This is not another sci-fi movie. Mars One expedition is indeed happening and it is real. The most ambitious, most expensive, and most delirious (?) first manned space exploration ever. Their mission: To colonize the Red Planet. Is this another NASA mission impossible? You’ll be surprised (if you’re not yet surprising enough about this?) that a Netherland-based private organization spearheaded it last 2011. In the same year, the founders Bas Lansdorp and Arno Wielders and their team designed the blueprint from the construction of the settlers’ habitat to its safety gears like Mars Suits.
The Astronaut Selection Program started last April 2013 based on five key characteristics: Resiliency, Adaptability, Curiosity, Ability to Trust, and Creativity/Resourcefulness. The applicants must have a clean bill of health, high emotional intelligence, and a sense of humor. If you’re living in isolated, contained, and strange planet the last two points weighs most. Among the 200,000 candidates with the age range of 18 and above, only 1,058 aspirants passed the round one of the selection program regardless of their nationality last December 2013. They will undergo a series of rounds until it narrows down to 40 applicants.
How will they get the best among the rest that have the ability to adapt to the hazardous and harsh environment of Mars? The candidates will undergo an 8-year rigid training, as the committee of Mars One stated. They will be isolated from the world battling mental, physical, emotional, and psychological drills. They are astronauts in the making. Based on Mars One’s selection criteria, anyone can apply in spite of your educational attainment. Can you imagine an 18-year-old student entering such risk?
Another obvious complication of setting up the first human settlement on Mars is its atmosphere and geophysical characteristics. Two of the main concerns are its gravity and radiation. Mars’ habitability seems not so farfetched based on the discoveries of NASA’s rovers named Opportunity and Curiosity. Last year, Opportunity, a ten-decade old Mars rover, found clay minerals from an ancient rock in the Endeavour Crater and discerned that the area once had neutral-pH water flowed into it. While Curiosity spotted an evidence of microbial life in an outcrop called “John Klein” in the Yellowknife Bay’s Gale Crater. This first pulverized rock sample has sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon components.
These milestones only fueled Mars One’s advocacy. Although the challenge lies on how the settlers will adapt to Mars’ 3.711 m/s²gravity and 76 mGy/yr radiation. Safety is the number one priority so it is necessary to have specialized safety clothes or suits wherever they wanted to go. Being confined in a cramped space is not a conducive habitat at all. More importantly, when they were offered only a one-way ticket to the Red Planet.
Yes, there is a zero chance of going back home. They will say goodbye to Planet Earth forever, plus to your family and friends. According to Huffingtonpost, a woman named Christy Foley and her husband applied the selection process. Unfortunately, only Christy passed the initial assessment and if she makes to the top 40, she will leave behind her husband and family here on Earth. Did we mention this mission would be on live cam? The first intergalactic reality TV show once the Mars’ envoys set their foot on the Red Planet.
These are a lot to take in, especially to the loved ones who will be left behind. Who are these people (Mars One didn’t reveal the astronaut passers) and they are willing to leave everything just to start a new life on Mars? Technically, the future inhabitants will need to reproduce in order to colonize the planet. A loved one on Earth, an “ex”- husband or wife maybe, will witness this disheartening transition. Is it really worth it? Well, we can’t speak on behalf of the applicants, they have their own reasons, though we can’t help but think of these probabilities.
Some even speculated this is only a fraud or marketing spoof. We hope not, when everyone already invested time, money and dedication to the project’s realization. The actual challenge hasn’t started yet. Once the ambassadors land on the Red Planet that is where the real ordeal begins. This is a great opportunity for humankind as Earth nears to its expiration date. As estimated by Andrew Rushby of East Anglia University, our planet will be uninhabitable between 1.75 billion and 3.25 billion years from now while the Red Planet has roughly 6 billion years.
In the future, if the Mars One is successful will have a new climate, new landscapes, new Earth, and a new life. One-way ticket to Mars, anyone?
