Lansdorp said he's looking for people who are utterly dependable, good in groups and "at their best when things are at their worst."

What the heck, send in your resume anyway.

You made me laugh! "Scrupulously flighty!"

and I can be assured that there will be no resistance...



I really don't want to wind up facing the working end of a Martian-made Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

Gosh I loved that one as a child.

Otherwise you will have no internet and that means no Facebook and no cable news. Wait a minute... No Fox News? Hmmmm... tempting but I'll wait for the internet connection to Earth.

http://astroengine.com/2008/04/09/will-the-first-mars-settlements-have-internet-access/

The fact that I'd be 65 at take-off probably leaves me out.

Sounds fascinating, though....

...actually fly the thing to Mars. (by 2022, the computers will be nearly brain-smart).

I'll go...but on the second voyage...unless I meet a nice lady...that I've just opened a door for..

(2 in case one of the surgeons gets ill). There'll only be 4 of them for the first 2 years, so they'll have to be multi-skilled. They'll also need to be engineers to keep the life support equipment going, biologists to grow food in a completely new environment, plus any specialities you might want to justify the mission, eg geology. So, yeah, there probably will be quite a lot of training involved.

There was a Soviet (or Russian; I forget how long ago it was) surgeon in the Antarctic who performed his own appendectomy.

I can't even imagine.

I say this because the (well, most) of the good engineers I've met seem to have an aptitude to learn other subjects...like fixing a human body...learning how plants do/will/can grow and other trades related to fixing things.

i've *always* wanted to die in space. still do. just drifting off into the cosmos sounds like literally an eternity in heaven to me.