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Subscribe to RSSThis movie shows how Mars One plans to establish a human settlement on Mars in 2023.
If you think you have the right stuff to help colonize Mars, you'll soon get your chance to prove it.
The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which hopes to put the first boots on the Red Planet in 2023, released its basic astronaut requirements on Tuesday, setting the stage for a televised global selection process that will begin later this year.
Mars One isn't zeroing in on scientists or former fighter pilots; anyone who is at least 18 years old can apply to become a Mars colony pioneer. The most important criteria, officials say, are intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project, as astronauts will undergo eight years of training before launch.
"Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria," Norbert Kraft, Mars One's chief medical director and a former NASA researcher, said in a statement. "Now, we are more concerned with how well each astronaut works and lives with the others, in the long journey from Earth to Mars and for a lifetime of challenges ahead."
Mars One plans to launch a series of robotic cargo missions between 2016 and 2021, which will build a habitable Red Planet outpost ahead of the arrival of the first four colonists in 2023. More settlers will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth. [Mars One: 'Big Brother' on Mars? (Video)]
The organization will fund most of its ambitious activities by staging a global reality-TV event that follows the colonization effort from astronaut selection through the settlers' first years on Mars.
Mars One, which transitioned from a private company to a nonprofit late last year, has already received a number of inquiries from prospective colonists, officials said.
"Well before the official Astronaut Selection Program, we received more than 1,000 emails from individuals who desire to go to Mars," Suzanne Flinkenflögel, Mars One's communications director, said in a statement. "We are working hard to launch our selection campaign as soon as possible, to open the doors to everyone who aspires to do something tremendous in their lifetime."
Final astronaut candidates will be selected after review by Mars One experts and a global TV event. Those chosen will be employed by Mars One during their Earth-based training and for the length of their time on the Red Planet, officials said.
To learn more about the selection process, go to www.thenextgiantleap.com.
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It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap!
The whole Kardashian crew are available for this one! Most of us would rather have them there!
Add the Tea Bag Wing Nuts too, they would love it, no black people, and the microbial lifeforms would never question their retarded beliefs. Even better they would never return.
Just beam Faux News up to them and they would think they were in Paradise.
I think we should sign up our current Congress and send them. Win/Win.
I think we should send all the Muslims and all the homosexuals, then leave because the gamma rays are quite dangerous there.
Mars has no magnetosphere like Earth has, and even miles of lead will not stop them from killing any life form.
I vote to send Rocky Rhode to Mars as soon as possible.
Mars deserves better skip. It's a brand new world with none of the crap we've made on this one. I'd say we should send our best and brightest.
At first this sounded like an interesting idea...until I read the line "There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth."
Going to Mars for the rest of your life, especially if you are only 30s or 40s, is not what people might think. (The age I mentioned is based on the time 8 years of training are over...I have doubts about them selecting an 18 year old...most like they would still select a college graduate (at least 22) which puts someone at 30 by flight time)...plus you'd have to send at least one doctor (who can also be a dentist).
When you think about it...a one way ticket just to go is not worth it. It is not like you can go running outside, biking, kayaking (any outdoor sports), have a dog, go to a nice restaurant, etc.. Instead, one is confined to a room (colony) for the rest of their life (kind of like prison) which could be a long long time. Good luck too if you ever get sick or need a dentist (the idea of a robotic surgeon operated by someone on earth (like the robotic battlefield robots) will not work well either since there is a lengthy delay for any radio signal from a surgeon on Earth operating to reach Mars. At the perihelion opposition, at 56 millions km from the Earth, a distance as short as 0.37 AU (1 AU = 149.56x108 km), it takes 3 minutes and 7 seconds for a signal emitted by the DSN to reach Mars. But when Earth and Mars are the farthest apart at 2.52 AU, it takes 20 minutes and 57 seconds to transmit the same radio signal. Due to these time delays it is impossible to communicate with and control a rover or robotic surgeon in real time.
The main reason there is no plan to come home is that one would need some kind of launch pad on Mars for a rocket to achieve the escape velocity to get back out into space...and the possibility of them building any kind of shuttle or rocket launch on Mars is a long way off.
They would be better off starting a "practice" colony on the moon with short stints (in 1/6th gravity) where they can bring people back and also study the effects and challenges of living in a colony off planet.
JRS-619990
Your comments are noteworthy, especially the trial run with an experiment on the moon to use as evaluation of volunteers and study effects from those conditions. However, once they do select the Mars colonists, the one way trip is most likely reality for a variety of reasons.
JRS, you may have struck on an idea worth considering. Perhaps we should send criminals/lifers to Mars, not unlike the (west) when populating Australia and using it as a penal colony. We could remove these prisoners from our society (permanently) without employing the death penalty. Since Mars has no indigenous population of little green men (that we know of), it would do no harm to Martians. The prisoners could actually work toward a positive contribution to the future. As strange as it sounds, it might actually work. I'd bet there would probably even be volunteers. "Charlie Manson on Mars,"--oh my, it does have a "ring" to it.
