[MUSIC]
Mars One will establish human
settlement on Mars in 2023.
In that year, the first group of
four humans will land on Mars.
Every two years after that,
another group will join the settlement.
>> My first impression was that this is
an extraordinary project by people with
vision, imagination but
my first reaction was I
think like anyone who would be confronted
with such an idea, this will never work.
But now look and listen more closely.
This is really something
that can be achieved.
I think this might become a most
spectacular media event ever,
watched by everyone on the globe.
>> 1972 was the last time that
humans walked on the moon.
No human has ever gone as far as Mars.
Mars One has designed a mission that is
much simpler than previous designs for
Mars missions.
The most significant simplification is
that the crew is actually going to stay,
and live on Mars with the intention to
remain there for the rest of their lives.
>> And we will finance this mission
by creating the biggest media events
ever around it.
Everybody in the world can see everything
that will happen in the preparations and
on Mars
>> This is going to be a media spectacle,
big brother will pale in comparison.
The whole world will be watching and
experience this journey
>> Mars One paid
visit to major aerospace
companies around the world.
In these meetings, they confirmed to
us that they can supply the required
equipment, for every component we
have at least one potential supplier.
All these suppliers have written
letters of interest for Mars One.
>> As for financing,
this is going to be a pivot enterprise,
only private firms
are going to contribute.
No political mambo jumbo,
no tax payer money will be involved.
Only people like myself and
many others who are enthusiastic
about the program will contribute.
>> This is the plan.
In 2016, a communication satellite and
a supply mission will be sent to Mars.
In 2018, a large planetary
rover will be sent to Mars.
It will drive around on Mars to find
the best location for the settlement.
>> In 2020, living units,
life support units, a rover,
and more supplies will be sent to Mars.
The rovers will prepare the settlement for
human arrival.
They will extract the inflatable
section from the living unit.
The life support unit will prepare
the outpost for arrival of the humans.
The crew will depart in September 2022,
when the settlement is fully
operational and habitable.
They will be flying to Mars in a transit
habitat with a lander attached to it.
>> Seven months later in April 2023,
the humans will land on Mars,
the next giant leap for mankind.
>> This project seems to be the only
way to fulfill humanity's dream,
to explore outer space.
It's going to be an exciting
experiment for scientists.
>> Mars One invites you to join
us in this great adventure.
For more information, visit mars-one.com
[MUSIC]
>> Welcome to the Museum of Science,
I'm James Wetzel the Adult Programs
Coordinator at the museum.
And I am very excited to introduce
tonight's program moving to Mars.
So before we get started,
if you guys could all please just
silence any electronic devices.
And if you do need to leave the program
early for any reason, please do so
using the steps and
the exit in the rear of the theater.
I also wanna take this moment to
thank the Lowell Institute for
their continued support for all the adult
programming here at the museum.
Our guests this evening are some
of the candidates that are vying
to be selected for that one way
submission to Mars that you just heard
a little bit about in
that introductory video.
A one way mission from Earth,
completely leaving civilization behind,
all in the name of pioneering
the next frontier for human kind.
And for those 200, 000 people who
applied for the Mars One mission,
this opportunities seems to be something
that could never be a reality.
However, the selection process is now
down to the final 100 candidates from
all over the world and we are lucky enough
to have five of the with us tonight.
For a conversation about their
journey with Mars One so
far, the psychology behind their decision
to potentially leave heart behind, and
the effects that that decision
continues to have on everything and
everyone that they would leave forever.
And it's my privilege to now bring
up the first candidate tonight.
He is a physicist engineer and comedian,
who is traveling all over the world and
continues to educate everyone
about the Mars One mission.
Please join me in giving a very
warm welcome to Josh Richards.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right,
good evening, ladies and gentleman.
I am your resident idiot Australian for
this evening.
Quick question, quick show of hands,
who here prior to that video
had heard of Mars One before?
Multitude of you?
Great, okay.
Another question for you,
who here if they had opportunity to go and
explore the moon would take it?
Okay, how about Mars?
How about going there and
staying for the rest of your life?
Just the five people are fine, great.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So that is a relatively old video.
It is the best one that we had for this
evening, but I unfortunately have to share
with you that since this was first
announced about four years ago.
The project's been
delayed about four years.
So, [LAUGH] this is the goal.
This is what we're all about.
This is the idea of having human beings
set foot and live on another planet.
The idea of humanity becoming
a dual planet species.
In order for us to make this a reality,
you saw some of the steps
during the video there before.
But before we start living on Mars,
we actually have to learn how to live on
Mars while we're still here on earth.
So this is quite clearly not
Mars because it has blue skies,
greenery on the bottom, and oxygen that
you can breathe when you step outside.
This is essentially a mock
up of the habitat that we'll
essentially be living on Mars,
except it's here on Earth.
