Mars is a very long way away. At its closest it's around 54 million kilometres away, at its furthest its over 200 million kilometres away. That means that if you were on Mars and anything went wrong, it would take a while for the AA to turn up.
Against these overwhelming odds the Mars One Foundation has declared that it wants to send a team of ordinary people to Mars where they'll become the first humans to live on another planet. It's a one-way trip and if funded, it'll happen in 2027.
It's not surprising then that such a claim has gone without some degree of skepticism being thrown at it (putting it mildly). Yet despite the short essay of reasons why this mission might not work, thousands of people applied to become part of the final team that could eventually live on another planet.
These people are ordinary human beings, coming from all age groups and backgrounds and yet they all together have made a meaningful and permanent decision that if the mission were to succeed they would be leaving Earth never to return home again.
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100 applicants are left, of which just 24 finalists will be chosen.
In the first of a new five-part series, Citizen Mars will meet these people, try to understand the motives for their applying and ultimately better understand the kind of person that's willing to give everything up on the off chance that should the money be raised they'll be leaving Earth forever.