Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Germany saved €100bn from Europe’s debt crisis

 

Fall in borrowing costs far outweigh costs of crisis to economy, says Leibniz institute. 

German chancellor Angela Merkel and finance minister Wolfgang Schaüble. Investors have fled instability in the euro zone for the safety of German bonds since 2010, pushing down interest rates on those bonds.

Germany has saved €100 billion since 2010 because its borrowing costs have fallen during Europe’s debt crisis – savings that outweigh the cost of the crisis to the German economy, an economic think tank has reported.

Investors have fled instability in the euro zone for the safety of German bonds since 2010, pushing down interest rates on those bonds. Paying less interest has helped the government save more than 3 per cent of gross domestic product, the Halle-based Leibniz institute for economic research said.

The institute created a model of a fictitious “normal” situation, without the crisis, to establish what German interest rates would have been, based on inflation and slack in the economy.

The report observed a close connection between political flashpoints in the euro zone debt crisis and fluctuations in the interest rate on German government bonds.

Interest on German government bonds fell sharply when markets saw bad news out of Greece, such as Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras’s decision in late June to hold a referendum on reforms demanded by its creditors. Similarly, rates rose on good news from Greece.

The total savings from this pattern since 2010, an estimated €100 billion, far outweigh the costs of the euro zone crisis to the German economy, even if Greece were to prove completely unable service its debts, the institute said.

Government bonds in other countries – including France, the United States and the Netherlands – have also benefited in the same way from the crisis, the report suggested, but on a smaller scale.

Over half of Irish people use their phones in the loo

 

We know you also use your phone as a mirror and to avoid talking to people. Really!

10% of Irish people check their mobile phone 160 times per day, according to a new study.

The research, carried out by Ireland’s newest mobile operator iD, also found that more than half of us (56%) use our phones in the bathroom.

While one in three use it as a mirror. Over 40% of women said they used their phone to check their appearance, compared to 28% of men.

The study also revealed that while Irish people check their phone on average 40 times per day, one in 10 people check their phones 160 times a day. That’s an average of six times per hour, or once every 10 minutes.

One in two people surveyed admitted to using their phone to avoid talking to someone, with 63% of 18-24 year olds being the biggest offenders.

When asked about who you contact most often, a spouse or partner is number one for 49% of people, but before you go thinking we’re all so romantic it’s worth noting that almost one quarter of those aged 25 or younger said they dumped someone over the phone. Ouch. The survey was carried out on 1,000 people.

Turf cutters ‘close’ to agreement on right to cut

  

Plot owners at one of the country’s most contentious bogs are close to a deal to end their row with the Government.

Ross Bog on the Meath-Cavan border has been the scene of protests by turfcutters as rangers from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) sought to implement the ban on removing turf under the terms of the EU Habitats Directive.

Members of the Sheelin Turfcutters Association have fiercely defended their right to cut their turf despite the designation of the raised bog as a Special Area of Conservation and gardaí have attended at the site as tensions rose between the sides.

Last year, almost 100 people marched at Ross Bog to assert their right to continue to cut turf there and to protest against the ban on working the peat banks.

Earlier this year, the association sat down to negotiate with senior officials of the NPWS to ensure they would retain their right to work the bog as their families had done for generations. The meetings in Castlepollard hinged on the amount of bog that would be retained for the plot owners under a relocation scheme that would be acceptable to both sides.

At a recent meeting, the turfcutters were offered 12.9 hectares of bog on which they could continue to cut turf for their own use.

The association declined the offer and has held out for a greater area. The NPWS, which implements the terms of the EU Directive on behalf of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, is now to carry out a further survey of the site to examine the possibility of making an improved offer.

However, chairman of the Sheelin Turfcutters Association, Sean Reilly indicated that an agreement between the sides was now close and the survey was expected to be completed within a matter of weeks.

Action needed on climate change before the point of no return

   

The focus on not letting world temperatures rise more than 2C can distract from the fact that many places are already feeling the effects of climate change,

IN 2009, global leaders agreed to try not to let the world warm more than 2C above pre-industrial times. This is sometimes seen as a rule of thumb for keeping on the right side of climate change, within ‘safe’ territory.

But that’s not at all how scientists meant it, Camille Parmesan, an expert in biodiversity at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom said. Climate risks don’t begin at 2C, she said; it’s more like where they go from high to intolerably high.

