There will only be 4 people at first and they will be carefully chosen based on their social dynamics. They will be put together for 3 months at a time in the desert every 2 years and undergo many other group tests for 10 years before ever leaving for Mars. So if they can’t get along they don’t go together.

I am already planning what will be in my application video/letter.
I am quite serious about wanting to go myself, and am about 90% sure I will apply as soon as possible. I look forward even to the training and exercise—it would be nice to get back into shape.


L. Spiro

Good luck Spiro! Sounds like a harsh but cool experience, not for me but I can see why it would be attractive to many people

There will only be 4 people at first and they will be carefully chosen based on their social dynamics. They will be put together for 3 months at a time in the desert every 2 years and undergo many other group tests for 10 years before ever leaving for Mars. So if they can’t get along they don’t go together.

I am already planning what will be in my application video/letter.
I am quite serious about wanting to go myself, and am about 90% sure I will apply as soon as possible. I look forward even to the training and exercise—it would be nice to get back into shape.


L. Spiro

If you go, you HAVE to make at least one post here at GameDev from Mars. Good luck!

My list of things to accomplish here on Earth is so big I don't have a life span big enough to go to Mars yet.
Even by visiting a lot of countries and places I can't feel that it is ever enough. I want to really explore Earth, every little bit of it, just like an outsider for the first time.

Maybe on a next life I explore Mars

EDIT: A MUST have thing in your backpacks will be board games. I know everyone loves them, and by playing it, you guys will have some real fun and will get know each other much better. Check out the TableTop show on youtube. Until 2023 you will have a big list of board/card games. ;)

I could see myself signing up to become a colonist on Mars, if the program backing it was sound.

First requirement that would have to be met would be a sane design to the whole program, with a community of at least 100 people in the first few years settling.

The project should not plan on requiring more than communications support after a year or two at most. Each step of the project should be focused on establishing a self-sufficient colony providing its own needs and a decent surplus of food, water, and energy, as well as creating the resources needed for the next phase of expansion. Why ship stuff from earth when we can make it right there from local materials? (This is the key, if you can't survive locally, then you're not really making a colony, you're merely a research outpost.)

The colonists need to have some control over their internal government, and immigration. Before additional colonists would be accepted, they would need to be cleared with previously settled colonial government. Having some government a hundred million km away tell you what you are doing will not sit well with the majority of humans I believe. Some sense of control must be retained.

But yeah, I would work as a labourer role, miner, mechanic, technician, etc, to help build a whole new world for humans to live in, a whole new society where we can start from scratch locally and address many issues of inequality and poor planning that hinder existing societies that were born long before many of the problems they would face were dreamed of. (Of course, it won't be perfect. It will have flaws, but hopefully we can learn from such.)