The mission, a private venture by the Dutch non-profit organization Mars One, aims to send a crew to the Red Planet in 2022 – and, due to the physiological change in the human body after a stay on Mars, there’d be no coming back. That hasn’t deterred people, though: so far, over 78,000 people have applied to become one of Mars’ first immigrants (the company is expecting 500,000 applicants by the time applications close on August 31). “This is turning out to be the most desired job in history,” says Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One.
(MORE: Asteroid in a Bag: NASA’s Long, Strange Trip)