We're planning to building several of
them scattered all around the globe so
that we can see how we
work together in teams.
The biggest challenge in all
of this is not the technology,
it's not necessarily even the funding,
or ,it's finding four people that won't
murder each other on television
while you're watching it in HD.
So we can filter out a lot of the crazy
by putting people in there for
two, three, six months at a time and
just not telling them how long
they're gonna be in there for.
That's the best way that we can
simulate the idea of not coming back.
You can lock someone in there and
say, hey,
I'm not gonna tell you
when you're coming back.
They might be in there for 24 hours,
they might be in there for six months,
they might be in there for 12 months.
But by not telling them and not giving
them the knowledge of when they'll leave,
it genuinely creates that psychology
of not being able to return.
So, We're all gonna get locked
up in something like that and
pray we don't stab each other with
a tool or something like that.
Anyway, while this is all going on, we're
looking at about ten years of training,
ten years to prepare for all of this.
While we're tested,
while we're put through the wringer,
to essentially work out if we've got
the right stuff to live on Mars.
Mars One is also going to be launching,
essentially, a probe.
This, as I said,
some of the dates on this has changed.
This is a probe modeled on
NASA's 2005 Phoenix Lander.
And essentially what
it's gonna be doing is
landing where we suspect would be the most
ideal place to set up a colony on Mars,
about 40 to 45 degrees North
of the Martian equator.
It's a nice level open area where
it's very easy to land things.
And we suspect there's plenty of water but
this probe is there to check that.
Essentially if you have a look
very closely on the back there
you can see a nice little scooper.
It's there to essentially scoop up dirt,
shove it into an oven.
In here we'll heat up that soil and
we'll be able to measure how much
water we actually have in that soil.
One of the other critical pieces
of technology that we need to
test as part of this is actually this
thin film solar panel on the front.
So the lander lands on
the surface of Mars.
Those two big panels fold out to
provide power for the main rover.
But then the flexible thin film solar
panel will roll out as well to make sure
that actually works.
This is definitely not
necessarily new technology, but
it's something that we haven't
tested on another planet yet.
So this is an opportunity for
us to test that.
We also have student competition
payloads onboard this.
So universities from all
around the world competed for
a payload slot on this particular lander.
One group from Spain won it and they're
planning on sending [SOUND] mustard seeds.
I'm not even gonna try the Latin,
forget the Latin, mustard seeds.
Testing that we can actually
grow things on mars.
So I had a payload suggestion
that went on board trying
to make water out of the soil.
They told me it was boring and got kicked.
So thank you, grow stuff on Mars instead.
Once we've tested that there is enough
water essentially where we need it to be
that lander then becomes a beacon.
It becomes a point where
it makes it much easier for
us to send other supply capsules
that will take our life support.
It will take the food
supplies that we need.
And it will start landing the rovers
that we need to be able to connect all
these things up.
So, the probe launches in 2020.
Once we've checked everything works,
we'll start sending these in 2022.
Between 2022 and
2024, as I said, we'll have the rovers
connecting all these things out.
You can see those larger thin film
solar panels down on the bottom there.
Laying all of those out, providing
the power, setting everything up so
that we have a fully functional colony on
the surface of Mars in about April 2026.
And it sits there.
And it's generated oxygen, it's generated
water, everything is ready to go.
And it sits there for six months to make
sure there's no faults, there no leaks,
there's no issues,
everything is ready, waiting.
Because, in September 2026, four idiots
strap themselves into a tiny tin can and
rocket off into the darkness
of space never to come back.
Because if you missed that in the video
at the start we're not coming home.
Once we go we stay there.
There's no return ticket on any of this.
For reference,
that's about the size of a school bus.
And you'll be living inside that for
four months.
I do a lot of presentations in
schools where I go and talk to kids,
and they ask all sorts
of amazing questions.
Kids have no filter when it
comes to this sort of stuff.
And they look at that.
And they look at me.
And they look back at that.
And the inevitable question is,
where does the poo go?
>> [LAUGH]
>> So
this hasn't been proposed by Mars One, but
another organization, Inspiration Mars,
had the fantastic idea of
essentially freeze drying it.
And it turns out that solid human waste
is fantastic radiation shielding.
So we'll pack all the food on
the outside like inside the capsule.
And as we eat it,
we just replace that with former food.
>> [LAUGH]
>> No one said going to Mars is glamorous.
Anyway if you have a look we've
got two boosters on the back.
We've got two solar panels essentially
to provide power on the way there.
On the front that tiny little capsule
thing, that's what we land in.
So we'll sit and spend seven months
living inside a tiny tin can
covered in our own waste before we
launch into a tiny little capsule and
land on a cold, dead planet that hates us.
That's the goal,
this is the goal in the end.
As I said, we launch, we spend seven
months trying to get there, and
this is the end goal.
