet is your oyster.On Mars, the four initial residents – having been voted winners by the viewers from a pool of 40 – will get a roomy 50 sq m apartment each. Going off-planet is certainly one radical solution to the housing crisis. Strap a few hundred Barratt Homes developers onto a giant rocket as well and the red planet is your oyster.
It's an expensive project – the organisers hope to raise the £4bn cost by selling media rights – and a technically ambitious one, too. Mars One plans first to send a rover to choose a location, and then blast over food, generators, life-support and other gear – using vehicles from the private company SpaceX – before the humans arrive. But Nasa, who are the experts to date at sending stuff far away from Earth, have lost a number of craft they've sent to Mars. And what they've been able to land on the planet are a few adorable trundling robots rather than a self-supporting village for wannabe space celebrities.It's an expensive project – the organisers hope to raise the £4bn cost by selling media rights – and a technically ambitious one, too. Mars One plans first to send a rover to choose a location, and then blast over food, generators, life-support and other gear – using vehicles from the private company SpaceX – before the humans arrive. But Nasa, who are the experts to date at sending stuff far away from Earth, have lost a number of craft they've sent to Mars. And what they've been able to land on the planet are a few adorable trundling robots rather than a self-supporting village for wannabe space celebrities.
Let's assume, though, that the contestants get there (after eight years of rigorous training), and can breathe and eat. They'll suffer constant video surveillance in a hostile environment, but then so do millions of Londoners. But what if they fall ill? Even if the producers make sure one of the contestants is a doctor, a single doctor can't be a specialist in everything. So it would probably be better if they were all doctors. Then the show could be sold as a kind of real-life Grey's Anatomy in space, with the inevitable low-gravity loving.Let's assume, though, that the contestants get there (after eight years of rigorous training), and can breathe and eat. They'll suffer constant video surveillance in a hostile environment, but then so do millions of Londoners. But what if they fall ill? Even if the producers make sure one of the contestants is a doctor, a single doctor can't be a specialist in everything. So it would probably be better if they were all doctors. Then the show could be sold as a kind of real-life Grey's Anatomy in space, with the inevitable low-gravity loving.
Cultural puritans might denounce the whole idea as a perverse extreme of reality TV, which in its Big Brother incarnation – a format also invented by the Dutch – was always designed primarily as a form of psychological torture for our sadistic viewing pleasure. In Mars One, the contestants are expected to die on set, which is a fate arguably even worse than having Simon Cowell touch you (more contestants will be sent out every two years, with the aim of establishing a self-sustaining community, but there will be no trips home).Cultural puritans might denounce the whole idea as a perverse extreme of reality TV, which in its Big Brother incarnation – a format also invented by the Dutch – was always designed primarily as a form of psychological torture for our sadistic viewing pleasure. In Mars One, the contestants are expected to die on set, which is a fate arguably even worse than having Simon Cowell touch you (more contestants will be sent out every two years, with the aim of establishing a self-sustaining community, but there will be no trips home).
Yet there still seems something heroic about this silly project. The Earth will be burned to a crisp and swallowed up by a bloated red-giant Sun in about 7bn years. If we haven't got used to colonising other planets and eventually other star systems by then, that will be the end of the human race.Yet there still seems something heroic about this silly project. The Earth will be burned to a crisp and swallowed up by a bloated red-giant Sun in about 7bn years. If we haven't got used to colonising other planets and eventually other star systems by then, that will be the end of the human race.
If governments are no longer willing to fund such inspirational grands projets, we should be happy that other entities think they can raise the money instead, even if those entities are TV producers (the idea of privatised game-show space tourism would surely have tickled Lady Thatcher). And for those who think interplanetary exploration is just nonsense for space nerds, the same lessons could surely be applied closer to home.If governments are no longer willing to fund such inspirational grands projets, we should be happy that other entities think they can raise the money instead, even if those entities are TV producers (the idea of privatised game-show space tourism would surely have tickled Lady Thatcher). And for those who think interplanetary exploration is just nonsense for space nerds, the same lessons could surely be applied closer to home.
Let's have a reality-TV contest in which top materials-science researchers vie to invent a more efficient kind of solar cell in order to combat global warming, while also having to rehearse and perform an entire postmodern circus in skimpy costumes. Or, since 61% of the UK public now believe that utilities are better run in public hands, we could make a reality-TV show out of economists and other wonks trying desperately to renationalise the electricity supply. I for one am quite optimistic about the viewing figures for Britain's Got Current.Let's have a reality-TV contest in which top materials-science researchers vie to invent a more efficient kind of solar cell in order to combat global warming, while also having to rehearse and perform an entire postmodern circus in skimpy costumes. Or, since 61% of the UK public now believe that utilities are better run in public hands, we could make a reality-TV show out of economists and other wonks trying desperately to renationalise the electricity supply. I for one am quite optimistic about the viewing figures for Britain's Got Current.
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