So you want to take a nice scenic trip but not have to worry about coming back? Forget calling your local travel agency. Instead call up the Mars One Project and book your one-way trip now! Space is limited, and might already be at the 100,000 capacity limit, with 30,000 Americans alone already signed up for the trip. Whether or not they have paid their fees is something only Bas Lansdorp, Mars One CEO and co-founder knows.
"There is also a very large number of people who are still working on their profile, so either they have decided not to pay the application fee, or they are still making their video or they're still filling out the questionnaire or their resume. So the people that you can see online are only the ones that have finished and who have set their profiles as public," Lansdorp said.
For years the waning budget of NASA has been pushing space exploration to the private sector, which is actually a boon for the industry that will one day most likely save humanity from extinction. The proposed Mars trip(s) are planned for 2022, with a landing date of 2023 and a cost of around six billion, hopefully paid for by media and advertisers. This one way trip with the hope of colonization is planned for several excursions, as they all can't go at once and an infrastructure has to be in place before residents can start arriving.
Mars One intends on training a select group of astronauts on repairing structures, creating and cultivating a food source and the ability to handle medical issues that may arise. Each capsule sent to Mars will be able to carry about five thousand pounds of useful materials, and the capsules themselves will become part of the habitat. This is all well and good, but what about the most important bit of any type of colonization — a viable and renewable water source? Lansdorp has a plan for that.
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