An interplanetary trip to Mars could take as little as 10 months, but returning would be virtually impossible — making the voyage a form of self-imposed exile from Earth unlike anything else in human history.
What would inspire someone to volunteer? We’ve just found out.
A special edition of the Journal of Cosmology details exactly how a privately-funded, one-way mission to Mars could depart as soon as 20 years from now — and it prompted more than 400 readers to volunteer as colonists.
“I’ve had a deep desire to explore the universe ever since I was a child and understood what a rocket was,” Peter Greaves told FoxNews.com. Greaves is the father of three, and a jack-of-all-trades who started his own motorcycle dispatch company and fixes computers and engines on the side.
“I envision life on Mars to be stunning, frightening, lonely, quite cramped and busy,” he told FoxNews.com. “Unlike Earth I wouldn’t be able to sit by a stream or take in the view of nature’s wonder, or hug a friend, or breath deeply the sweet smell of fresh air — but my experience would be so different from all 6 to 7 billion human beings … that in itself would make up for the things I left behind.”