The well has official run dry, on earth anyway, for reality television developers with Dutch based company Mars One announcing plans to launch a series documenting a one-way trip to Mars. Taking four zany fresh-faced, fame seeking wannabe astronauts, the proposed project would document the strenuous selection and training process, then follow the eventual winners on the historic (and probably doomed) journey to establish the first non-Earth based human colony.
The brainchild of 36-year-old engineer and likely god complex sufferer, Bas Lansdorp, Mars One has been developed to be feasible in accordance with current scientific means and the cultural phenomenon that indicates some people will do absolutely anything to get on television.
“Mars One has developed a precise, realistic plan based entirely upon existing technologies,” the website says.
“It is both economically and logically feasible, in motion through the
integration of existing suppliers and experts in space exploration.”
To finance a 2022 launch, Mars One must raise approximately $6 billion, which is achievable if you’re comparing it to the world’s biggest quadrennial sporting event. Incidentally, had the project been developed earlier, the London failure of our national swim team would have presented several candidates that Australians would have gladly voted to shoot into space.
“The revenue garnered by the London Olympics was almost enough to
finance a mission to mars,” Lansdorp said. “We believe that if we can
make this happen it will be much bigger than the Olympic games.”
Much like cut-throat adventure programs like Survivor and The Amazing Race, contestants will be forced to earn their place on the mission through a series of knowledge and skill based challengers with contestants vying for the coveted crown of Ultimate Space Explorer (or a title of similar significance).
“It will be a worldwide search for the best candidates and about six
groups of four people will be selected in 2015,” Lansdorp said. “From
that time on they will be full-time employees of Mars One and they will
learn all the hardware, medical skills, how to construct and repair and
grow their own food.”
And as per the standard reality television protocol, viewers will have the chance to select their favourite space explorers. So in addition to the whole “learning to be an Astronaut and human colonist” side of the competition, contestants will have to win over home viewers if they are to avoid the dreaded elimination
“We feel the selection of the first people to go to Mars should be a
democratic process, we want to ask the audience ‘who do you want as your
ambassador to Mars and your envoy for mankind?’”
If you’re 18 years or over, have the charm and charisma to carry the world’s biggest television production and you don’t have any family, friends, or general life prospects tying you to Planet Earth, this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. You can apply here. And yes, should the project come to fruition, we will be live blogging the event.
via ABC, Mashable
Picture by Frazer Harrison/Getty images, Bill Ingalls/NASA
