A Dutch entrepreneur’s plan to launch a one-way trip to Mars funded by a reality TV show has been criticized by scientists who say that current technology means that the colonists would start dying after just 68 days.

A new report from a group of engineering graduates at MIT found that the main problem of the Mars One project (which is still whittling down candidates and plans to make the trip to the Red Planet by 2024) is the plan to create an oxygen supply using food crops.

Although this sounds like clever solution to creating liveable habitats, the constrained nature of the Mars ‘ecoystem’ soon leads to all sorts of problems.

The students found that as the first wheat crop reached maturity the level of oxygen in the atmosphere would become a fire hazard, and if the colonists attempted to vent the oxygen they would unavoidably lose nitrogen too (no current venting systems can differentiate between the two gases) leading to either death by suffocation or the destruction of the habitat and suffocation on the planet’s surface.

Video: Mars One launch search for colonists in 2013

“The first crew fatality would occur approximately 68 days into the mission,” reads the 35-page report. “Some form of oxygen removal system is required, a technology that has not yet been developed for space flight."

The students also noted that the Mars One team were still underestimating the amount of equipment (including spare parts) they have to transport to Mars; a factor that has a huge influence on cost.

Other projected difficulties were more subtle, including the psychological effects of limited food choices, constrained living space and repetitive social interaction. The longest time any individual has spent in space continuously is 14 months, a record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov.

In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Mars Rover, Curiosity. After traveling 8 1/2 months and 352 million miles, Curiosity attempted a landing on Mars in 2012 In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover A self-portrait of the Mars rover Curiosity combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on the planet Mars In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of its arm, which extends about 2 meters (7 feet) In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover This image mosaic taken by the panoramic camera on board the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the rover's landing site, the Columbia Memorial Station, at Gusev Crater, Mars In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Views of the Sojourner Mars Rover and surface of Mars Ares Vallis In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover A view of Mars southwest of the rover's landing site in the Gusev Crater. The landscape shows little variation in local topography, though a narrow peak only seven to eight kilometers away is visible on the horizon. A circular depression, similar to the one dubbed Sleepy Hollow, can be seen in the foreground In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Mars planet pathfinder vehicle on planet Mars In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Tracks made by Curiosity's tires during its first test drive as seen by Navcam: on board NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 16 In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover A little more than two weeks after its arrival on Mars, the $2.5 billion rover, which landed on Mars has performed a battery of tests and appears ready to embark on its two-year mission to explore the Red Planet in the hunt for signs of life In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Tracks made by Curiosity's tires during its first test drive on a mission to explore the Red Planet In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover Mars rover Opportunity's robotic arm as it stretched over the surface of Mars In pictures: Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover NASA's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa

Mars One co-founder and CEO Bas Landrop remained bullish about the project’s prospects, claiming that the technology would be ready by the time of the first manned launch in 2022, and despite their scepticism the authors of the report were also hopeful.