Mars One is about collecting application fees. Their timeline is pure fantasy, not even pretending to have anything to do with reality. Their economics for a manned trip are pure fantasy.
That doesn’t mean nothing good will come of it. They’re planning an unmanned lander - paying Lockheed Martin to build a duplicate of their Phoenix Lander.
They’ve raised $544,026 collecting application fees. Now they just need to raise the other 99.9985% of the $350 million needed to build the lander. If they do that soon, perhaps LockMart can have it built by their 2018 launch date. And assuming they can con a second similar round of would-be astronauts to raise the same amount, then they just need to raise the remaining 96% of the $56.5 million Falcon 9 launch cost.
