Reality TV Show on Mars

Real World New York opened our eyes to a whole new world of reality. Real World London proved that a realer world existed in Europe. Real World Cancun was the realest of them all. In 2023, things are about to get as real as they’re ever been.

It’s not quite an MTV production, but it will make for must-see TV. A Dutch start-up believes they have a feasible model to colonize our friendly neighbor, Mars. Not only that, but via satellite, we’ll be able to watch Mars TV, chronicling the every move of the first ever Marstronauts.

The distance from the Earth to Mars is constantly changing, hovering between 36 million and 250 million miles. The maiden voyage is estimated to take seven months, but there are no plans for a return trip.

The Mars One Project plans to send ahead rovers within the next 5-7 years to scout the red planet and build a living quarters in an ideal location. The rovers will prep the planet for the arrival of four human occupants in a decade (2023) to become permanent residents. After that, the company plans to send more people to join the colony every two years.

Applications will be accepted starting in 2013. The Mars One website says that the world will get the opportunity to “chime in and help decide just who will populate the history books,” though “the astronauts who will eventually be making the actual journey to Mars need to be more than suitable: they must be extraordinary.”

The plan to fund the project relies on sponsorships and media interest to pay for every stage of the voyage. The company promises that the world will be able to watch every bit of preparation leading up to launch, as well as everything from Mars, creating the most insane reality TV show in human history.

Evidently the occupants will be able to e-mail and text via satellite to Earth with a 3-22 minute delay. The astronauts will work on building and growing the colony on the planet, and attempting to grow Earth plants such as bamboo.

Dr. Gerard ‘t Hooft, Nobel Prize winner in physics, says of the vision: “Mars One is an extraordinarily daring initiative by people with vision and imagination. This project seems to me to be the only way to fulfill dreams of mankind’s expansion into space.”

The topic will obviously inspire curiosity and a number of questions; How will the astronauts get food, water and oxygen? What about if someone gets sick? How will they cope with various storms on Mars? Answers to most every question including mission feasibility and safety can be found on the Mars-One website. Here’s a video of their vision.

It might have been assumed that we’d start on the moon, but Mars would certainly make for much more captivating television. Who knows, with the abundance of potentially valuable Helium-3 on the moon, we may begin building settlements there in the meantime. After the Real World Mars kicks off, what other types of Mars TV can we expect? The Apprentice: Mars? The Martian Bachelorette? Mars Ninja Warrior? Should be interesting to watch.

PSFK

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