Meet The Men And Women Are Willing To Die On Mars

Four months after the call for applicants went out, 100,000 people from around the world (including yours truly) have applied for a one-way trip to Mars.

The Mars One group wants to put four humans on the Red Planet by 2022. The first settlers would by followed more groups, arriving every two years.

The first round of a four-part selection process ends on August 31. By September, the selection committee will begin culling through hundreds of thousands of video entries and questionnaires to decide which space enthusiasts will move ahead to Round Two. Ultimately, candidates will be whittled down to a total of 24 to 40 applicants, divided into groups.

"We are selecting groups of four, and not individuals," says Norbert Kraft, the medical director for the Mars One project. "You can be the best, smartest individual, but if you cannot work within your group you are out," he said.

Each group will spend three months every year, for up to eight years, in an isolated habitat. During this time, the group will have to prove that they can work together.

On its press site, Mars One says its looking for applicants that display five specific psychological traits: resilience, adaptability, curiosity, the ability to trust others, and creativity/resourcefulness. They also want candidates who are mature, interesting, and have a sense of humor.

Most Mars applicants have a public profile and their application videos are available to watch online.

Before you send these people off to Mars, make them spend a year in Biosphere II in the Arizona Desert. It's now owned by Cornell University and they use it for science experiments. The problems encountered by the first occupants are known and those need to be fixed (if not already done). Then you put the first batch of selectees in this closed environment for a year to see if they can tolerate the isolation — it's too late to if you go bonkers on Mars — because there's no way back to Earth. [One of the original occupants of the first Biosphere mission was severely hurt and had to be evacuated to save her life. This happened about 75% through her stay. The evacuation compromised the experiment; in the real world, where there's no escape, she would have died.]

If they pass their year long test, they're ready. They come out of the Biosphere and the next batch of selectees go in for a years’ stay. The first batch of selectees can then start training for their rendezvous with the Red Planet. (The second batch, when their time in the Biosphere is up, can begin training for their Mars mission.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.