It seems like the era of reality television has finally reached too far, in the most physical sense possible, as the Mars One astronaut selection program will have 100 candidates competing on television over whether they're fit to go on a one-way trip to Mars - where they would be starting a human colony.
Indeed, the Mars One astronaut selection program seems like something right out of science fiction, in a film like "Gattaca" or "Minority Report" - but rather, this is the fruit of a Netherlands initiative for humans to begin populating our nearby Red Planet, in an attempt to beat NASA's Orion missions by over a decade, as they want to start the colony in our neighbor planet by 2025.
According to RTE.ie, the latest Mars One astronaut selection news comes from the non-profit Dutch organization, as they recently released a statement where they said they'd winnowed down their candidates (of course, thousands of people applied to go live in Mars) to one hundred: 50 men and 50 women, and 24 of those would end up going to our neighbor planet to start a human colony since 2024.
NBC News reports that the Mars One astronaut selection began in 2013, when thousands of people signed up to become astronauts and move to Mars; ultimately, the final 100 pre-selection was chosen after extensive interviews with Norbert Kraft, a chief medical officer in charge of finding the right people to fit in the job.
"Being one of the best individual candidates does not automatically make you the greatest team player, so I look forward to seeing how the candidates progress and work together in the upcoming challenges," said Kraft in a press statement about the Mars One astronaut selection program.
British and Irish news outlets like The Irish Journal have focused the news about the Mars One astronaut selection on one thing: there's an Irish physician, Dr. Joseph Roche, among the prospective space travelers. It is still unclear when the reality show would air.
