Mars or bust

Maybe you've heard of this, the story has been published in most media outlets, has made the blog circuit, and has surprised a lot of people in the process. The Mars One project was announced some time ago - the project hopes to send four people to Mars in 2022 to begin colonization of the planet. The catch? You can never return. You must say goodbye to this world and everyone in it. So how many applicants have they received? Well, the count has now surpassed 100,000.

The logistics don't seem to be fully worked out yet, and there are many who are very skeptical that it is even possible, at least not by 2022. The 6 billion dollar price tag seems too low, for one thing, and the capability just may not be there. Apparently, some of the funding is going to come from a TV reality show following several of the applicants as they train for the mission, which has some wondering just how much of this is a cash-grab.

Still, it does light up the imagination, even if I too am skeptical. And, really, who knows?

What is interesting is that so many people would be willing to take that no-return flight. I bet many more than 100,000 will be interested, especially if it starts to look like a real possibility. Hell, if someone told me I could go to Mars tomorrow - no return - I'd have to think about it! There's something about that kind of exploration, the possibilities of new worlds, the discoveries waiting to be...discovered, that seems to tap into something common to all. These applicants are weighing those factors along side the very worth of their own lives and deciding that they would risk it. It reminds me of this movie I saw recently, The Europa Report, where a crew travels to that icy moon of Jupiter, makes an amazing discovery, and then decides that getting information of that discovery back to Earth is worth their lives.

A movie has been made called One Way Astronaut. Here is the trailer: