In 2014, all the major news outlets were swept up in the Mars One Project’s promise of colonizing Mars. It was exciting and captured the world’s imagination, even while scientists regularly pointed out the project’s flaws. And as the years went by, it became evident to many people that the whole Mars One mission was nothing more than a scam.
The naysayers have now been vindicated. According to Swiss financial notices from the Civil Court of the City of Basel in Switzerland and picked up on Reddit, Mars One Ventures, a British for-profit company bought by a Swiss firm in 2016 has been declared bankrupt, having less than $25,000 in its accounts. The company has been dissolved.
As for the non-profit Mars One Foundation, which funded itself off Mars One Ventures, there is no financial data available, according to Engadget.
Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who created Mars One, spoke to Engadget. He said the foundation is still operating but lacks investment to do anything. He added he was “working to find a solution,” but declined to elaborate.
Mars One comes under scrutiny
By the end of August 2013, Mars One claimed they had received over 200,000 applications from people in over 100 countries around the world, hoping to be chosen a member of an elite group, the first humans to colonize Mars. This pool of would-be colonists was to be whittled down until six to ten groups of four were chosen for the first manned flight, sometime in 2023.
This claim was disputed when Medium spoke with a would-be colonist, Dr. Joseph Roche, who happened to have a Ph.D. in physics and astrophysics , who said the actual number of applicants was far less than Mars One had indicated. The number of applications actually received was 2,761.
Roche was also concerned about the way contenders were being asked to donate to the mission. “When you join the ‘Mars One Community,’ which happens automatically if you applied as a candidate, they start giving you points,” Roche explained to me in an email. “You get points for getting through each round of the selection process (but just an arbitrary number of points, not anything to do with ranking), and then the only way to get more points is to buy merchandise from Mars One or to donate money to them.”
Rather than go into all the details of Mars One’s “rigorous” screening process and medical examination, all of which fall far short of getting a health checkup to play baseball, it all was more in line with being a sham.
“That means all the info they have collected on me is a crap video I made, an application form that I filled out with mostly one-word answers… and then a 10-minute Skype interview,” Roche said. “That is just not enough info to make a judgment on someone about anything.”
Basically, Mars One is broke. They have no contracts with the media to create a televised reality show as Earthbound viewers watch the colonization process. They have no contracts with private aerospace suppliers, nor do they have a training facility.
Needless to say, after a 2017 press release from Mars One announcing new revenue predictions for the mission, nothing of value has been heard from them. As Forbes writes, the bankruptcy is “the final nail in the coffin.”