The other thing I mentioned
there in the before, is that,
you know, when we land we'll be
living inside these living habitats.
You can see these are quite nice.
It's all very plush.
There's a little area here for
repairing our space suits.
There's a nice big TV to keep
us entertained, nice bedrooms.
Some horrifying green stuff,
that I'll get to in a minute.
You know, it all looks very plush,
and it all looks very comfortable.
Kids ask me will you have Xbox?
Will you have PlayStation?
I say both legitimately because we have to
keep ourselves psychologically active and
there is no better way to
do that than Gears of War.
But,
>> [LAUGH]
>> We have all this.
And again, it all looks very comfy,
very soft,
you know,
horrifying green stuff in the back.
And it has to look that good, and
it has to be that comfortable,
because we don't come back.
If you missed that!
This is the bit that horrifies mum.
You probably hear some stories about
how candidates talk to their families
about this idea of going one-way to Mars.
I'll share mine with you.
I was living in the UK at the time.
And I'll get to my story
in a little bit but
essentially I made the decision
that I was going to do this.
And the best way for me to do that was
to write a post about it on my website.
I had it scheduled to go out on the Monday
and I was going to call mum on the Sunday.
Something happened,
I didn't get to call mum.
So, she read about it on the website and
then called me on the Tuesday going,
why don't you love us anymore?
And I had to move back to Australia.
Anyway,
>> [LAUGH]
>> The one-way thing is what trips
everyone out.
Everyone goes, that's horrifying,
how could you possibly do that?
It's legitimately not the worst
part of this entire endeavor.
The worst part of this entire
endeavor is having to go vegan for
the rest of our lives.
So any, anyone here involved in
bio-engineering or bio-genetics, or
anything like that?
Biology, little bit background?
If you can work on bacon
trees that would be great,
>> [LAUGH]
>> Really appreciate it.
Different candidates
have responded to this.
So we'll be trying to grow our own plants,
trying to grow our own food as quickly
as we can to become Earth independent.
Different candidates have
approached this in different ways.
Some have already started to become vegan,
I've gone the other way.
So for every animal you don't eat,
I'm going to eat three because [LAUGH]
I'm gonna try and get my fix before I go.
So all sorts of different people from all
different backgrounds applied for this.
This is, unfortunately,
a bit of out of date slide.
It does show some of those older
dates down at the bottom there.
It says there 202,586 people applied.
That was the number of people who
started the application process.
The reality is about four and
a half thousand actually got through
the application process cuz
it was fairly extensive.
1,058 of those people were
then shortlisted, and
from that 705 of them actually passed
the actual medical that we all had to do.
Since then we've all gone through
a psychological interview,
which somehow I passed.
But, we had roughly 660 people
who did that psych interview.
They left us waiting for
quite a considerable amount of time, and
during that time, quite a few people
had the forethought to sit down and go,
[LAUGH] you know what?
I don't think I wanna go to Mars.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And they left.
So we had the 705, but
only 660 actually went to that interview.
And from that they
selected 100 candidates.
We have had a few candidates over
time drop out from that 100.
And they've been replenished by people
who probably should have made it, but
we had to set a limit for 100 people.
So, as you can see,
all sorts of different backgrounds.
It was open to all nationalities.
There was no restriction on gender.
The only real restriction was
that you were physically able,
over the age of 18, and
wanted to go and die on Mars.
There was no educational requirement, the
argument being, if we're gonna send you to
Mars, we want to teach you the things
that you're gonna need to go on Mars,
not what you think you need to go to Mars.
So there was no presumption of knowledge,
the idea being we can teach
you what we need to teach you,
we don't want you coming in and
assuming you know everything already.
So, very large variety
of different people.
The percentages here
have changed slightly.
I think it's 35 now.
35 Americans, out of the 100.
So you guys are very well represented.
There's 7 Australians.
There's a whole mixed bag of
people from all over the world.
But, it's currently
an even gender split and
it will remain an even gender
split all the way through.
The next stage of selection for us is
essentially cutting the group from 100
down to 24,
which again will mean 12 men and 12 women.
So Mars One's intention at the end of all
of this is to send a crew of four and
that would be two men and two women
because why wouldn't you do that?
12 white guys walked on the moon,
why would you send another dude,
4 more guys, anyway, moving on.
This is what I was doing when I
applied to be a national candidate.
So I said I'd mention my story
a little bit, when I said
I wanted do lots of stuff, I was at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012.
I'd been working as a professional stand
up comic for six years at that stage, and
this is what I was doing at Edingurgh.
This is Keith, the anger management koala.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Keith stands on stage,
he screams obscenities at people for
about 45 to 50 minutes and then leaves.
There are clips on YouTube,
please don't show your children.
Wow, anyway, I used to lose about two
pound in sweat about every time I did
this show,
it's like performing in a sleeping bag.
