These people applied to go to Mars

"go to mars"

Somehow clicking through these profiles makes me feel uncomfortable. Why does everything have to become some kind of public popularity contest.

Elsewhere on the website, they discuss a few reasons why they think they are more likely to complete their mission than others who have attempted. Sadly, a couple of their points seem a bit iffy:

- Simple rovers – Through the use of relatively simple rovers, designed to conduct basic settlement construction prior to human astronaut arrival, saving both time and cost.

I'm not a professional aerospace engineer, but construction robots seem just a bit more complicated than picture-taking robots. (oversimplification, but you get my point.) If it's so much easier, how come robots aren't building houses here on earth?

- No new developments – The entire plan revolves around the use of existing, validated technology

The falcon heavy hasn't even been built yet, I don't know how they can say this.

I suspect most of these people won't go when the chips are down. The training, mounting stress and creeping realization that this mission is most likely suicidal will separate the wheat from the chafes.

Having said that, I have half the mind to go, but that's also why I'm not. I'm not particularly sane or stoic, and this would make me crack for sure.

This feels like one of the most "in your face" scams I've seen in awhile.

The first thing I wanted to find out when I visited the site is where they got their funding - of course that section is absent from the site. The second thing I looked up is how they expected to get there and how they were solving the engineering challenges involved. On the technology page I found a dumbed down list of the different modules involved in the launch, and on the "is this really possible?" page I got a tidbit telling me they were using solar panels and nonpressurized rovers.

The icing on the cake is the $38 application fee and the note that "The entire plan revolves around the use of existing, validated technology".