2 US servicemembers make the first cut for a trip to Mars

RAF MILDENHALL, England Company seeks interplanetary adventurers for one-way trip. Spartan living conditions. Death a near certainty.

Mars is not a hospitable planet. The average temperature is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere is not breathable nor does it provide much protection from radiation. Water is not easily obtained, and the planet is not known to have food. To live on the planet any length of time means every aspect of life must be supported by technology. Should anything go wrong, help from home would not arrive quickly the closest Mars ever comes to Earth is about 34 million miles.

Despite all of this, two U.S. servicemembers are willing spend the rest of their lives on the Red Planet.

A Naval Reserve flight test engineer and an Air National Guard cybertransport specialist are among 100 candidates vying for 24 spots to travel to Mars through a Dutch-based company, Mars One.

Although experts in space exploration have cast doubt on the technical feasibility of the project, Mars One hopes to land four people on Mars in 2025 to establish the first extraterrestrial colony. Four more colonists will follow the next year and more after that.

Coming back to Earth is highly unlikely, because no one has devised a way to return from such a distance. Mars One wants to colonize the planet for the sake of exploration and in the hopes of developing new technology, but it is not willing to wait for the necessary technology to offer the colonists a way to come home.

That means the first human visitors to Mars will live and probably die there.

A one way trip (or, in other words: emigration) to Mars is currently the only way we can get people on Mars within the next 20 years, Mars One officials wrote on the company website. This in no way excludes the possibility of a return flight at some point in the future. It is likely that technological progress will make this less complex down the line.

The one-way aspect of the trip was part of the appeal for Lt. Cmdr. Oscar Mathews. Mathews, who is a test pilot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., said when he saw the trip was one way, he knew right away this mission was for him.

If youre going to go to Mars, you may as well stay on Mars because the whole reason to go to Mars is to do science and to live and to establish a habitat, Mathews said, also pointing out that by living on Mars, colonists could explore far more of the planet than a temporary mission could.

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2 US servicemembers make the first cut for a trip to Mars