Want to go to Mars? Now's your chance!

[Candlelight]

http://news.yahoo.com/wanted-mars-colonists-explore-red-planet-204754693.html

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 today (Jan. 8), 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.

I love that last line...

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Ahnuld says:

Get your ass to Mars.

 

[MacLeod]

It's one thing to want to go to Mars, but move there is a different matter.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

So it's like Big Brother, only we ship the selected oddballs off planet and banish them to the Martian wastes?

 

[Captain_Nick]

I AM SO THERE

So much free land, and all for the taking!!

 

[throwback]

I will have to say, no thanks.

They recently completed a study involving a simulated flight plan to Mars. The results were discouraging. By the time the crew had completed their mission, four of the six volunteers were suffering from depression, isolation, and irregular sleep patterns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG8wwidQOAg

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=240658

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/mars-mission-test-sleep-astronauts_n_2426893.html

I think they need to concentrate on building faster and bigger ships. Bigger ships will give the crew members the privacy they need.

 

[B.J.]

I think they'd be lucky to have people on Mars in 20 years. Ten years is laughable.

And just three to start launching robotic cargo missions? You'd need the hardware pretty much already designed, since you'd want to build and test it before the actual mission. I certainly wouldn't want to have my life dependent on untested hardware.

 

[Deckerd]

There won't be any takers for a one-way trip.

 

[Pingfah]

I will have to say, no thanks.

They recently completed a study involving a simulated flight plan to Mars. The results were discouraging. By the time the crew had completed their mission, four of the six volunteers were suffering from depression, isolation, and irregular sleep patterns.

Well, I'm sure that's not the attitude they'll be looking for. It's a trip to Mars, not Disneyland, a little hardship is to be expected

 

[Scout101]

There won't be any takers for a one-way trip.

Oh, I dunno, bet they'd still have a line going. More takers if it looked like they had half a plan for actually living there. We can probably SEND people to Mars in the next 10 years, but need a ton more planning on how to survive there, rather than just barely getting people there and having them dead or bored to tears 20 minutes later.

half a plan, functioning shelter/bio-dome situation, new equipment and suits, and you'd get people to sign up for a 1-way mission. Especially if they do it it pairs, or at least plan that way. Hard Scientists' wet dream, most likely.

Plus, certain prestige in being first man on Mars, no? You'd be in the history books, and name would live forever. Definitely appeal in that. And seeing as how they seem like they're rushing it, you'd likely also be the first human to die outside of Earth's atmosphere in short order, so you might be in the history books TWICE if you live long enough to land on Mars...

Discover something major, like evidence of past life on Mars, and you make an even BIGGER splash. Just 10-15 years of beaming reports of rock collection and whatnot would already be a huge leap in science, but if you found something BIG...

 

[sojourner]

Mars One will never get the money to get anything to Mars.

 

[Deckerd]

People will only go if there's a genuine chance to come back. Even the most gung-ho space cadet on the planet will have enough nous to have this in his contract.

 

[MacLeod]

I think 2030 would be a far more realistic date for a manned mission to Mars. And yes hardship is to be expected.

 

[Kestra]

People will only go if there's a genuine chance to come back. Even the most gung-ho space cadet on the planet will have enough nous to have this in his contract.

I think they'd get takers, but a large number of them might not be well-adjusted to society, which could be part of the motivation for leaving.

 

[ThankQ]

Mars have wifi?

 

[Rhaven]

IDK, a one way trip sounds a bit ominous to me.

 

[Scout101]

For the average person, obviously. For a scientist in an applicable field, likely one that's in their 40s or 50s, it's probably exciting beyond imagining, even with it being a 1-way ticket. Years of pure science in the field, history books, all the shit you'll discover, things and places named after you, your own elementary schools back home, etc.

if you're a lab rat, and already done the wife and kids thing (or just too antisocial/science nerd to try), this is pretty much the biggest thing you could offer, I'd imagine...

 

[Rhaven]

For the average person, obviously. For a scientist in an applicable field, likely one that's in their 40s or 50s, it's probably exciting beyond imagining, even with it being a 1-way ticket. Years of pure science in the field, history books, all the shit you'll discover, things and places named after you, your own elementary schools back home, etc.

if you're a lab rat, and already done the wife and kids thing (or just too antisocial/science nerd to try), this is pretty much the biggest thing you could offer, I'd imagine...

Well, when you put it that way. LOL
Then I can see it as an opportunity to be a space/Mars pioneer.

 

[gturner]

Part of the revenue stream is from reality TV, so they should also consider sending a person from death row (reprising Vin Diesel's role in "Pitch Black"), a hot looking female cop, a backstabbing powermad bitch, a scientist who is borderline psychotic, a religious fundamentalist (preferably a cultist or jihadist, and ideally one of each), and a dope smoking hippie.

 

[Kestra]

Part of the revenue stream is from reality TV, so they should also consider sending a person from death row (reprising Vin Diesel's role in "Pitch Black"), a hot looking female cop, a backstabbing powermad bitch, a scientist who is borderline psychotic, a religious fundamentalist (preferably a cultist or jihadist, and ideally one of each), and a dope smoking hippie.

Also a brain, athlete, basket case, princess, and criminal.