The Irishman who has been selected for the Mars One mission that hopes to bring human beings to the red planet for the first time has expressed serious doubts about the project.
Dr Joseph Roche, an Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin, has made the shortlist of 100 candidates for the mission.
He told the online magazine ’Medium’ he has doubts about the selection process, which awards points to candidates who raise the most money for the project, and that despite earlier promises there has been no face-to-face meeting with the organisers.
He said the only interview for candidates was a ten minute interview done over Skype with one person.
"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," Dr Roche said.
"That is just not enough info to make a judgement on someone about anything", he added.
Over 200,000 people reportedly applied to take part in the privately funded one-way mission to the red planet, though the interview with Dr Roche claimed that figure was fewer than 3,000.
Mars One aims to create a permanent human settlement on the red planet, with crews of four departing every two years beginning in just under ten years.
It is backed by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who intends to send a series of robotic missions to Mars over the coming years, to prepare an infrastructure for the arrival of humans.
The missions will be funded privately through crowdfunding and the creation of a reality TV show around the project.
It is estimated the total cost of the missions will be over €5bn.