The planet has already warmed by about 0.8C since the late-19th century.

Some of the world’s most iconic places are also the most vulnerable, and they are already feeling the effects.

“We’re already seeing contraction of species in the most sensitive ecosystems, such as those dependent on sea ice or those living on mountain tops,” said Prof Carmen.

“We’re also seeing declines in some tropical systems, such as coral reefs, and the valuable services they provide for fish nurseries, tourism and protection from coastal flooding.”

And that’s just the beginning.

“At more than 2C, we wouldn’t just face losing the most sensitive species but some common ones, too,” said Prof Parmesan.

“So it wouldn’t just be the polar bear and the mountain pika, but other species living in lowland and temperate habitats that aren’t necessarily at risk right now.”

Against this backdrop, the world’s carbon emissions have continued to rise and the task of staying below 2C looms ever larger. Global leaders will meet again in Paris in December to agree on a plan for how to get ourselves on a pathway to achieving 2C in the long term.

But suppose that doesn’t happen. Suppose we collectively decide the task of keeping to this target is too great, or the price of cutting emissions quickly is too high. What would it mean to resign ourselves to a post-2C world? And if not 2C, then what?

Science is helping to answer these important questions. Climate models tell us that if carbon emissions stay very high, global temperatures could reach 4C above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of the century, perhaps even rising to 5C.

And unless emissions cease altogether after that, temperatures will continue to rise long past the end of the century.

And that would mean a world unlike anything we have ever known.

Climate change won’t treat all countries the same. Often the most serious and damaging effects will happen in the countries that are least able to cope.

A global temperature rise of 4C by the end of the century would see parts of Africa warm by up to 6C, making life near impossible for vulnerable urban populations and people working outdoors.

Drying of river basins and falling crop yields would raise the risk of food and water scarcity in many parts of the world, particularly among poorer rural populations.

Society is vulnerable to extreme weather. The UN body whose job it is to assess the science on climate change says the North Atlantic and Western North Pacific will see more strong storms like Typhoon Haiyan, which tore through the Philippines in 2013.

In Europe, heatwaves like the 2003 event, which killed 70,000 people, are already 10 times more likely than a decade ago, and this pattern is set to continue. Scientists also know that warmer air will mean rainfall in heavier bursts, while higher seas will make storms more likely to breach coastal flood defenses.

As humans, we tend to focus on what we experience up here on Earth’s surface. So it’s often overlooked that more than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the oceans, warming them up from the surface to hundreds of metres below.

The oceans take up some of the extra carbon in the atmosphere, too, making them more acidic. Warming and acidifying oceans spell bad news for marine ecosystems, including valuable fisheries that people the world over depend on for their food and livelihoods.

As seawater warms, it expands. That’s why, throughout Earth’s history, changing temperatures and sea levels have always been closely linked. Since the turn of the 20th century, the global sea level has risen by nearly 20cm, which is already enough to threaten low-lying island nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, or the Maldives.

Even if the oceans continued this steady march, scientists expect sea levels to be at least another half a meter higher by the end of the century. But the higher temperatures rise, the greater the chances of tipping the balance into a totally altered state, which carries far more serious consequences.

At some point, the vast Greenland ice sheet will collapse. Scientists don’t know exactly when this will happen, but they say it’s likely to be with less than 4C of global warming. The collapse wouldn’t happen quickly, perhaps taking centuries or millennia.

But once it starts, we’d be committed to a sea-level rise of several metres. This would inundate some of the world’s biggest cities, including New York and Shanghai.

At the other end of the globe, scientists are already seeing early signs of collapse in parts of the Antarctic ice sheet. And once that starts, it’s likely to be unstoppable.

In the meantime, almost all the world’s glaciers are losing ice. In the Arctic, temperatures are rising more than twice as fast as the global average, and if we stay on a path to 4C, scientists predict there could be no Arctic sea ice left in summer in as little as 30 or 40 years.

The climate system, in all its infinite complexity, is impossible to predict entirely.

There are some things happening that scientists don’t completely understand yet, such as why ice floating on the sea around Antarctica is currently growing slightly.

Scientists think, perhaps counter- intuitively, that it’s down to climate change, too, as the winds encircling the continent push freezing water outward from the coastline, extending the icy platform offshore.

