Though still young, in good shape, I am starting to get older. I have no wife, and no kids, and at this point its pretty much written in stone that I will never have either. I have otherwise been successful, but after 25 years in engineering I would very much like to help start up a whole freakin’ planet. What an opportunity to help start a whole new chapter for humanity. So, yes, I would definitely do a one way trip to Mars. Even if the mission ended in tragedy, it would be worth it just for the exploration value alone.
Plus people can see things easily, that a machine could never notice.