I doubt this mission is legit as I doubt they have the necessary support for such a mission by the astronautical associations so I will comment on it from a theoretical standpoint.
Any such mission will/should never take place if the scientist think that the possibility of them dying there is high. We are in no hurry to learn about Mars after all, not only because he isn't even a suitable planet to live there compared to some of his satellites, but also because amazingly we haven't destroyed our own planet yet, and we should focus on not doing so any time soon.
On the other hand, if there really was a need to learn about a new planet because we had serious plans to go and live there or send people to clonize it steadily then yes a medium risk / high reward mission would be acceptable. After all, no experiment goes well the first time.
Now, if people are willing to try living there so that we can slowly but steadily get results it's ok. It would be an amazing trip and experience for them and if the risk is too high, well they know it and generally people who participate in such experiments are not the average person.