Trip to Mars via Big Brother

Nicola Fahey.

Reality TV show company to track 705 hopefuls vying for one-way ticket to Red Planet.

Amateur astronauts competing for a one-way ticket to Mars must demonstrate the supreme physical and psychological skills that will enable them to survive the harshest conditions ever encountered by humans.

Endemol, the creator of Big Brother, is to turn the "world's toughest job interview" - for selection of the first humans to establish a permanent settlement on Mars - into the ultimate reality show.

The privately funded Mars One mission aims to land 20 people on Mars by 2025. More than 200,000 people worldwide applied to join the first human colony on the Red Planet where they will set up home in inflatable pods. The ticket to Mars, where the temperature is -60C and the atmosphere has so little oxygen it cannot be breathed, is strictly one way. However, Mars One, led by Dutch businessman Bas Lansdorp, will send extra crews every two years to expand the pioneering colony.

The cost of the first mission is expected to be around 3.6 billion ($7.1 billion) and funds will be raised by selling exclusive broadcasting rights to the mission, built around a global "Big Brother-style event", after selection and training of the hopefuls.

Applicants have been whittled down to 705 candidates, 418 men and 287 women, including two Kiwi women - Auckland teacher Nicola Fahey, 31, and Masterton woman Kristy Flower - who've been short-listed for a personal interview. In the next stage, prospective Mars settlers will have to dedicate eight years of their lives to full-time preparation for the 480 million-km mission.

Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP), an Endemol company, will film the trainee space travellers as they are "tested to the extreme as part of an elite training programme run by a panel of pre-eminent scientists, adventurers and astronauts".

There are 22 people from Britain who made it to phase two, including Sarah Johnson, 30, an accountant from Inverness. She said in her video application: "The reason I want to go to Mars is I find myself waking up every morning thinking there must be more to life. I want to dispel the myth that accountants are dull."

Candidates don't need any scientific qualifications and a Big Brother-style audience vote will be used to make the final choice from applicants who complete the training. Mr Lansdorp said: "Our team felt all along we needed a partner whose strength lies in factual storytelling to an international audience. DSP will provide that to Mars One, while allowing our selection committee to maintain control of the applicant-selection process. This really is a perfect fit."

Iain Riddick, head of special projects at Bafta-winning DSP, said: "This has to be the world's toughest job interview for what is without question a world-first opportunity; the human stories that emerge will captivate generations across the globe."

But scientists believe Mars One's projected arrival date of 2025, after an eight-month flight, is optimistic. Nasa, which wants to land humans on Mars in 2035, says the technologies required for sustainable human settlement are still being developed.

Mission impossible?

• The selection of the first humans to establish a permanent settlement on Mars will be turned into the ultimate reality show.
• Mars One mission aims to land 20 people on Mars by 2025.
• The first human colony on the Red Planet will set up home in inflatable pods and it's strictly a one-way trip.
• The cost of the first mission is expected to be around $7.1b.
• The applicants have been whittled down to 705 candidates - 418 men and 287 women.
• The 480 million-km journey will take eight months.

- Independent