MarsOne Launches Sub-Orbital Spaceflight Raffle

MarsOne is still at it, ATS. Now they are raffling off round trip tickets aboard Xcor's Lynx-Suborbital spacecraft. The funds generated will go towards helping MarsOne reach its goal of establishing a permanent colony on Mars by 2025 through a mock Mars mission on Earth and a robotic demonstration mission to Mars.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which aims to land four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2025, announced today (Sept. 4) that it's raffling off a round-trip suborbital flight aboard XCOR Aerospace's Lynx rocket plane.

To enter the drawing, people can buy Mars One gear or make a donation to the organization. The money raised through the effort, which is called "Ticket to Rise," will help fund a mock Mars mission here on Earth in 2015 and a robotic demonstration mission to the Red Planet in 2018, Mars One representatives said.

While I applaud the effort, I wonder if this is being done because MarsOne is hurting for cash? I hope this latest effort is merely a part of a suite of targeted campaigns aimed at revenue generation for the Mars colony endeavor, and nothing more. Does anyone here at ATS have an inside scoop on the inner-workings at Mars one?

news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: lostbook

I wonder where they got the idea of a raffle lostbook www.abovetopsecret.com...

ba humbug and all that

a reply to: lostbook

It is comforting to learn, T-shirt sales will not only finance the mission to Mars, but also the life-time of support and supplies to those poor beggars on Mars.

Wish there were some other colors to choose from, not sure about an orange T-Shirt...

I'll probably end up purchasing one, or the Mars selfie

It would be so awesome to see the Earth, our home, from that perspective!

originally posted by: lostbook
MarsOne is still at it, ATS. Now they are raffling off round trip tickets aboard Xcor's Lynx-Suborbital spacecraft. The funds generated will go towards helping MarsOne reach its goal of establishing a permanent colony on Mars by 2025 through a mock Mars mission on Earth and a robotic demonstration mission to Mars.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which aims to land four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2025, announced today (Sept. 4) that it's raffling off a round-trip suborbital flight aboard XCOR Aerospace's Lynx rocket plane.

To enter the drawing, people can buy Mars One gear or make a donation to the organization. The money raised through the effort, which is called "Ticket to Rise," will help fund a mock Mars mission here on Earth in 2015 and a robotic demonstration mission to the Red Planet in 2018, Mars One representatives said.

While I applaud the effort, I wonder if this is being done because MarsOne is hurting for cash? I hope this latest effort is merely a part of a suite of targeted campaigns aimed at revenue generation for the Mars colony endeavor, and nothing more. Does anyone here at ATS have an inside scoop on the inner-workings at Mars one?

news.yahoo.com...

Sure, I can.

First of all Mars One is -not- hurting for cash. Far from it. There are plenty of extremely wealthy organizations, commercial interests and individuals who have an interest in seeing Mars One succeed.

As one of the recipients of my free entry into the raffle (they are sending them out to anyone who ever signed up to Mars One - another ATS member posted about receiving his in this forum) I can tell you that this is both a publicity campaign and small fundraising campaign in that order.

It makes sense to tie in Mars One with the soon to be burgeoning industry of Space Tourism and a visionary vehicle like the Lynx which (will take off from a runway and land on a runway.)

There will be many such campaigns as things ramp up to the first Mars One communication's satellite and unmanned lander mission in 2018.

While the major operating expense of the Mars One missions likely comes in the form of shadow investors and well publicized technology transfers from the aerospace companies like Space-X, XCOR and Northrup-Grumman things like selling t-shirts helps to fund day-to-day administrative costs while also getting out the word about the mission(s).

Don't be fooled just because the t-shirt thing seems their only source of fundraising. I can assure you it is not. Those of us who signed up and were invited to go to Washington, DC during a meet up / first Mars One meeting of candidates were given a broad overview of how it all will be funded.

Things like t-shirts and the reality TV show are ancillary income, that's all.

By the way, Elon Musk (cofounder of PayPal, founder of Tesla Motors and Space-X) plans to go to Mars one-way himself in his old age:

www.theguardian.com...