I had just finished performing Keith
at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012.
I had the idea in the back of my head for
several years that I wanted to do a show
about sending people one way to Mars.
Cuz I knew that we had
the technology to get to Mars.
We didn't necessarily have
the technology to come back.
I knew that we hadn't left lower Earth
orbit since 1972, so I was like,
what is wrong with humanity?
Let's just go.
What is so special about Earth?
Let's just leave.
Let's go to Mars.
I didn't care about coming back.
What am I going to do?
[SOUND] Dress up as a koala again?
Let's just do it.
And so, at the end of Edinburgh Fringe,
I sat down.
I'd moved to Brighton in the UK and
I sat down in a Starbucks and
typed one way to Mars into Google.
And I found an organization saying,
hey, if you wanna go to Mars one way,
we're gonna help you.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I've been working as a standup
comic now for about eight years.
I blend in science with
everything that I do.
I go and visit schools,
I don't take the koala to schools.
I actually set fire to the suit last year,
it was very therapeutic.
But comedy was something that had taken
quite some time for me to get to.
So, I originally studied
applied physics and
a bit of psychology at the same time,
strangely enough.
Cuz you might as well understand
what's wrong with you.
Now I went and did this.
I served for the Australian Army for
about three and a half, four years.
I worked in explosives because
that's the natural place to send
a psychotic ginger leprechaun,
is to go and work with explosives.
I worked in the mines in Australia,
worked blasting,
working in sort of open cut mining,
again, using explosives.
I decided that doing that was boring,
and so
I went and joined, come on, I went and
joined the British Commandos.
[LAUGH] Which was a little
more challenging.
It was definitely something I [LAUGH]
don't recommend for any of you.
And then I decided that running around
with the military was all great and fun.
But I would much rather make
people laugh than shoot them.
And that's how I wound up
getting involved with Mars One.
Weird, anyway.
So as I said, all of us have come
from different pathways to get here.
All of us have very interesting,
different backgrounds.
The Mars 100 is a very diverse and
frankly, we are weirdos, we're odd.
If you wanna go and
leave the Earth behind forever,
there's probably something
a little bit different about you.
So tonight is very much focused
on the personal stories.
There will be options to ask
questions about the technology,
to ask about all the various different
complications that we'll have to face.
But tonight's primarily
about the personal stories.
Each of us have very unusual stories.
All of us have very diverse backgrounds,
so we're very much focused on the story
telling of the personal
individuals here tonight.
Because ultimately some of the people that
are sitting here in the front room, and
even this ginger idiot, could end up being
your representatives on another planet.
So, once we've landed that first crew,
they don't just stay there.
Well they do stay there for
the rest of their lives, but
they don't stay there alone.
So Earth and Mars line up every 26 months.
So a bit over every two years,
we'll be launching another crew.
So, the current plan is
the first humans launching to
Mars September 2026 landing April 2027.
26 months later, the next four
people land right next to them and
connect all the modules up and
they become a small community.
26 months after that,
the next crew arrive, and the next crew,
until we have about 10 crews living
on the surface of Mars, 40 people.
And the hope is that by that stage, we'll
have ships that send, say, 100 people.
Who here saw Elon Musk's
presentation last week?
Few of you talking about sending
a 100 people to Mars at a time.
It was very strange being in the room with
him because the dude's like a rock star
and the place is out of control.
But SpaceX is talking about sending
a 100 people to Mars at a time.
So our hope is that we could be the first
people to set the place up before
they arrive, and hopefully make things
a little easier when they get there.
So on that note in terms of the personal
stories and that sort of stuff, I would
love to introduce Sara Director, who
is one of our other candidates as well.
Give her a warm welcome, yes.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Now Sara,
when you folks started talking about who
you'd send to Mars and things like that
Often people assume engineers,
scientists, all that sort of stuff.
You obviously, have a slightly
different background from that.
>> I do.
Well,
I have half of the science background.
I did major in biology at school.
I've been into science my whole life.
I was a dinosaur kid, not a dolls kid.
But, yes, art has also been kind
of the common thread in my life.
And at the moment I definitely would say I
am a starving artist except, not starving.
So, yeah, it's great to kind of be
kind of different from what people
expect of an astronaut candidate.
>> Favorite dinosaur?
>> T-Rex.
>> [LAUGH]
>> No, no, no, no.
Velociraptor.
>> Yes.
But like, yeah,
we all know that Velociraptor's
aren't like gigantic, right?
>> Doesn't matter.
>> Jurassic Park Velociraptor's.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> Yeah, cool okay, sorry.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Obviously.
>> Would you have Velociraptor's on Mars?
Let's steer back towards Mars.
Anyways.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So obviously,
bringing a different approach to
the idea of colonizing Mars, rather than
that traditional kind of hard lined,
engineer all the way through to get there.
