1) Lansdorp claimed that the project would cost $6 billion – a figure, Keep explains, that is "tens if not hundreds of billions [of dollars] less than any manned Mars mission so far proposed by NASA." Lansdorp bats these concerns away, however: "First, Mars One is a private organisation. We have no political obligations, which means we can just find the best supplier for the best price. In NASA they have a problem where if they do a mission like the Curiosity Rover, each component has to come from different states because each state contributes to NASA and they want their money back, basically. Mars One doesn’t have that problem.” The Mars One plan was to raise the necessary money through crowd-funding and advertising revenues but, at the time Keep's piece was published, Mars One had received just $633,440 from donations, 0.01% of the $6 billion target. “Right now Mars One is receiving funding from investors, from donations from all over the world, and from small corporate sponsors that are helping us," says Lansdorp. "We’re in negotiation with a few very large brands, if they’re interested in partnering with Mars One.”