There is another ambitious Mars project in the works: unlike Inspiration Mars, the Mars One project aims to send colonists to Mars, people determined to live out the rest of their lives on the Red Planet, with no return ticket.
I wrote about how I would be willing to risk a very dangerous, very uncomfortable 501-day flight to Mars and back. But staying there for good? Now that’s another matter. Leaving the Earth in the company of a dozen or so other people, knowing that from now on, those will be the only people you will ever see face to face? That you will never see a blue sky again, hear a bird sing, or swim in the sea?
Fortunately, this is not a choice I’ll ever have to make. Unlike Inspiration Mars, the Mars One project is not (to the best of my knowledge) looking for middle-aged couples as participants.