This morning on Futureproof the CEO of Mars One claimed that the recent study by MIT about Mars One was actually carried out by undergraduate students and couldn't be taken too seriously.

The Mars One mission to establish the first human colony on Mars by 2024 was back in the news this week with the announcement of the final 100 potential astronauts; one of whom is Irish physicist Joe Roche.

In recent days many commentators and scientists have been questioning the feasibility of the Mission on both scientific and financial grounds. 

A report coming from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had claimed that the astronauts would not survive on Mars because the Mars One mission had wrongly calculated how much oxygen would be obtained from locally grown plants on Mars.

But speaking on Fuureproof this morning Bas Lansdorp dismissed the MIT analysis saying it had been carried out by 'a couple of students who don't have their PhD’s yet'. He went on to say that 'when I was a student I thought I knew everything and later on I found out that wasn't true. We are working with Paragon Space Development Corporation for our life support systems and they have decades of experience in life support systems. And I'm pretty sure they know better than a group of students who don't have their PHD'S yet'.

The MIT study also found that the costs of the Mars One Mission were unsustainable. But Bas claimed that if NASA were going to Mars they might send a whole new component system when a tiny bolt breaks. But the Mars One astronauts will be trained to take every component apart and rebuild it with a new bolt.

Bas insisted that the Mars One mission was still on track. Mars One needs to raise 6 Billion US Dollars. Jonathan McCrea put it to Bas that despite the media coverage the Mission has received; they still haven't come close to getting anything near that amount. Bas said that 'Mars One is still making good progress' and that he’s in 'negotiations with a very large investment fund from the UK that’s interested in funding the entire Mission'.

You’ll have to watch this space and as Bas himself said 'without bucks, there will be no Buck Rogers'

You can hear the whole interview here