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Space fans line up for one-way Mars trip
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More than 200,000 people from 140 countries and regions have applied to go to Mars and never return, according to the group behind an ambitious venture to colonize the inhospitable red planet.
Bas Lansdorp, a Dutch engineer and entrepreneur, plans to establish a permanent base on Mars in a mission he hopes will take off in 2022 if he can find the necessary US$6 billion.
One in four of the 202,586 applicants for the one-way trip are Americans, said Mars One, the non-profit group which initiated its hunt for “would-be Mars settlers” in April.
There are also hopefuls from India (10 percent), China (6 percent) and Brazil (5 percent), among other countries, it said on Monday.
By 2015, Mars One expects to put up to 10 four-member teams through intensive training, with the first of those teams reaching to Mars in 2023 on a high-risk journey that would take seven months to complete.
If they survive the trip, the human Martians will have to deal with minus 55 degrees C (minus 67 F) temperatures in a desert-like atmosphere that consists mainly of carbon dioxide.
Reality TV show
They’ll also have to consent to being observed back on Earth full-time as stars of a reality TV show that would help cover expenses.
The project has the support of Gerard ‘t Hooft, the Dutch joint winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1999.
“The long term aim is to have a lasting colony,” said the Nobel prize winner in New York in April. “This expansion will not be easy. How soon that will be accomplished is anyone’s guess.”
Space agencies including NASA have expressed skepticism about the viability of Lansdorp’s plan, saying the technology to establish a human colony on Mars does not exist.
Mars One says on its website that the mission is a decade-long endeavor, with funding intended to come from the global audience of an interactive, televised broadcast of every aspect of the mission.
So far, there have only been unmanned missions to Mars undertaken by NASA, which has signaled its intent to send astronauts there within 20 years.
(AFP)
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