You're very much bringing in that
human side of things, again.
I suppose the questions then becomes,
in terms of human relations and
things like that,
how did your family respond?
>> Actually, it was my family that kind
of started this whole thing rolling.
My
>> [LAUGH]
>> That's seriously asking
you to get out of home.
Like that's.
[LAUGH]
>> It's true, I was living at home and
unemployed at the time.
>> [LAUGH]
>> That may have something to do with it.
I don't know.
My dad, actually my whole family is
a bunch of space nerds, sci-fi nerds, etc.
So my dad sent me this email one day like,
have you seen this thing?
They're trying to send people on Mars.
You should do it.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And I was like, yeah, totally.
You gonna do it with me?
He would have.
He decided he was a little too old.
I would disagree, but that's what he said.
So I kind of went forward with their
blessing, which seems to be very unique.
Everyone is very like, my God,
your family is into this?
What is happening?
>> Cuz like, on my side of things,
again, mom was mortified.
>> Yeah.
>> Like called me crying, and has only
just started to come around to terms
with it because I go and visit schools.
And she's like, he's doing good things.
Whereas, your parents are like, go.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
>> Get out.
>> It's cuz my parents are the coolest.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So obviously, turn around and
saying that you're potentially
launching to Mars in ten years time.
That, in my experience anyway, hasn't
done wonders for long term relationships.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Actually, I mean, it's kind of
the opposite, leave them wanting more, or
something.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Right.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Actually, no,
I've been dating, and
I'm now engaged to a wonderful person.
>> Awesome.
>> And we are getting married in December.
And we basically, kind of just have
the outlook that anything could happen.
Maybe we don't get funding,
maybe I get hit with by a bus.
It doesn't really matter.
There's no point in ruining the next,
last, maybe ten years
of life on Earth because of maybe going
to Mars, or wanting to go to Mars.
I don't know,
live with one foot out the door.
>> Yeah, I mean, again, different people.
I've heard various different
stories over time.
But I know that, in my case,
I'm very much focused on making
the most of the next ten years.
What can I do in these ten
years before I would go.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So yeah,
it's interesting that it hasn't
been a barrier to getting engaged.
>> Well, actually,
that is largely due to my fiance, Evan,
who is here, just being extremely
understanding and supportive.
I think definitely above and
beyond what one might expect.
His kind of rationale about it is
that there are a million reasons
why a relationship might end,
and many of them are really dumb.
>> [LAUGH]
>> One of the people moving to Mars is
pretty low on how dumb
that could possibly be.
>> It's also pretty awesome.
Like if you're gonna break up,
if you're gonna end it
>> Right.
>> Like sorry, gotta go to Mars.
>> Right.
And he's got a fantastic bar story for
the rest of his life.
>> I've legitimately used that.
>> I wouldn't be mad.
>> Excellent.
>> Yeah.
>> So again, blending science and
art together,
if you are there living
on the surface of Mars,
how would your art grow by being
in such a different medium?
>> Man,
I would make paint out of martian dust.
>> Awesome.
>> And make sculptures out of the spare
parts that break.
And, yeah, it would be awesome.
I would find ways.
>> Yeah, and again,
I've often talked in presentations
about wanting to send former gyvers.
So rather than sending one doctor,
one engineer, one psychologist, and
a geologist, you have four people
who can kind of do all that.
So you would almost be
MacGyvering into your art.
>> Yeah.
>> As well.
>> Yeah, or arting into the MacGyvering.
>> MacGyvering, I don't know.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Maybe both, I don't know.
>> You'd have to cut your hair into like
the Richard Dean Anderson mullet to make
it really work.
>> I shaved my head once.
That's probably not as bad.
>> How did that work out for you?
>> It was great.
>> Cool.
>> Yeah, kinda cold.
I did it in the winter.
Don't recommend that.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But otherwise, it was great.
>> Mars is pretty cold, -56,.
Like well, what is that in-?
Why do you still work in Imperial?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Seriously, I love you America, but wow.
It's you guys, Liberia and
Cameroon or something like that.
Get with the program, sorry.
>> It's really embarrassing,
I know, I'm sorry.
>> [LAUGH]
>> It's still pretty cold.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, I prefer the winter.
I hate summer.
It's too hot, so go to Mars.
>> It's an interesting one that people
assume because of my background and
things that I've done that
I'm a real outdoorsy type.
Then they remember that I'm ginger and
literally catch fire when I see the sun.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So you'd be quite well adapted to
living inside, because we will
potentially be living inside.
>> I'm an indoor kid.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, I would describe myself that way.
It's been an interesting thing for a lot
of candidates who are no longer with us,
they very much describe
themselves as outdoorsy types.
And really, what we need is
like adventurous introverts.
>> Mm hm, yeah.
>> Yeah, so, and
hopefully arty ones, as well.
