Non-profit Mars colony mission Mars One, currently in the process of narrowing down the candidates it intends to send to the Red Planet, is a scam, according to finalist Dr. Joseph Roche. Roche, an assistant professor at Trinity College’s School of Education with doctorate degrees in physics and astrophysics, has called out Mars One in an interview with Elmo Keep on Medium.
Mars One claims to have selected its 100 finalists, of which Roche is one, from a pool of 200,000 applicants, but, according to Roche, the real number is just 2,761. He also accuses some of the finalists of buying their way onto the list.
Roche also claims that the multi-billion dollar Mars One project is pressuring finalists to donate money earned from guest appearances to the non-profit, which is odd considering the relatively low figures finalists would make out of such appearances.
Roche says that the finalists who appeared in a recent documentary about Mars One, produced by The Guardian newspaper, were only given that exposure since they generated the most money for the organisation.
Finally, he claims that the publicised psychological and psychometric tests Mars One supposedly used to narrow down the candidate shortlist never took place – Roche has never even met a member of the organisation, and his only interaction with the organisers was a 10-minute Skype interview.
Though Roche was reluctant to go public, fearing that it could erode public trust in future Mars ventures, he felt that he could not be silent about something that might ultimately damage the public’s perception of science.
Source: TechSpot
