One Way Ticket to Mars One

The Mars One future mission is a one way ticket to Mars where selected applicants live on Mars with no return to Earth . Mars One mission (www.mars-one.com) is a non profit organization planning for a permanent human settlement on Mars. That’s right, the plan is to leave Earth and go to Mars forever.

Mars One plans to take crews of four to start The Settlement by departing every two years starting in 2024.They intend to launch the first unmanned mission in 2018. Bas Lansdorp, Mars One co-founder along with Arno Wielders head the Mars One project based in the Netherlands.

We have heard proponents of space exploration talk about exploration but never has man actually planned to launch a mission for a permanent settlement in another planet. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warns us that in 1000 years, we as humans need to find an alternative living planet because Earth would not have the resources to support the survival of the human species. In other words Hawking warns us that unless we go beyond into space, the survival of the human species does not look promising.“Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect,” Hawking said. “It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.”

Read more (http://www.voanews.com/content/hawking-says-we-wont-survive-one-thousand-years-without-leaving-earth/1639537.html)

The future survival and existence of the human species is warned to be contingent upon the immediate and proper utilization of mankind’s scientific, technological and exploratory advantage. This generation has to find a remedy for an alternative living space. The truth is simply that we have overexploited and exhausted our resources on Earth, thus threatening the quality of living and future for mankind.
The Mars One Mission can be further understood in terms of its goals and objectives by watching the following informational videos.

Those of who are selected to participate in Mars One, will be the future Mars human seed. As such they would be the first experiment for the human race to get another shot at survival outside planet Earth.. The Mars One mission has recently partnered with Uwingu which plans to land the Uwingu Mars Map on its first unmanned Mars Lander in 2018. This map will engage public participation in naming approximately 500,000 scientifically identified craters on Mars. Uwingu’s website www.uwingu.com will be the site at which the public will have the opportunity to help name the craters . These names will become official and the digital copy of the Mars One Map will be on board the 2018 unmanned Mars Lander. These names assigned to the craters will be the official names used by future astronauts.

Read more at: http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-partners-with-uwingu-mars-crater-naming-project#sthash.MMYc1WUB.dpuf

When we think about the potential world participation in such a phenomenal undertaking many thoughts come to mind. We on earth will be watching just like we did when man landed on the moon but this time on more than just the tv but also the screens of all our various digital devices .This time around however, the undertaking is a permanent settlement which opens new facets to our level of entertainment and adventure. This no doubt will be the greatest reality show on TV for those that remain on earth. The venture seems exciting, however some basic problems that we encountered on Earth will haunt us. The basic problems being, can we get along with each other?

The four members initially selected will be the pioneers and the leaders of the new settlement. In eight years from now, it is highly unlikely when these four are placed to live together that they are going to have evolved into some superior human beings who can shield themselves from greed , selfishness, conflict and the mark of original sin. They will take with them the flaws of being human.

Time will tell whether or not their survival skills training, patience and ambition will work hand in hand . A permanent settlement in Mars is a harsh reality. The same forces that disunite humans on earth will transplant themselves in spirit on Mars One. Mars One is a human product. Even though on earth there is a greater sense of globalization making the trend of cultures becoming One, we are still far from being a species that form a homogeneous group. Cultures from the oldest civilizations on earth are today often displaying absolute contradictions to their parent cultures. In our plan and attempt to unite we inevitably diversify.

This is not to negate the possibility that the selected people for the Mars One Mission cannot display human dignity and caring for each other and reach a spiritual level like never before. If there is a catastrophic calamity on earth to apocalyptic levels with the continual play of present factors at work such as war, terrorism and disease, what impact does this leave on the people on Mars One?

Are the people selected for Mars One psychologically and emotionally able to cut their umbilical cord from earth? There is still the variable “memory”. The selected people on Mars One even if they have left Earth will have dreams, nightmares and memory. Will they experience post traumatic stress and how are we to help them from so far . Do we just entertain ourselves and watch them in despair?

Then there is the aspect of adventure. Even if those selected for Mars One are going for the adventure and experience and the belief that it is “my” life and there is only “one” life so “I” choose to do what “I” want with it.

What is Mars One’s responsibility to the remaining fellow earth humans . ? Those left on Earth watching Mars One may feel like being on an abandoned ship on earth and this could trigger suicides on earth if there is a mass exodus to Mars by those that can financially afford to leave. We cannot deny the fact that no matter where man goes beyond Earth, there will always be a feedback system in operation linking us to our memory of earth. We are more connected to earth than we think or really know.

The irony of it all is the screens on our digital devices become our new sky . Have we ceased to look up to the heavens like our ancestors once did.? Did they know more than we do in terms of our limitations and strides to understand our universe? Will we ever look up to the sky like chicken little and think maybe the sky is falling? Or are we so oblivious to everything that we have lost our instinct to survive with responsibility and have numbed ourselves to our immediate earthly surroundings and seek a tabula rasa on Mars.
In this Age of Digitalism, Is the goal of entertainment and reality TV gone to extremes? Is not Mars One a venture to merely entertain us under extreme measures because are thresholds for amusement have drastically risen and we need more and more immediate gratification to be fascinated, aroused , entertained and stimulated.

Somehow when we are left with so many unanswered questions and so many fears about the future of man’s venture into Mars One, it makes one wonder whether man is even in a position to choose a future away from earth when we need to be more responsible on earth and to the earthlings left behind. Will we not transfer the same mistakes we made on planet earth based upon our inherent human nature ?It would be argued that the mission is a responsible act to save the species. However the question remains, who are the chosen few to survive ?Are we bored of earth and the despair and perhaps the chaos on earth has created a need to free ourselves from the stress of earth and escape to something promising and new? Has life and living on earth become irrelevant and meaningless ?

Are all applicants for Mars One going for the same collective interest or do they each have individualistic aspirations? Is the value of time no longer based on living and how long we live but on how much of a new experience we can create in the shortest time and enjoy it before we die.?

As long as there is no stop to time, and man continues to evolve technologically at such a rapid pace, man’s inherent drive to explore and navigate the future survival of its kind, will keep us in a constant war between time and space. We are running out of time as a species and we are running out of space. Thus Mars One.

As a species, humans have reached close to their limits on earth and we take that giant leap for a second chance to survive on Mars. In the end for the good or the bad, this might just be our destiny’s quest in the Age of Digitalism. We may just have an inherent need and impulse to connect and conquer as far beyond what we can humanly reach and as long as it is possible in our lifetime and stage of evolution. Let us not forget our earthly legacy is love. With all our abilities and quest to go beyond our earthly boundaries, when we die we will be remembered primarily not for what great things we have taught but how we make people feel. On Earth what will survive of us is love. Is there Love on Mars?