And the climate system could still hold some surprises. As the Arctic warms, the once-frozen ground is thawing and releasing the powerful greenhouse gas methane.

Scientists are unsure yet just how much 4C of global warming could speed up this process.

Two, three, and four degrees are all points along a global warming continuum. None represents a climate precipice, but it’s clear that as the temperature rises, so do the risks.

What’s left to decide is, how much of a chance are we willing to take? The science is solid enough that whatever we choose, we can’t tell future generations that we didn’t know the risks.

Bees ‘prefer gardens with native flowers’

  

Gardeners keen to help wildlife are advised to plant a variety of flowering plants

Bees and other pollinating insects prefer gardens planted with flowers that are native to the UK and the northern hemisphere, a study has found.

But exotic plants provide nectar and pollen food for bees and hoverflies at times of the year when native flowers are thinner on the ground, while certain foreign blooms can prove a hit with some species, the Royal Horticultural Society research showed.

The researchers, writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, said the best advice for gardeners keen to help wildlife was to plant a variety of flowering plants, focusing on native and northern hemisphere species but with a selection from further afield.

With around half of gardeners in the UK actively encouraging wildlife into their gardens, the findings will help nature-lovers make their plots more attractive to bees, hoverflies and other insects

Garden border-like plots were planted with three different sets of bulbs, perennials, shrubs, climbers, grass and ferns that were either native to the UK, near-native from the northern hemisphere, or exotic species from the southern hemisphere.

The plots were monitored for the abundance of flowers and the number of pollinating insect visitors over a four year period for the study, which was supported by the Widllife Gardening Forum.

More flowers – wherever they were from – meant more visits from pollinators, but a greater number of insects were recorded on the plots with native and near-native species than the exotic ones, with 40% fewer visits to the beds with flowers from far away.

Short-tongued bumblebee species were found in larger numbers on the native and near-native plants, hoverflies favoured native flowers and honeybees preferred the near-native plots, the study found.

Long- tongued bumblebees and solitary bees were found on all three sets of plants in around the same numbers, but in the exotic plot a third of visits by solitary bees were to one type of plant, the Eryngium agavifolium Griseb, a variety of sea holly.

There were fewer visits to exotic plants in early summer compared to the other plots, but relatively more later in the season when the non-native species were flowering more than the UK and northern hemisphere blooms.

RHS experts said the results showed that gardeners who wanted to encourage and support pollinating insects should plant a mix of flowers from a wide range of geographical regions.

While there should be an emphasis on plants native to the UK and the northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere plants such as Lobelia tupa and Verbena bonariensis can play an important role.

Southern hemisphere plants tend to flower later, extending the flowering season and providing much needed food for bugs and bees after other species have gone to seed.

Lead researcher Dr Andrew Salisbury said: “The UK’s 1,500 species of pollinator are thought to be under increasing pressure due to the loss of habitat and food sources.

“As more traditional habitats have been reduced the role of gardens as havens for pollinators and other wildlife is growing in importance.”

But he said the role native and non-native plants play in helping wildlife had been unclear and confusing before now.

“Now for the first time, gardeners can access robust, evidence-based information on the most effective planting strategy they can adopt if they wish to attract and support pollinators.

“These findings will help gardeners to confidently pack their borders, window boxes and allotments with flowers without getting hung up on the idea that they are somehow doing the ‘wrong thing’ if the plants are not all UK natives,” he said.  

Donie's Ireland news BLOG Monday

TV3 bosses want Pat Kenny to compete in the ratings with Ryan Tubridy

 

STATION CHIEF TO APPROACH ‘BROADCASTING LEGEND’ AS NEWSTALK’S PRIZE CATCH SAYS HE IS ‘FLATTERED’

PAT Kenny is set to return to our television screens in the autumn after the new content chief of TV3 confirmed that he is planning to approach the Newstalk presenter about joining the station.

That raises the mouthwatering prospect of a Friday night chat-show ratings war between Mr Kenny and Ryan Tubridy after Jeff Ford confirmed that TV3 is also considering going up against The Late Late Show.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent yesterday, Mr Kenny said he had not yet been approached by TV3 but admitted that he was “flattered” by their interest.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. I’m flattered,” he said. “I haven’t ruled out telly, either on RTE or TV3, but even then if they said to me, ‘We want you to start in October’, I wouldn’t be doing it. I want to give everything to Newstalk for the moment.

