REAL LIFE NEWS: SIGN UP FOR YOUR ONE-WAY TRIP TO MARS
by Hazed
In Fed DataSpace getting to Mars from Earth is easy: just board your shuttle and fly your ship W, NW, or use the navcomp to GOTO MARS.
In real life it’s just a bit more complicated! We now seem to be successful at sending robots to Mars, with Curiosity the latest in a series of rovers that explores the planet and sends the details back to us, but the dream of a manned mission is a lot more complicated.
There are now two possible manned missions being planned. Millionaire Dennis Tito announced a few months ago that he wants to fund a mission sending a married couple to Mars in 2018. They wouldn’t land on the planet, just take a quick orbit and then come home again.
Now a Dutch organisation called Mars One says it is planning a one-way trip where the astronauts would build a colony on Mars - and they are asking for volunteers.
Interested? You must be resilient, adaptable, resourceful and work well in a team. Mars One say they have already received thousands of applications, so you had better get yours in fast if you want to be considered.
The successful applicants will undergo physical and psychological training to help them withstand the rigours of the seven or eight month journey. They will also have to get used to being under the spotlight, because the mission is going to be treated as a giant reality TV project, with the selection process, the journey, landing and what comes after being televised.
This is very exciting. There are many hurdles to jump over before this scheme becomes reality - not least the challenges of keeping people alive on a hostile planet with no atmosphere and a great deal of cosmic radiation - but I will be watching it with interest.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22146456
