How can one go about getting in line, so to speak, for a civilian position on a Mars colonization mission?

Question

Set aside for the moment the question of "How?" and the risks involved. If someone were to announce today that they were going to leave for Mars in an effort to colonize it, and they seemed to have their act together as far as being realistic and having useful technology, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

Some groups are seriously persuing this objective. How can I become involved to the point of actually being part of a colonization mission?

Answer 1

Ummm  just stop dreaming dude and get on with life on earth!!

Answer 2

There's a book called  The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must by Robert Zubrin that you might want to check out.  I just found it on Amazon.  Colonizing Mars is certainly a long, long way off, but if there are certainly people talking about it already.  That book is probably a good place to start.

Might also want to do some google searching....i just found this forum about a Mars X-prize (X-prize was a contest where you got i think 10 million bucks to build a privately funded launch vehicle, i was wondering if there was a Mars X-prize yet)

http://spacefellowship.com/Forum/about13...

Answer 3

Whoever had the transport technology [ie NASA or ESA] would set up a ballot or auction system. Most probably the latter.

Of course, you would have to get past the big 'how' to contemplate it.

Answer 4

You can't, because they don't exist. Mars will never be colonized  (as in moving everyone to mars) unless you are rich/important enough, because when the world is completely ****** over you will be left here to die.

Answer 5

I admire your courage & fortitude in wanting to be part of a colonizing team going to Mars but I have to say it would be in vain as Mars is a "dead" planet that even though may have supported life in the past, it cannot & will never be habitable again. Realistically, all the the moons & planets in our Solar System are uninhabitable bar one, Earth, & even if life did flourish before throughout our Solar System, it does not any more. I think our only hope of survival is to leave our Solar System & look elsewhere but of coarse we will need the technology & will power to do that !

Answer 6

Listen to Jeff, Zubrin's case for Mars is interesting. I saw an hour Discovery program about it and it makes sense.

As for getting in line, I would hold off on that for a little while longer.  NASA's plan is to go to the moon again, build a base there, learn how to "live of the land" on other worlds, start processing hydrogen to create rocket fuel, build a ship in orbit and fuel it using the moon before sending it to mars for a little over two year mission (1 year getting there) for mere research.

NO plan of colonization is near the drawing board. and by colonizing I assume you mean a permanent instillation filled with people having no intention of going back to Earth. This is  a long way off since NASA would first build a Martian base there first, much like what they "plan" for the moon. Colonizing en masse will never be as viable as the colonizing other continents was 500 years ago until something more efficient than rocketry is found to lift people and material into space. A space elevator would prove useful, but that is a long way off along with most every other part of space colonization... maybe you great grand children will be off world miners, but not you or me.