In the next round of cuts (down to 24 spots), applicants will demonstrate their ability to work in teams. The plan is to put 24 people on the Red Planet, sending four people on the first flight, and four more every two years.
Mars One estimates the project will cost $6 billion for the first flight, and $4 billion for each subsequent flight. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said that Mars One planners have not sufficiently planned for the trip.
“For example, if all food is obtained from locally grown crops, as Mars One envisions, the vegetation would produce unsafe levels of oxygen, which would set off a series of events that would eventually cause human inhabitants to suffocate," an MIT statement reads. "To avoid this scenario, a system to remove excess oxygen would have to be implemented — a technology that has not yet been developed for use in space."
