Writer Dalila Kahvedzic explores the upcoming Mars One mission.
By: DALILA KAHVEDZIC
Staff Writer
If you had a chance and opportunity to take a one-way trip to Mars, would you? To live on a planet where nobody has lived before with only three other people, growing your own food and having to make your own resources? Sounds scary, but not to 200,000 people who applied to take the risky trip. According to stltoday.com, out of 200,000 applicants, 1,058 candidates were chosen from part of a privately funded “Mars One” mission to be launched to the planet of Mars in 2024. Two St. Louisans (Maggie Duckworth,29 and Tim Gowan, 26) were chosen. Having to pass a “rigorous selection process” is a major obstacle to eventually become one of the four people to go within ten years. Of course, after the selection process comes learning to survive on the planet, having to “undergo years of training, learning how to harvest the planet’s water and nitrogen” is one of many.
Of the two, Tim Gowan seems to be the more excited one, and a little “obsessed” with the idea. His girlfriend of three years reportedly hates the fact that her boyfriend will be moving to a whole different planet with no return, although his parents have been more supportive thus far. Duckworth’s father, David, tells StlToday that his daughter is very intelligent, but he wishes that she would “focus her energy on something else” explaining that the whole one-way trip to Mars seems like a big game show to him.
When most people think space, they think NASA. Well, surprisingly NASA was “too risk-averse to send a group of humans on a one-way trip to Mars,” while other private organizations do not have such boundaries or restrictions. As the article states, sending people to Mars isn’t a hard task, it’s just that getting them back to Earth would definitely be more difficult and cost “10 times more than the initial journey.”
Having to get along with three other people and having to face the dangers on a completely new planet while providing your own resources is some risky business and seems completely terrifying to myself, but I guess everyone will see for themselves if this seemingly crazy idea can be pulled off.
