Mars One, the ambitious company behind the planned mission, is hoping that a number of brave civilians will be willing to embark upon the mission to be the first to occupy the planet.
The company, founded by Bas Lansdorp, wants to send a number of humans to live on our neighboring planet indefinitely by 2023. The timeline for the mission will see Mars One send out a communications satellite in 2016, with a rover being sent in 2018 to find a suitable site for a settlement. Once the company finds a suitable location, it’ll send settlement units to Mars in 2020, which the existing rover will then set-up.
Once it gets the settlement established, Mars One hopes to send a small crew that would leave Earth in December of 2022, and arrive in April of 2023.
But before a crew can go, Mars One of course need to find willing participants. The company plans to hold a worldwide “lottery”to select 40 people to join the program. This chosen 40 will spend time a specialist training facility, where they will be whittled down to a crew of 10 members.
Lansdorp made it clear that this team will go to Mars and live there for “the rest of their lives.”
Those interested in helping establish the first permanent human settlement on the planet will have to wait, as the worldwide lottery is not expected to take place until next year.
[Mars One via Yahoo News]
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