10,000 people ready to fly to Mars
Posted on: 12/Aug/2013 9:57:01 AM
A Dutch company called Mars One began looking Monday for volunteer astronauts to fly to Mars. Departure for the Red Planet is scheduled for 2022, landing seven months later in 2023.
The space travelers will return ... never. They will finish out their lives on Mars, representatives from the nonprofit said."It`s likely that there will be a crematorium," said CEO Bas Lansdorp. "It`s up to the people on Mars to decide what to do with their dead."
Still, the company said it has received more than 10,000 e-mails from interested would-be spacefarers. The one-way ticket makes the mission possible because it greatly reduces costs, and the technology for a return flight doesn`t exist, according to Mars One`s website. At a news conference, Lansdorp maintained that "no new inventions are needed to land humans on Mars."
The company announced a casting call for candidates at a news conference in New York City.Anyone 18 or older may apply via video but there is an application fee -- $38 for U.S. applicants. The money will fund the mission.
Mars One wants to build a colony that will be able to grow with an ever-expanding crew. The group has a plan for testing the technology that would transport people and things.The group wants to launch a supply mission that will land on Mars as soon as October 2016. A "settlement rover" will land in 2018.
Mars One intends for a second crew to join the first one in 2025, and more will follow regularly. Each flight will carry two men and two women, so reproduction on Mars would be feasible but not intended. The aerospace spokesman is hopeful Lansdorp and his team may one day say, "Mission accomplished." Even if they don`t, though, they will likely reach other milestones.
"We can`t predict how far they`ll get," he said.If the mission flops, Lansdorp has ideas about what the nonprofit would do with any leftover money: Donate it to organizations that support space travel, such as the Planetary Society.
You might be thinking that $6 billion would be better spent on Earth, but Lansdorp says the money won`t mean much on our planet.Besides, he said, "I don`t have a business case to solve the problems on Earth. I have a really good business case to get humans to Mars."
