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Mars One Has 78,000 Applicants

Posted by Unknown on from the send-me-to-space dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mars One reports that 78,000 people have volunteered for a one-way ticket to Mars. A quick calculation shows that this means people lined up coast-to-coast in a line with only 40cm per person! (As Robert Zubrin already predicted). If you want, you can still go and sign up (or sign up your worst enemy). Or you can just look at some videos of the would-be travelers."

26 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Third-party nominations? by dtmos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can think of several people that I would like to volunteer for a one-way ticket to Mars. Were these volunteers self-nominated, or did Mars One accept third-party nominations?

    1. Re:Third-party nominations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know my ex-husband too and his mistress?

    2. Re:Third-party nominations? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You obviously are wasting your energy on people who should no longer matter to you. Suggestion, best revenge is to stop caring, and move on. Or, think of it this way, your "ex" still has power over you, do you want that?

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    3. Re:Third-party nominations? by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I will wager you are wrong.
      Not all 78,000 will, but I bet you could find at least 100 that would. Being first to mars, or among the first will be a huge draw.

    4. Re:Third-party nominations? by TheCRAIGGERS · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wasn't aware the Earth had a Constitution.

    5. Re:Third-party nominations? by mrsquid0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I suspect that most of the people who are applying are planning to take advantage of being on a reality tv show. Everything but the last round is going to happen on Earth, so the vast majority of the applicants know that they will never make it to Mars and simply want to take advantage of whatever fame and fortune come with being on the Mars One tv show over the next few years, which could be considerable.

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
    6. Re:Third-party nominations? by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The opposite of Love is not Hate, but Indifference.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    7. Re:Third-party nominations? by c · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can think of several people that I would like to volunteer for a one-way ticket to Mars.

      I'd pledge $5 to the "Send Snooki Home" kickstarter...

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    8. Re:Third-party nominations? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Make sure you think of some good first words on mars then. Something to rival 'one small step.'

      I'd keep it simple: "First!"

  2. Bleaker than you think! by StefanJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you read the Mars One, you'll see that they're counting on revenue from a reality program to fund the project.

    So, the candidates must not only be emotionally stable and qualified, but be photogenic and charming enough to sustain the interest of viewers.

    Imagine the horror if, after three years, all of the surviving colonists turn out to be phlegmatic, agreeable, no-drama workaholics and stable family-minded folks.

    "These rating are terrible! My God, it's turned into The Waltons in space! Can we ship in some ninjas or a killer robot to liven things up?"

    1. Re:Bleaker than you think! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you read the Mars One, you'll see that they're counting on revenue from a reality program to fund the project.

      Awesome, I've been expecting that sooner or later reality TV would go in the direction of people dying for years now.

      I'm sure the dying moments of these people will make for really awesome ratings.

      What a dumb fscking idea.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Bleaker than you think! by Synerg1y · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Haha,

      what reality stars are emotionally stable?

      If they want to make a reality show, I think we know exactly the type of people they'll select and trust me they won't be astronaut grade.

    3. Re:Bleaker than you think! by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is that a problem?

      What dying moments will be broadcast? Ideally, the travelers would survive long enough to set up a viable sustainable colony, whose expenses could be handled by a large enough trust fund. By the time they die of natural causes, the reality show would be long-since off the air.

      In a less ideal situation, the travelers' catastrophic dying moments are broadcast to the world, and the travelers are martyrs in the ongoing process of human exploration. This is a known risk, which all the travelers must accept before volunteering. Why, then, would it be a problem to broadcast the unintentional deaths of these brave folks? The chance of their sudden death is something they accept... why can't we viewers accept it as well?

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re:Bleaker than you think! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The chance of their sudden death is something they accept... why can't we viewers accept it as well?

      This isn't a chance. It's a 1 way trip. They'll either die on Mars, die taking off, or die getting there. But, they *will* die.

      Of course viewers will accept it, they'll embrace it -- pretty much like they embraced gladiatorial and watching public executions and watching decapitation videos on the internet.

      I somehow doubt that a Mars mission funded by a reality show is going to create a viable self sustaining colony which allows these people to die of natural causes.

      I can accept an astronaut signing up for something which is risky, but has a reasonable chance of working. But I'm a little creeped out by a guaranteed death sentence from a one way mission operated by a private company who wants to have a reality show.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:Bleaker than you think! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm a little creeped out by a guaranteed death sentence from a one way mission

      why? were you creeped out when you learned that europeans sailed to the americas?

      It's a 1 way trip. They'll either die on Mars, die taking off, or die getting there. But, they *will* die.

      spoiler alert, everybody dies. i'd rather be one of the first people to live and die on mars than the umpteen billionth person to live and die on earth.

    6. Re:Bleaker than you think! by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Gladiators, executions, and snuff films differ from pioneering in one major aspect: the pioneers choose to take the risk. The AC summed up my opinion pretty well. Everybody dies. Every moment we live is another moment closer to our death... If someone has no better long-term plans, why not volunteer?

      It's a simple gamble. The prize is an extremely valuable contribution to human exploration. The entry price is difficult communication with most other humans for the rest of your life, however long that may be. The risk is a sudden death.

      Like every other wager, whether it's advantageous depends on the cost/benefit analysis. Someone who doesn't value their connections on Earth nearly as much as their contributions to science may find it perfectly reasonable to risk a sudden death for the chance to begin human planetary colonization. If that's their opinion and their choice, why not respect it?

      There is a pervasive idea in Western culture that death is something tragic. We avoid death to the point where we spend our whole lives taking pills, exercising, and cowering in fear of what new deaths we might encounter. The very mention of death brings sadness into a party, and funerals are silent orgies of despair. Why must we all be such cowards? Let us go each day seeking new ways to die. Not merely new to each individual, but a death unlike any other in history. Now, the corollary to that is that we must avoid deaths that have been done before. Avoid heart attacks lying on the couch, avoid getting hit by a bus that you thought would stop, and avoid getting mauled by animals.

      A natural death on Mars after a long career of science hasn't happened yet, and neither has a fiery death in a do-or-die effort to return a drifting interplanetary spacecraft. Let's do it.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. So what? by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So? In this era of "liking" and "sharing" and "+1ing"... 78k "likes" isn't all that impressive. (And the vast majority probably aren't qualified and won't pass screening in the first place - they're just applying because it's "cool".)

    1. Re:So what? by mtmra70 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Huh? 78,000 people paid an application fee of at least $5. I would say that is a bit beyond "liking".

  4. Re:312 km coast to coast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They are Americans.

  5. Math is way off. by butlerm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Somebody needs a math lesson. 3000 miles * 5280 feet per mile / 78000 = 203 feet. That is a tad more than 40 cm.

  6. Re:312 km coast to coast by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Informative

    If each of these people were 64 meters wide this would work out.

  7. I hope the guy who did that calculation... by istartedi · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope the guy who did that calculation is not computing the path of the spacecraft.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  8. Re:312 km coast to coast by esampson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mercifully it looks like the math error might be on the part of the poster rather than the article. I did a quick skim of the article and didn't see anywhere were they mentioned anything like how far apart people would be if stretched from coast to coast.

    Of course it is always possible that the article was edited by the time I saw it but since the post doesn't appear to be a quote ripped from the site Occam's Razor is that the poster wrote up the post, did the math, and got it wrong.

  9. Telephone hygienists by edxwelch · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just wondering. What percentage of those are Telephone hygienists?

  10. Re:312 km coast to coast by fbumg · · Score: 5, Funny

    They are Americans.

    --
    I know I don't know what I don't know.
  11. Re: 312 km coast to coast by Tr3vin · · Score: 5, Funny

    He is an American.