Oxford undergrad Ryan MacDonald has beaten more than 200,000 others to be placed on the shortlist of boffins to be sent on a one-way trip to Mars to colonise the planet.
Ryan is one of more than 160,000 people from across the world to sign up for what is planned to be the first manned mission to the red planet.
The 20-year-old, who studied at Lees Brook Community School, in Chaddesden, is now entering his third year at Oxford University. If selected, Ryan would be one of just 40 people making the year-long trip to Mars with a one-way ticket.
One-way Mars Trip
Mars One is planning to make the final selection via a Big Brother-style reality TV show to let the public choose who should colonise the planet, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Nasa recently celebrated its 10th anniversary since successfully landed two robotic explorers on Mars - with one of them even still working. The Spirit Mars Rover landed on the Red Planet via its innovative "bouncing ball" landing system on January 4 2004, with the Opportunity Rover following it a few weeks later on 24 January.
While Spirit worked for six years and eventually gave up the ghost, Opportunity has vastly outlasted original estimates of its useful lifespan, and is still rolling across the surface sending back data to Nasa's team of researchers.
As part of its celebrations Nasa has published a gallery of images taken by the rovers over the last 10 years.
