The project Mars One is currently accepting applications for a reality television show centered on the colonization of Mars.
Although NASA and others continue to believe a Mars mission is impossible due to insufficient technology and funding, the Mars One group pushes on with this $6 billion project. They hope to send four people up to live on Mars by 2023, reports the Huffington Post.
Over 78,000 people from more than 120 countries have sent in their videos just two weeks after the Netherlands-based group announced that they are seeking astronauts.
Participants are battling it out for 28 to 40 spots, which are to be selected by 2015. The selected candidates will then train for seven years before an audience votes on the people who get to go to Mars…if the project even lasts that long.
Applicants do not need to know anything about rocket science or astronomy, according to the Los Angeles Times. In fact, there are no prerequisites besides being at least 18 years old. So what’s the catch? Applicants will not be coming back, ever.
So why do it? Some people have nothing to lose. 51-year-old Anders from Sweden says in his application, "Well, I often fantasize to just get on board a spaceship and go, to explore the universe. I often get the feeling that I don't belong here, but out there. In space."
In the US, you can send in an application video answering questions such the reasons you wish to travel to Mars and how your thoughts about never coming back to Earth – for just $38.
Norbert Kraft, the Mars One chief medical officer said they are looking for “the most committed, creative, resilient and motivated applicants," reports the LA times.
If not having access to running water or breathable air, harmful radiation, and wildly changing temperatures seems like a great place to start a colonization to you, consider sending in an application.
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