>> Yeah, that is definitely
how I would describe myself.
>> Excellent.
So in terms of like, the family,
we're talking about having two men and
two woman,
how can you see yourself fulfilling a
particular sort of role within that group?
Like some sort of role that you might
sort of migrate towards inside the team?
>> Gosh, I don't know.
It's hard to imagine just
who I would get along with
best by what others kinds of
people might be on that team.
But I wouldn't be surprised
if I turned out to
be some kind of Martian homemaker,
cuz I like cooking.
Maybe I'll be the person who cooks all
the dinners that are really creative.
Maybe I like just Decorate
the habitat to be totally awesome.
I'm also, I mean,
I have a bunch of really weird talents.
I'm like a really good driver.
Maybe I'll start like rover racing.
>> Awesome.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
You on board for that?
>> Yeah, I mean,
we would have to like MacGyver a rover,
cuz they're gonna land us.
Well, we could just rip one apart.
What are they gonna do?
We're like 36 million miles away.
>> They'll have to
send us another one.
>> Yeah.
>> Whatever.
>> That'd be amazing.
>> Well, we need two if we're gonna race.
>> Yeah, or
like motorcycles like we're
going off on a, yeah,
we'll just cut a Rover in half.
>> Yeah, and make it two.
We can probably make it.
>> You guys aren't recording this right?
Miles are not gonna see this,
right?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Awesome.
>> [LAUGH] So again, here's an interesting
one for you, in terms of that
introversion side of things.
We're talking about seven months to get to
Mars, and then potentially being there for
26 months before the next, the second
crew arrives with just four people.
Those second crew, they would have just
had seven months of isolation, whereas
we could potentially have been there for
a lot longer than that.
Have you experienced that kind of
isolation before?
>> Well, not to that extent.
But, so I'm currently unemployed, and
I live with my fiance who works
from home almost exclusively,
and our cat.
And so there's a lot of time that
we just spend the three of us hanging
out in, I mean, it's bigger than
that space, but even so, it's been
working for us for a very long time.
Of course I do still see people, but
on the whole it's like,
I don't go as stir crazy as
plenty of my peers who I would describe
as extroverts do in, five minutes.
>> Fair enough, all right.
Well, hopefully not too much of
an adjustment to move from one planet
to the next.
>> Yeah.
Barely.
>> Brilliant.
All right, I am, thank you very much for
joining us up here,
I'm sure we're gonna have you back for
a discussion a little bit later on.
>> Sounds good.
>> But, if I can introduce.
We have, give Sara a round of applause.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> So as I said, all sorts of different
backgrounds, all sorts of different sort
of home situations, things like that.
There's a few home situations you might
not expect people to then wanna go and
sign up for one-way missions to Mars.
But I want to introduce you to a couple
of interesting people who are probably in
a situation you might not expect.
So if I can get Dan and
to join us up on stage,
and give them a round
of applause as they do.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right, have a seat, folks.
Now, can you tell me how you two met?
Just straight off the bat.
Like just-
>> In Mars One.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
You are in fact our Mars One couple.
So like run me through this,
how it all happened, cuz it just kind of
sprung off on me, I'm like, they're what?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Well, I, I'm really shy.
If I could see everybody's faces here
I probably wouldn't be able to speak,
so I was getting ready for
a couple interviews after Mickey and
the 1058, and I knew was doing PR for
the military, so
I saw him give tips to other candidates so
I asked him,
hey can you give me some feedback
on this interview, on this video?
We started talking.
We made a good connection.
It wasn't romantic or anything,
then we moved from talking PR
to working out at the same time.
He was in El Paso,
I was in Somerville, and
we were just after work we would
text each other be like hey,
I'm going to start the P90X workout.
I'm doing this one and
he would do the same one.
So, it went on for
like a couple of months.
I don't know it was like almost two
years ago, at least that's my story.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And she sticks to it too.
Yeah, we started talking because everyone
was getting ready, dealing with media,
doing interviews, and I had experience
with training people on how to
be in an interview, and I was volunteering
my experience for the other candidates,
and took me up on that, and from there, we
just kept talking, working out together.
We were both healthy and
fit, but staying fit,
and then we were getting ready to
the interviews with Mars One, and
part of that, the different candidates,
we were all Skyping with each other,
asking each other questions, and
we just got to talking one day and
neither one of us was doing anything for
Christmas.
So, she said, well,
do you wanna come to Boston?
I'd never been to Boston.
I was like, yeah, sure.
The tickets were a little high.
This was two weeks before Christmas.
>> Well, I have to interject here, and
say that you didn't actually answer.
I said, well, come to Boston if you want,
and I went to bed,
the next morning I woke up he's like I got
my ticket, but I m going for New Years.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And then I was like, okay.