“The point of my backing off The Late Late Show, which I did for 10 years, and taking on the role with Frontline was because a show like the Late Late is all-consuming and I wanted a bit more time.” He added: “I’ll talk to anyone, but I genuinely have no plans. I cannot deny I will be definitely talking to David MacRedmond, head of TV3.

“Our daughters are classmates and we meet socially for a cup of coffee and so on. But we haven’t had a conversation so far.” In an interview with the Sunday Independent, TV3′s new director of content Jeff Ford issued a “come and talk to us” plea to Mr Kenny.

He said: “I know he is on holiday at the moment but I am certainly going to be talking to him at the first opportunity.

Of course I will. You have got to take these opportunities when you can.

“Pat Kenny is a legend in broadcasting. Any broadcaster would be delighted to have him on board, as would we. He has that something that people can relate to.

“He is highly intelligent and they have a comfort with him, an empathy and a trust.

‘Trust’ is a fantastic word and he has the trust of his audience that he can deliver in the way he does all the time.” Mr Ford also confirmed that the station is considering taking on The Late Late Show again with a big new show if the circumstances are right.

TV3 has tried it before, albeit with disastrous results.

Ironically, it was Mr Kenny who beat the challenge from then TV3 rival Eamon Dunphy.

News of Mr Kenny’s likely television comeback comes as News At One presenter Sean O’Rourke was confirmed as Mr Kenny’s replacement on the Today show, seeing off competition from Miriam O’Callaghan and Ryan Tubridy, who had been tipped for the job.

In a wide-ranging shakeup designed to meet Mr Kenny’s new Newstalk show head on, Claire Byrne is joining the Morning Ireland team, with Richard Crowley and Aine Lawlor moving in the opposite direction to take up the vacant slot on the News At One show.

Miriam O’Callaghan will continue to stand in for John Murray on the 9am slotthroughout the autumn.

Mr O’Rourke spoke of his delight at securing the job but played down future rivalry with the former colleague who defected to Newstalk.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see it in terms of rivalry.

We had a pleasant exchange of kind of ‘best wishes’ texts in the last hour,” he told the Sunday Independent.

“He’ll do his job. I’ll do mine. Almost by definition, we can’t be watching each other’s work or listening to each other’s output.” An RTE staffer, Mr O’Rourke earned €208,801 in 2011, compared with €630,000 paid to Mr Kenny.

Mr O’Rourke is now in line for a pay rise, but he is still in talks. He said: “I think it is going to be finalised very quickly between myself and (RTE director general) Noel Curran.” Mr O’Rourke admitted he had been taken aback by Mr Kenny’s decision to quit RTE after 41 years.

He was at the Galway Races when a friend texted him about Mr Kenny’s departure, asking him if he would be stepping up to the plate.

“Yeah, the Galway Plate,” he replied.

Meanwhile, Miriam O’Callaghan has insisted that she was never interested in taking over Mr Kenny’s show.

The golden girl of RTE had been widely tipped to take over the vacant 10am to noon slot.

“It was never in my plan,” the Prime Time presenter told the Sunday Independent.

“The thing is, these things take off and you get people in the shop saying, ‘Oh, I believe you’re going to be doing that.’ “No. It was actually never in my plan. I’m going to be doing the 9 to 10 slot for the autumn and I love that.”

Northern Ireland business activity rises for the first time in six years

    

Ulster Bank research suggests NI firms benefited from growth in wider UK market

Richard Ramsey, Ulster Bank’s chief economist in Northern Ireland, the bank’s latest purchasing managers’ index report suggests the North may have experienced “something of an economic heatwave” last month. 
Business activity in the North rose last month for the first time in nearly six years, delivering a welcome confidence boost for the local economy during July, according to new research from Ulster Bank.

The bank’s latest purchasing managers’ index (PMI) report shows that Northern Ireland firms won substantial new orders last month at a rate not recorded since August 2007 and in turn recruited extra staff to cope.

The Ulster Bank report, which monitors the health of theprivate sector in Northern Ireland, suggests that local firms strongly benefited from substantial growth in the UK market as a whole.

