IAC 2014 - Day 3: An Independent Review of the Mars One Proposal

I know I should be writing about day 3 here, but yesterday, after submitting my day 2 entry, I attended perhaps the most compelling symposium of the conference; it was all about manned missions to Mars.  I can say with some confidence that nothing today will top it, so this entry will focus entirely on the exciting presentations that took place yesterday afternoon.

Most of the conference rooms hold about 150 people in it, and it is rare that a room is more than half full.  But I had a feeling that this symposium about Mars missions would draw interest, and sure enough, it spilled out the back of the room.  The first few talks were rather benign: A plan to land on Mars by 2030, recommendations by several experts in the field on planning the first mission, and a commentary on the social and legal structure of the first Martian society (nothing more compelling than reading the novel Red Mars).

The fourth presentation was introduced by the session chair as 'something special', and he was right.  Five students from M.I.T. wrote a paper challenging the proposal for Mars One.