Non-profit organization Mars One, plans to start a human colony on Mars within 10 years, with the first four settlers leaving Earth on a one-way journey in September of 2022. The proposed expedition only works if the travelers are willing to commit to the 7 month trip with no possibility of ever returning back to Earth.
Well, as of this month more than 100,000 people say they’re willing to brave the trip. These applicants have begun the four-step process to be considered, and have even paid registration fees, which have brought in more than one million dollars in revenue for the organization. The project has also been endorsed by Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft.
Mars One says the total cost of the project will be $6 billion, which will be funded by donations, sponsors, and media companies who will pay for the rights to broadcast the entire project. Coverage will begin with the intense training on Earth, and follow every moment of the trip, the landing, and the colonization, on a continuous 24 hours a day broadcast. Their vision is to have the entire world watch as mankind colonizes a planet for the first time… it’s the walking on the moon for Millennials.
From forty selected finalists, only four will be selected for the first voyage in 2022. Every two years after that, four new people will join the colony. All of these future astronauts will undergo years of rigorous training on everything from structure & equipment repair, to growing vegetables, to medical training for basic first aid, bone breaks, and dental upkeep.
Supplies and food will be sent ahead of time in capsules that will start leaving Earth in 2016, including the the domestic residences and the life support enclosures which will be completely ready for the astronauts’ arrival. Everything will be built in advance by remote controlled rovers!
The essential elements of life (oxygen and water), cannot be sent from Earth. Instead, the settlers will have to filter water from Martian soil by first evaporating the soil, and then condensing it into water. This process called ‘terraforming’ (which also produces breathing oxygen), can only be done in a small controlled environment with modern technology. In hundreds of years however, it may be possible to terraform the entire planet.
What do you think? Sound possible?? If nothing else it’s a pretty logical premise… we all know we would watch live Mars-vision.