Well good I'll get to meet
a candidate at this point, Sarah and
another candidate, Chris the three of
us lived in the same neighborhood,
and we knew nothing about each other, so.
>> So that's an interesting thing
that I've heard quite a bit about
through different candidates is that often
we're living in very close proximity, and
yet haven't met.
I know of four Australian candidates
that all live around Brisbane, and
none of them have ever met each other.
So it's strange that we sort of we've
almost gotten used to the isolation,
that distance,
already, and don't feel compelled
to physically be in the same space.
>> Well I don't know.
We keep in touch.
>> Well, yeah, okay.
Maybe the Australians just suck at it.
>> [LAUGHS]
>> Yeah, probably.
No, I'm sorry.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But yeah, I mean, he was in El Paso,
I was in Boston.
We met up.
We had a really good time.
>> Now when she says we met up,
I came to Boston for New Year's Eve.
She was going to do the first night here,
show me around Boston, and
I was supposed to go back, because of,
I don't know if anybody remembers,
the slightly record
snowfall of 100 inches?
>> [LAUGH]
>> The airline cancelled my flight,
and so I had to find another one
which extended my stay out to Sunday.
I had to be back at work on Monday.
But that gave us more time
to get to know each other.
This was just two friends meeting.
We weren't expecting to
start dating each other.
Neither one of us wanted to get married.
Just like Josh, who was like,
no, we're never getting married.
None of the family stuff,
we've got our own life.
>> Focus.
>> Focus on our life, our careers.
>> On Mars.
>> And go to Mars.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
>> Oops.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But moving forward,
we really enjoyed each other's company.
We continued talking, working out.
We met again,
because I was going to Boulder, and
just things got more interesting, but
we didn't decide to date until later after
the announcement of the 100.
And during the announcement,
we were together and
said, let's see what happens,
let's be together that day.
And so, I made it into the 100 and
we weren't gonna check our
email until it was public, but
I got a second email asking for
a photo for the announcement.
And so I was like,
did you get an email asking for a photo?
No.
And so that's when we realized
that he didn't make it and I did.
And it was hard.
It was hard because at this point
I was like, he's really competent.
I trust that he can go to Mars.
And so at this point I was like what,
why didn't you make it?
I was so conflicted.
He was fine, he was like,
I'll just apply next time.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But
at that moment we decided that we
were gonna start a relationship and
he was looking to go to school since
he's been in the military for 15 years.
And so one of the options could be he can
move here, be in the National Guard and
go to school here in Boston.
>> That's the option I chose by the way.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
So we started dating a little
bit from a distance before
you got all your paperwork to move
out of El Paso and move to Boston.
Anyway, it's moving forward.
On his way to Boston, we both got
an email almost at the same time.
And in our email, it was right after we
signed contract with Mars One, the 100,
on our email they were letting the 100
know that 6 people didn't follow.
They didn't sign the contract and
left the 100.
So at that same time they were telling
six other candidates if they wanted
to join Mars One, so I read my email,
I was at work, he was driving to Boston.
And so at that same time he called me and
I already knew what he was gonna say.
It was like if I was experiencing
being in the 100 for the first time.
Because the first time I cried,
because he didn't make it, but
the second time, my god.
We got this, we're going to start this.
So I just want to be clear, we decided
to date before, knowing that he wasn't
going to be part of the 100 or the 24.
Anything you wanna add?
>> And then you got lucky.
>> And
then we got lucky [CROSSTALK], yeah.
And a year later we got married.
>> Yeah.
[LAUGH]
>> And now we're living,
we just moved into an RV to practice.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Good practice.
>> Good practice.
>> Really good practice.
>> We have four other roommates,
two cats, two turtles, the turtles smell.
[LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH]
>> They do.
>> We have to clean them every two days,
so
it's good practice fixing all the systems,
sorry.
>> But that's pretty extraordinary
that through everything,
not only did Mars One bring you
together in the first place but
also you could potentially be
going to Mars together now.
That's pretty extraordinary that
you've both been through such, and
you've had that trial separation almost of
like the potential that maybe one goes and
the other doesn't or follows along later.
So it's definitely an interesting
dynamic for the other candidates to say,
how you guys have dealt with that.
And I could imagine how weird it
might look to folks on the outside
to sorta think that you're contending
with the possibility that one person that
you've just married is gonna go to
Mars and maybe the other doesn't.
Or maybe you go to Mars together,
which is, again, awesome.
So yeah, thank you very much for
sharing the story.
That's extraordinary, yeah, yeah.
Can I get you guys to grab a seat?
And last but not least,
we're gonna introduce, again,
someone else from a very
different background.
We've heard different examples so
far, you've got the weirdo
space nomad Josh that runs
around the country and
the world telling people, and
roaming around by himself.
You've heard from Sara,
staying inside, still getting engaged,
not seeing the idea of moving to Mars
as a barrier to life here on Earth.
