Explorers have always been driven by a combination of curiosity and a spirit of adventure. The 100,000-odd volunteers for a one-way trip to Mars must possess those qualities in abundance. About 40 of them could end up living out their lives on the fourth planet from the Sun. These volunteers have signed up with the not-for-profit Mars One foundation, led by Dutch investor Bas Lansdorp, which hopes to establish a permanent habitat on Mars with a series of one-way missions. Mr Lansdorp's breathtaking plan will cost about $6 billion - and be funded partially as a reality TV show. The foundation's 100,000 applications from volunteers each include a self-recorded video introduction and a $25 fee. The applicants will be winnowed down on the TV show to a core group of 40 "Martians".
It was in 1877 that astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli sparked off the world's fascination with Mars, when he noted networks of long, straight lines. He called these dried up watercourses, "canali", Italian for "channels"; but, inevitably, that became "canals" and wild fantasies erupted about Martian civilisations. It started with H G Wells' War of the Worlds and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels. Since then, many of the greatest speculative-fiction writers - Ray Bradbury, C S Lewis, Robert Heinlein, Kim Stanley Robinson, Arthur C Clarke, Philip Dick - have set their novels in Mars.
At this instant, the planet hosts as many as five spacecraft, of which four belong to the US' National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA, while one was launched by the European Space Agency, or ESA. The Mars Odyssey, Mars Express (ESA), and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are in orbit, while the Exploration Rover Opportunity and the Science Laboratory Curiosity are on the surface. In November, India also plans to launch its first mission, Mangalayaan. Due to the planetary orbits of Mars and Earth, a launch window exists only for 20 days at intervals of 26 months. A spacecraft takes 210-250 days to get to Mars. Once there, living would be challenging. The planet's gravity is only 40 per cent of Earth's, and it thus has very high solar radiation and a very thin atmosphere, with only traces of free oxygen. Temperatures range between -143 and +35 degrees Celsius. It does indeed have water, albeit stored in permanent polar ice caps; and the soil possesses chemicals required by plants.
A normal manned mission would mean a seven-month journey, survival on the planet, and a return journey. Quite apart from the psychological hazards of long, claustrophobic isolation, there are big technical problems to be solved for this to be successful. The crew will need protection from radiation and vacuum. They will need equipment to synthesise or recycle oxygen and water out of soil, atmosphere and waste products. They would need to carry food, or grow it. Still, NASA intends a manned mission in the 2030s. Several organisations want to speed up the timetable. Billionaire space tourist, Dennis Tito, wants to put a couple into Mars orbit and bring them back. His launch window is January 2018. This is also when Mars One will launch its first unmanned rovers. It will send robots with cargo to establish a surface habitat in 2020. In 2022, four astronauts will launch, followed by more batches launched every two years.
It may seem like insanity to volunteer to live and perhaps die on an alien, lifeless planet. But it is little different in some ways from the voyages that mapped Earth itself. Those journeys too were undertaken by people who knew they had little, if any, chances of return. That spirit of adventure opened up the Earth's remotest corners. Maybe Mars One can harness it to help humanity gain a toehold on outer space.
