Mars One to begin accepting astronaut video applications in the next 4 months

Fed up with your job? Can’t seem to get the kids to behave? Mars One asks, why not move to Mars! The Dutch space travel company will accept video applications for a one-way ticket to paradise (read: dusty, oxygen-poor settlement) between now and this July.

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The company will announce who gets to make the red planet their home in July 2015.

Mars One plans to colonize Mars by 2023. The company, based in the Netherlands, is on a search for brave individuals looking to join the colony, which will live in pod-like structures. This search, Mars One hopes, will be turned into a reality TV show where viewers can vote on their favorite would-be astronauts and help choose who gets to go on the mission, according to Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp who spoke with Space.com.

Lansdorp hopes the video applications will go viral, bringing more attention to the program and a basis for the reality TV show.

The whole program is projected to cost $6 billion. To subsidize that cost and to weed out any individuals who aren’t serious about blasting off and never looking back, Mars One will require an entry fee of up to $25 (depending on your location) with each video application. The company also hopes to further fund the project through broadcasting deals on the reality show. Video applications must be only one-minute long and only those over the age of 18 can apply.

Mars One will then select 24 people to be split up into teams of four who will go through rigorous stress tests. The company will continue to recruit with the expectation that some of these teams will fail or drop out.

Participants must realize that they will not return home. The time spent on Mars will condition their bodies so that they could not handle the pressures — literally, the gravitational pull — of Earth. It seems people don’t mind, however. According to Lansdorp, the company has already gotten 10,000 emails from folks who are ready to strap on their spacesuits (they’re really just gathering dust in the closet, you know).

Colony image via Mars One