Mars One Mission to Colonize Mars Is Officially Dead

The reported down-to-earth reason is bankruptcy.

Mars
The Mars One mission to colonize Mars has failed. (Bryan Versteeg/Mars One)

That Mars One mission to colonize the planet with regular folks has been aborted.

According to Popular Mechanics, a reddit user discovered a court filing that shows Mars One has gone bankrupt. The company will not send humans to space, let alone Mars, to colonize it.

Back in 2015, a Mars One insider revealed to the magazine that, although the company claimed that nearly 80,000 people had signed up and paid big bucks to colonize the Red Planet, only about 2,700 people had actually done so.

The insider also told the publication that the space geeks who thought their eager video submissions would get them a spot on the shuttle to Mars never had a shot to begin with. Mars One only accepted people who enough money for a spot in the colony.

By the end of 2015, Popular Mechanics had reported about Mars One and the fact that it was, essentially, uninsurable. The organization quietly faded away until filing for bankruptcy in Swiss court.

Mars One was founded in 2012 by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp.

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