Space & Astronomy

Mars One applicants now whittled down to 100

By T.K. Randall
June 7, 2016

Image Credit: (PD) NASA via Wikimedia Commons The controversial private spaceflight project, which aims to set up a colony on Mars within the next decade, continues to remain something of an enigma in the field of space exploration.

Over 200,000 people from 140 countries originally signed up for the endeavour in the hope of becoming one of the first humans ever to set foot on Mars and now following a lengthy testing process this list has been reduced to just 100.

The next step will be to whittle the remaining candidates down to just 40 of which only 24 will ultimately be picked for the actual mission."Over the course of five days, candidates will face various challenges," the organization said in a statement. "It will be the first time all candidates will meet in person and demonstrate their capabilities as a team."

Whether any of the remaining candidates will ever actually get to go to Mars however remains a point of ongoing contention given how little information there is about how this will be achieved.

Unlike the Apollo moon landings for instance Mars One will be sending its astronauts on a one-way trip with no possible chance of returning. Their survival therefore will instead rely entirely on having a habitable base already set up on Mars for them to live in for the rest of their lives.

Given that to date nobody has even succeeded in building a base on the moon, the Mars One project is simply far too ambitious to be even remotely feasible within such a limited time frame.

Source: Phys.org

Tags: Mars One