Although the UK market was the key source of growth, some Northern Ireland firms also reported a rise in new business from abroad which signalled the first increase in export orders in five years.

Manufacturing firms netted the highest percentage of new business wins last month but the construction, retail and service sectors also secured important new orders.

Higher workloads
The PMI report shows that as a result of higher workloads, jobs were created in the construction, manufacturing and service sectors, while the retail sector showed a slight reduction in employment levels.

Cost inflation also remained a major issue for local businesses in every sector, particularly in relation to higher fuel and raw materials prices.

According to Richard Ramsey, Ulster Bank’s chief economist in Northern Ireland, the report suggests that the North may have experienced “something of an economic heatwave” last month.

A rise in activity
“Almost one-third of firms surveyed reported a rise in activity last month,” Mr Ramsey said. “Local firms saw business activity increase at its fastest rate in 70 months with all sectors of the economy experiencing robust rates of growth.

“The better weather was cited as one factor while improved client confidence across the UK was another. The surge in new business orders in July suggests business activity should remain buoyant in the near term.”

He warned though that like economies elsewhere, Northern Ireland requires a “sustained period of growth” over the months and years ahead.

Shannon Airport records second month of growth for July

 

JULY PASSENGER NUMBERS INCREASE BY OVER 9%

Summer 2013 improved again for Shannon Airport in July when it achieved growth for the second successive month, with a 9.4 percent overall increase in passenger numbers compared on the same month last year.

Overall passenger numbers for July were 173,558, up from 158,603 in the same month last year.  The increase built on the 8% hike in month-over-month passenger numbers for June – the first time in five years that the airport experienced growth and just six months after setting out as an independent entity.

Like June, the growth was most telling in the transatlantic market, with overall passenger growth arising from the airport’s five US and one Canadian (Toronto) service increasing from 38,781 in July 2012 to 54,014 last month, a 39 percent increase.

Welcoming the figures for July, Shannon Airport CEO Neil Pakey said: “We are delighted to have achieved a second successive month of growth at Shannon. The figures very much reflect the enhanced level of services delivered at Shannon this year, not least on US destinations thanks to new routes to Philadelphia and Chicago, on top of already having Newark, JFK and Boston services.

“This has been very positive for tourism market here, from Cork right up to the North West as Shannon is the only airport on the entire western seaboard with transatlantic services.

“The increase is all the more encouraging given the anecdotal reports from travel agents here that the good weather caused a lot of people to holiday at home rather than book last minute trips to the sun, which would have pushed our figures up even higher.

“Generally, we have received very positive reports from hoteliers and other accommodation providers across this region on the summer season.  They have done better than they expected from the domestic market because of the good weather but, on top of that, have benefited from the big increase in US visitors coming through Shannon.

“This has really driven growth as US visitor spends a lot more than tourists from any other country so we are delighted to have made this contribution and are focussed on keeping up the momentum.”

The war goes on as Galway turf owners cut bog in violation of EU rules

 

A crowd of up to 160 have gathered in two Galway bogs this afternoon to cut turf in violation of an EU directive.

Relays of people are cutting the sod by in Barroughter and Clonmoylan, in opposition to the EU directive banning cutting in Special Areas of Conservation.

Spokesperson for Clonmoylan and Barroughter Bogs Action Group, Dermot Moran, told Midlands 103 radio what they hope to achieve by today’s actions.

“Rural people should not be stopped from one of their great traditions of providing fuel for their winter and for their houses and all that as they have always done,” he said.

“At a time when fuel costs are rising dramatically, they should be left alone and let cut their turf and their bogs.”

Dogs can now sniff out cancer with 100% accuracy

A UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA’S STUDY SHOWS us

  

Woman’s best friend! Researchers have trained dogs to sniff out the signature chemical compound that indicates the presence of ovarian cancer with 100% accuracy. 

Ohlin Frank, a trained chocolate Labrador has been able to detect ovarian cancer tissue a 100% of the time, researchers said.

An early detection device that combines old-fashioned olfactory skills, chemical analysis and modern technology could lead to better survival rates for the disease, which is particularly deadly because it’s often not caught until an advanced stage.

Using blood and tissue samples donated by patients, the University of Pennsylvania’s Working Dog Centre has started training three canines to sniff out the signature compound that indicates the presence of ovarian cancer.

