Reality Show on Mars Could Fund Manned Colony by 2023

Not really tech news but technology related.  A Dutch company is planning to setup a colony on Mars and exploit the experience by treating it like a reality TV show.

Seems like a good idea, right?

A Dutch company aims to land humans on Mars by 2023 as the first step toward establishing a permanent colony on the Red Planet.

The project, called Mars One, plans to drop four astronauts on Mars in April 2023. New members of the nascent colony will arive every two years after that, and none of the Red Planet pioneers will ever return to Earth.

To pay for all of this, Mars One says it will stage a media spectacle the likes of which the world has never seen — a sort of interplanetary reality show a la "Big Brother." 

There is no denying how popular reality TV shows are, to a certain degree more popular in Europe, but sending a group of people to a alien planet seems like a plan best left for the film studios and not a real life adventure.

With that being said the only way you could fund something like this in the modern world would be with the private sector with advertising dollars.

Related Web URL: http://www.space.com/16300-mars-one-reality-show-c...