Frenchman in line for Mars mission
Doctor from Bordeaux beats off competition from more than 200,000 hopefuls to be named among final 100 for one-way trip
A DOCTOR from Bordeaux has been named among the 100 final candidates for an ambitious one-way trip to Mars 10 years from now.
Jeremy Saget, a 37-year-old GP, husband and father, beat off competition from more than 200,000 people from 140 countries who had applied for a place on the $6bn mission to set up a permanent colony on the red planet.
The original applicants were whittled down to 660 last year. Mr Saget is the only French person on the current list of 50 men and 50 women. There are also five Britons among the 31 European candidates, who line up alongside 39 from the Americas, 16 from Asia, seven from Africa and seven from Oceania.
Announcing the shortlist, Bas Lansdorp, co-founder and CEO of Dutch non-profit group Mars One, said: “The large cut in candidates is an important step towards finding out who has the right stuff to go to Mars. These aspiring martians provide the world with a glimpse into who the modern day explorers will be.”
Mr Saget told the newspaper SudOuest that he and his would-be astronaut colleagues will now be tested to assess how well they work in groups under pressure before finding out at the end of the year if he has made the final list of 24 chosen for the Mars One mission.
"It's been a pleasure. Now, there is much work to do," he told the newspaper, in which he also described himself as, "driven, committed, strong, open-minded, friendly and starry-eyed”.
He said: “I have long been convinced that my generation is destined to explore space. I am a husband and a loving father. But I do not deny what defines me. I'm not a believer but this type of project requires a form of faith.”
The Dutch organisation behind the $6bn Mars One project hopes to part-fund the mission by filming the training and selection process for a reality TV show. An agreement was signed in June last year with TV production company Endemol.
In 2018, it plans to send a robotic lander and communications satellite to the red planet. They will be followed two years later by an “intelligent” rover which will find a suitable landing spot for habitation modules and life-support systems. They will be deployed in 2024 in time for the first humans in 2025.
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There are doubts about the feasibility of the mission. Last year, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a report that claimed crews on a manned mission to Mars would die after 68 days, while others have pointed out that Nasa estimates the cost of sending humans to the red planet far higher than Mars One.
Image: Mars One project screengrab
