Netherlands: Reality TV show recruiting people to go to Mars
Are you crazy enough to take a one-way trip to Mars? Producers of a Dutch reality TV show are accepting applications for such a trip, which will take people to the Red Planet within the next 10 years.
The main qualifications that potential astronauts must have are good health, good moral character and survival skills. They must be 18 years of age or older and have acceptable English communication skills.
Curiosity rover exploring Mars. (Source: AP/NASA)
The company, called "Mars One", aims to send the first four people to Mars by 2023 and will produce an online TV show based on this plan. Viewers will be able to follow every development in the first attempt to send people to the Red Planet.
Organizers have so far received more than 10,000 emails from interested people from more than 100 countries. The organizers are looking to recruit six teams of four candidates each, with a new team to be sent to Mars every two years after the first team leaves Earth in 2022, said program founder Bas Lansdorp at a press conference at a hotel in New York.
“It sounds like it would cost a lot of money. And it does. But imagine what would happen when the first person lands on Mars. Almost everyone on the planet would want to see that,” Lansdorp said.
The project was met with skepticism by many, but received support from Gerard 't Hooft, a Dutch scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999.
The world's space agencies have only recently sent probes to Mars, the most recent being the $2.5 billion Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012.
The biggest obstacle to the Dutch plan is that the astronauts will not be able to return to Earth. They will also have to live in small spaces and face food shortages on the Red Planet.
And this will only happen if the astronauts survive the cosmic ray attack during the journey and the landing goes according to plan.
According to Mars One medical director Norbert Kraft, candidates for the program must possess key qualities such as creativity, resilience, adaptability and empathy for others.
“Can you work with people from other countries, as a team?” he asked.
Many questions remain unanswered about how astronauts will survive, breathe and drink water on a planet with a temperature of -55 degrees Celsius and an atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide (CO2).
But organisers say they will adhere to ethical standards as they pursue the programme. "The long-term goal is to colonise Mars," said Hooft. "It's not going to be easy. It's anyone's guess how long it will take."
According to (Vietnam+) - VT
