Since the 1960s – and following the Nuremberg trials – it has been standard practice for researchers to follow certain ethical standards in the treatment of human subjects. These rules include the requirement to submit research proposals to an ethics committee for prior approval, clearly explain clearly the risks of any procedures to potential research subjects, before obtaining their informed consent. Since Mars One now admits to planning research on the colonists themselves, the mission becomes bound to these same standards.
Mars One may not meet these conditions. As far as we know, no ethics committee has considered the Mars One plan or the risks it poses to the colonists. These risks will need to be communicated clearly before volunteers are recruited to take part in the mission.
I’ve previously expressed my own concerns, but I don’t agree that having it done by government space agencies instead is the solution, or that a disaster will inhibit human migration into space.
I haven’t looked into it, but it seems to me that many of these isolation questions are probably already answered by studies on prisoners.
I’m a sort of lukewarm Mars One supporter – I like their colonization plan in some ways, but not in the aspects of the total lack of a return capability, nor the apparent paucity of initial supplies and living space (I think they’re inadequate for boostrapping into a true ISRU colony that’s expanding, and if you’re not going to do that, there’s no point in a colony. Better in that case to make it a research outpost, a very different thing. ). I’ll believe Mars One is really serous when they release a detailed equipment schedule for the colony. Like in anything else, it’s logistics that are the key.
However, provided there is full disclosure to the volunteers (and thus informed consent), and they are all adults, I don’t see any reason to interfere. It’s their choice to make, and if they want to go, even if it was to certain doom, it’s not my place to stand in their way – and it’s not the government’s, either.
I think the most crucial step we should take is putting a spin lab in orbit where we can get more biological data points than the current two we have, which are 0.0 G and 1.0 G, and extend the data set to all sorts of plants and animals.
I also don’t think it’s viable to set up a long term colony until we have a spinning spaceship that can generate some level of artificial gravity in transit. Sure, humans can adapt to zero-G to make the trip to Mars, but what about chickens, cows, pigs, and perhaps pets, who aren’t exactly going to get along with peeing in a relief tube? Unless the colonists eventually want to become vegans, they’re going to have to bring some animals.
Worrying about this stuff now is pointless. They just slipped 2 years. That’s unlikely to be the last slip.
The real question is whether or not they can put together a successful tv show on the training/selection process and get serious money out of it. So far we’ve seen nothing in that direction, and without it they’re not going anywhere.
I really do hope we hear something on the fundraising soon. Crowd funding isn’t going to cut it.