If the animals can isolate the chemical marker, scientists at the nearby Monell Chemical Senses Centre will work to create an electronic sensor to identify the same odorant.

“Because if the dogs can do it, then the question is, Can our analytical instrumentation do it? We think we can,” Monell organic chemist George Preti said.

When ovarian cancer is caught early, women have a five-year survival rate of 90 per cent. But because of its generic symptoms – weight gain, bloating or constipation – the disease is more often caught late.

About 70 per cent of cases are identified after the cancer has spread, said Dr Janos Tanyi, an oncologist whose patients are participating in the study. For those women, the five-year survival rate is less than 40 per cent, he said.

The Philadelphia researchers will build on previous work showing that early stage ovarian cancer alters odorous compounds in the body. Another study in Britain in 2004 demonstrated that dogs could identify bladder cancer patients by smelling their urine.

Dr Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said while the canine concept has shown promise for several years, there haven’t been any major breakthroughs yet.

“We’re still looking to see whether something could be developed and be useful in routine patient care, and we’re not there yet,” said Dr Lichtenfeld, who is not involved in the study.

Cindy Otto, director of the Working Dog Centre, hopes to change that with the help of McBaine, a springer spaniel; Ohlin, a Labrador retriever; and Tsunami, a German shepherd.

“If we can figure out what those chemicals are, what that fingerprint of ovarian cancer is that’s in the blood – or maybe even eventually in the urine or something like that – then we can have that automated test that will be less expensive and very efficient at screening those samples,” Ms Otto said.

Ovarian cancer patient Marta Drexler, 57, is heartened by the effort. Ms Drexler describes herself as a textbook case of the disease not being detected early enough because she had no symptoms.

After two surgeries and two rounds of chemotherapy, Ms Drexler said she didn’t hesitate when Dr Tanyi, her physician, asked her to donate tissue to the study. Last week, she visited the Working Dog Centre to meet the animals whose work might one day lead to fewer battles like hers.

“To have the opportunity to help with this dreadful disease, to do something about it, even if it’s just a tiny little bit of something, it’s a big thing,” said Ms Drexler, of nearby Lansdowne.

Over 100,000 earthlings want to go to Mars and not return again, A project says

  

More than 100,000 people are eager to make themselves at home on another planet. They’ve applied for a one-way trip to Mars, hoping to be chosen to spend the rest of their lives on uncharted territory, according to an organization planning the manned missions.

The Mars One project wants to colonize the red planet, beginning in 2022. There are financial and practical questions about this venture that haven’t been clarified. Will there be enough money? Will people really be able to survive on Mars? But these haven’t stopped some 30,000 Americans from signing up.

You can see some of the candidates on the project’s website, but they’re not the only ones who have applied, said Bas Lansdorp, Mars One CEO and co-founder.

“There is also a very large number of people who are still working on their profile, so either they have decided not to pay the application fee, or they are still making their video or they’re still filling out the questionnaire or their resume. So the people that you can see online are only the ones that have finished and who have set their profiles as public,” Lansdorp said.

The entrepreneur did not specify how many have paid the fees, completed their profiles and configured them as private.

The application process
Anyone 18 or older may apply, but the fee depends on a user’s nationality. For Americans, it’s $38; if you’re in Mexico, however, it’s a mere $15.
The company said it sets the price based on the gross domestic product per capita of each nation. “We wanted it to be high enough for people to have to really think about it and low enough for anyone to be able to afford it,” Lansdorp said.

For the first crew, the Mars One mission will cost $6 billion, Lansdorp said. The idea is for it to be funded by sponsors and media that will pay for broadcasting rights of shows and movies documenting everything from the astronauts’ training on Earth to their deployment and colonization of Mars.

Out of the applicants, Mars One said it will select a multicontinental group of 40 astronauts this year. Four of them — two men and twowomen – are set to leave for Mars in September 2022, landing in April 2023.

Another multicontinental group of four will be deployed two years later, according to the Mars One plan. None of them will return to Earth.

The astronauts will undergo a required eight-year training in a secluded location. According to the project site, they will learn how to repair habitat structures, grow vegetables in confined spaces and address “both routine and serious medical issues such as dental upkeep, muscle tears and bone fractures.”