Also, think of it as a punishment. These criminals would always be on their guard against their own kind. And they won't be coming back.
Too bad it's not real. I'd be the first to volunteer, and I wouldn't give a "hoot" about Fox News, nor the lib news either. I wouldn't have any desire to come back to this rotting, corrupt planet. But, then, I'd never qualify. I used to be a fighter pilot. It'd probably be a short life, though, because it would be to expensive and too slow for Earth to send needed supplies, and the U.N. would be deciding whether to send it or not.
I read an article where a group of scientists was asked if they could theoretically sent to Mars one way to form a colony how many would be interested. If I remember reading right there were something like 30 people in the room. Every single one of them volunteered.
Honestly? I'm freaking tempted. I don't think I have the right stuff for something like that. I'd miss my friends a lot. But to make a mark in history as one of the first interstellar pioneers? Even if I died it would be a great way to live.
You would need more than one doctor, or at least a number of medically trained people. We've already seen, during the Antactica six month blackout, what can happen if the doctor gets sick. Cancer in that case.
A lot of redundancy in personnel, and a lot of cross training.
Zapper, find and read Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's about a one way penal colony on (technically, in) the moon.
Brain--see, it's a been there, done that scenario. But it works.
I would be truly pissed when the funding ran out in 5 years after arriving on Mars.
"Sorry, no more supplies, folks. Maybe you can manage with what you have?"
"No problem, Earth. The domed farms are producing well. We'll just hang onto all these rare elements we've been mining."
I'd say the main reason there's no plan to return them to Earth is because there's really no intention to send anyone anywhere. It's all some weird promotional hoax for God only knows what. More or less a big joke, most likely.
Reality TV on Mars? That would definitely put a dent in the theory that there is more intelligent life out there on other planets.
I would do it in a heartbeat ......after I bought a very significant life insurance plan.
I volunteer Newt Gingrich and Piers Morgan.
Scientists still admit they have absolutely no idea how to build a space suit that will survive the dust on Mars. If they really intend to train volunteers for eight years before the flight, they should admit thirty times as many applicants as they need, because many of them will drop out of the program just because humans cannot possibly like each other and get along for that amount of time without some way to get out of the situation. Besides, the first manned trip to Mars will be a one way trip since they still don't know how to get anything back from out there.
Sorry, but I can't seem to take this one very seriously. A plan to colonize Mars starting in 2023, but no means of getting them there, much less supporting them once they are there? A few sketchy plans for some as yet undefined modules, and they're going to fund it with reality TV shows? I can't help but think the only thing that's going to get funded is the corporate officers' bank accounts.
Either that, or it's an extended experiment in mass gullibility conducted by some sociology/psychology/media students.
Interesting concept but not realistic. Not using nuclear power is a death knell, with solar cells you need to have a very large bank of batteries to power things during the night and those won't last more than a year or so.
They have no launch vehicles, landing vehicles, rovers, supply chain etc and expect to have colonists on Mars in 10 years?
It would take a multi-hundred billion dollar effort to do it and I don't see them attracting that kind of capital with a reality show.
Their site has a number of silly statements such as '...soon after the first humans arrive, it is expected the astronauts will be able to create their own habitation using local materials.'
I see a lot of rocks but not much wood or drywall or anything else... everything would have to be brought from Earth to begin with and without shelter and domes for living, crops etc the first colonists will be doomed.
What happens when the reality show flops and the organization goes bankrupt? Are the colonists left to die, or will NASA bail them out?
I agree, it is a suicide mission. An initial four colonists with another four every two years after that. I don't believe a reality show could raise enough money to fund such an ambitious project. Another HUGE problem is lack of services, especially medical. What happens if one of the colonists has a medical emergency? They won't have the resources to save lives and no way to send them back to earth for treatment.
We need to do this right or not bother at all. The first permanent colony should have at LEAST a couple hundred colonists. A few thousand would be preferable. It should also have its own fully equipped trauma hospital and enough equipment to make Mars fully self sustained. No reality show would produce enough income to support a proper colony. Not even "The Truman Show" could do that.
I have a better idea. Why not start off with a colony in Antarctica. Run it exactly the same way you would do the mars colony, complete with reality show. If it goes well AND generates the funding, save the profits and go ahead with the mars plans.
That's a great idea for those who feel the need to really get away from it all .
Needle, you beat me to it. I was going to format it like a holiday ad. :-)
As for comments about seeking medical help and the time delay, our computers are getting better all the time and with robotic surgery becoming accepted, they'll probably be able to download the program to deal with dentistry and appendectomies, or whatever is needed.
It is becoming common to think of having 3D printers on space missions so they will be able to make many things they didn't cram into the supply ships.
As to it being a suicide mission, I hear life on Earth ends in death as well.
This can only end badly given how current realty TV shows work.