Now that Mars One has started accepting applications, one-minute videos from would-be space colonists are pouring in from around the world for the chance to be selected to me among the first humans sent on a bold one-way mission to Mars.
Mars One, a Netherlands-based nonprofit, has received applications from all corners of Earth. People are encouraged to visit the Mars One website and vote on the candidates. The group intends to broadcast the selection process and the seven-year training the astronauts will go through in a reality television show that it says will generate the $6 billion in funds it estimates are needed to get the first group of settlers to the Red Planet. It plans to send 24 astronauts in groups of four, the final set will be selected by 2015, arriving on Mars by 2023.
The videos include the applicant's first name, their age and country of origin, as well as an index of their video's popularity, rating and number of hits. Applicants are asked to explain why they want to go Mars, assess their sense of humor and tell the world why they make a good candidate.
"We expect a million applications with 1-minute videos, and hopefully some of those videos will go viral," Mars One co-founder and chief executive officer Bas Lansdorp told SPACE.com in an interview last week.
Among the tens of thousands of videos posted are a Canadian who explains that he has been looking for a change and wants to get away and can't think something more different and further away than Mars, a young Brazilian woman who says her unwavering calmness will be a crucial asset to the team, a middle-aged German man says he has been obsessed with space ever since he watched the broadcast of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon when he was one year old. an articulate 19-year-old American who says he thinks traveling to Mars is the "next logical extension in our human history."
According to U.S. News and World Report, applicants must be at least 18 years old, be in "normal" physical and psychological health, and stand between 5 feet 1 inch and 6 feet 2 inches tall. The application fee for those living in developing countries is $5, while those applying from Qatar must pay $73. United States applicants must pay $38.
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