“What we want to do is tell the story to the world,” Lansdorp said, “when humans go to Mars, when they settle on Mars and build a new Earth, a new planet. This is one of the most exciting things that ever happened, and we want to share the story with the entire world.”

How will Mars be colonized?
Each lander that Mars One sends will be able to carry about 5,511 pounds of “useful load” to Mars, he said. After eight missions, more than 44,000 pounds of supplies and people are expected to have arrived. The capsules themselves, whose weight is not included in that number, will become part of the habitat.
Food and solar panels will go in the capsules. Earth won’t be sending much water or oxygen though — those will be manufactured on Mars, Lansdorp said.

Astronauts will filter Martian water from the Martian soil. “We will evaporate it and condense it back into its liquid state,” he said.

“From the water we can make hydrogen and oxygen, and we will use the oxygen for a breathing atmosphere inside the habitat. This will be prepared by the rovers autonomously before the humans arrive.”

It sounds like terraforming, a process in which the conditions of a planet are modified to make it habitable, but Lansdorp said it isn’t.

“We will create an atmosphere that looks like the atmosphere on Earth, so you could say that we are terraforming the habitat. But to terraform the entire planet, that’s a project that will take hundreds and hundreds of years,” he added.

A dangerous mission
In spite of the risks of space travel, the Mars One founder said he is convinced of the viability of the project. However, some space travel experts have said the risks are far too high to carry out these manned missions to Mars, a distance that humans have never traveled.

Radiation is a big concern. NASA does not allow their astronauts to expose themselves to radiation levels that could increase their risk of developing cancer by more than 3%.

To maintain the radiation exposure standards that NASA requires, the maximum time an astronaut can spend in space “is anywhere from about 300 days to about 360 days for the solar minimum activity. For solar maximum, in ranges anywhere from about 275 days to 500 days,” said Eddie Semones, NASA spaceflight radiation officer.

A round-trip journey to Mars could expose astronauts to the maximum amount of radiation allowed in a career under current NASA standards, according to a recent study by scientists at the space agency. Mars One is planning a one-way journey, which doesn’t negate the problem, and being on Mars could expose astronauts to even more radiation, depending on how long they stay and what the shielding conditions are like.

Radiation damages cells’ DNA, which can lead to cell death or permanent changes that may result in cancer. However, “there’s no convincing human evidence for excess abnormalities in offspring of radiation-exposed adults,” Semones said.

While orbiting the Earth, astronauts get exposed to greater concentrations of cosmic background radiation than here on Earth in addition to charged particles trapped in the upper atmosphere and from the sun, said Robert J. Reynolds, epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

As a spacecraft moves into deep space, the people on board would be exposed to even more cosmic radiation and solar particles, which is “fairly dangerous,” Reynolds said.

Interestingly, according to Reynolds, astronauts’ risk of dying of cancer is lower than that of the general public because they tend to be in shape, eat well, don’t smoke and receive careful monitoring from doctors. Of course, none of them have been to Mars.

Semones emphasized that NASA does not study the health effects of Mars colonization and that it’s focusing on shorter recognition missions of the surface of Mars. “We’re not looking at colonization of Mars or anything. We’re not focusing our research on those kinds of questions.”

Can it be done?
Mars One isn’t the only group hoping to make history by sending people to the red planet. The Inspiration Mars Foundation wants to launch two people — a man and a woman — on a 501-day, round-trip journey to Mars and back in 2018 without ever touching down.

At this time there is no technology that can protect astronauts from an excess of space radiation. “The maximum number of days to stay with our standards is on the order of 500 days. So any mission that would exceed 500 days would not be doable,” Semones said.

Reynolds agreed: “At this point it’s completely infeasible to try to send someone to Mars unless we can get there faster or we develop better shielding for a spacecraft.”

NASA is working on engines intended to cut the travel time to Mars by the 2030s, but those systems won’t be ready for many years, Chris Moore, NASA’s deputy director of advanced exploration systems, told CNN this year. In the meantime, Moore said engineers could try to limit travelers’ exposures by designing a spacecraft in such a way that it provides more protection.

But Mars One founder Lansdorp insisted his group will get people landing on Mars by 2023.

“The risks of space travel in general are already very high, so radiation is really not our biggest concern,” he said.

If that all sounds good, you can still sign up.

But remember: You can never go home again.