While the idea of permanently leaving the Earth behind to take a one-way trip to Mars doesn’t appeal to a lot of us, thousands of people have nonetheless applied to be on Mars One’s first-ever mission to the red planet. Mars One, a Dutch nonprofit group that plans on sending people to Mars starting in 2024, has announced its 100 finalists for its pilot program. Eventually, the group will select 24 people who will travel in groups of six on four separate trips to Mars in the hopes of starting a colony there.
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Included among the finalists are an American man named Carl, who works as a professional programmer; Laurel Kaye, an American physics student at Duke university; Kobus Vermeulen, a business intelligence developer from South Africa; Marko, a Croatian archaeologist; and Minerva, a woman from the Philippines who describes herself as “a intellectual wanderer” who seeks “growth in knowledge and philosophy.”
You may be wondering whether these people actually stand a shot at surviving on Mars should they actually make the trip and the answer is they really don’t. CNN points out that a recent MIT study estimated that any prospective Mars settlers would survive for a whopping 68 days at most given current technology, and that’s assuming they even safely land on the planet.
Not only that but Mars One still needs to raise an estimated $6 billion to make the trip happen, so this entire venture really could be the world’s biggest failed Kickstarter project in 10 years’ time.
If you’re curious to see the full list of 100 Mars One finalists you can check it out by clicking here.