We've heard from Ardan and
Yari about meeting and getting together.
I'd like to introduce you to Peter.
Who again, Peter, different background,
probably different story again.
So please, give Peter a round of applause.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> So
Peter, we've heard three very
different stories so far.
You, on the other hand,
have been married 20 years.
>> True.
>> And are still signing up for
a one way mission to Mars.
>> I have.
>> Yeah, run us through with that,
a little bit.
>> This story actually starts
before we had any of our children,
I'm delighted that I have two of our
five children here with us, my son and
daughter, our youngest of our five.
Before we had any of them,
my wife and I were talking one night,
before drifting off to bed about
working the Earth, being a pioneer, and
she said, if I could have moved out to the
American Midwest, I would have done that.
I would have staked a claim and
been a pioneer.
And I said, well,
there's probably not many opportunities to
do that here on Earth anymore, but what if
in the course of our life, we could go to
another planet and become colonists there?
Would you come with me and be a colonist?
And she said, hell no.
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] And
there was that pause, would you go?
My God, a rocket to a planet?
Yeah.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Ever since I was a kid,
I wanted to fly in a rocket.
I really wanted to walk
on another Earth and
experience what it's like to be part
of the universe on a grander scale.
And so her response was [SOUND], bye-bye.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So fast forward 20 years,
I learn about Mars One.
I have to do this.
I mean it's a one in a million shot.
And so I signed up and she was very
supportive, and when I got into round
three, I shared the news with her while
we were heading to see a play together.
And she just cheered exuberantly,
she was so supportive.
She knew this was a lifelong dream,
she knew this was tremendous and
she was an ardent and unabashed supporter.
>> Excellent, and
like in those years here on Earth,
you've done a huge variety
of different things as well.
You really have been a bit of
a journeyman, like a Renaissance man.
>> I've had such tremendous good fortune
to try all sorts of different things.
When I was a young man,
I was a professional ballet dancer.
After that I moved and
became a choreographer.
From that,
I got interested in technical theatre, and
I got a master's degree in lighting
design and design for theatre and opera.
And then I met this beautiful woman,
my wife.
And we thought about kids.
And the theatre is a lovely hobby,
a very challenging career.
So I decided to look around for
something else.
And I had paid for my theater
habit by being an office temp and
doing a lot of work with computers.
So I learned software engineering,
and that's what I do today.
And it's been a wonderful, wonderful
ride though all these different things.
>> So again,
we've heard from different candidates
with different levels
of attachment to Earth.
Me, send me tomorrow,
I literally have a bag and a ukulele.
That's it.
Through to someone like yourself
who has been married for 20 years,
has five kids, what have been some of the
challenges since you first signed up and
first admitted that you were potentially
going to Mars, adjusting to that?
>> Yeah, the most difficult
part is understanding and
accepting the reality of what
this commitment really means.
The first hard questions came from
who asked me shortly after they
learned about it,
why do you wanna leave us?
It's not a question any
parent could answer.
I don't want to leave you,
I wanna take you with me.
No matter what I choose,
I'm breaking some promise.
If I choose to follow a dream and
pursue a lifelong ambition,
I'm breaking the promise that
I made to my wife to have and
to hold forever until death do us part,
breaking the commitment I made to my
children to be here and
part of their lives.
And if I choose to stay here on Earth and
honor that commitment, and
break this lifelong dream and
promise that I've made to myself.
And so, this reality is really
starting to hit home, and
we've had some difficult conversations.
The one thing that I've
learned is to live today.
Today I have a beautiful wife,
I have a wonderful family,
we are healthy,
we have an opportunity to explore.
There's also all sorts of things we can
experience if I am fortunate enough.
To make it into the 24 round 4, we can
experience all sorts of cultures all over
the Earth,
who knows what is gonna come after that?
So, we'll seize the opportunity that we
have right now to see what comes later.
>> It's an interesting idea of potential,
you could potentially be going to Mars,
and so
many people focus on you're going to Mars.
And so many don't realize that that's an
uncertainty for all of us at this point.
And they know to recognize
that it is just potential.
And this is something we're putting
our heart on our sleeves and saying,
this is what we want to do.
Just saying that and saying that we
want to possibly achieve this potential
raises really big questions about
the way that we live our lives now.
I know,
particularly in the last 18 months,
I've radically changed the way that I live
my life, because I've finally had to come
to terms with the idea that,
do I wanna stay on Earth?
Do I want to live a life that doesn't
involve being on another planet?
And you would be happy still staying.
But it's the potential that you,
I guess the question then becomes,
why is that drive so strong?
Why do you feel compelled
that you would leave,
you would break those promises,
rather than the other?
>> Well, there are a couple of factors,
there are a couple of drivers.
First, when I was a little boy,
I had a great fortune to live on a
sailboat a lot, my family had a sailboat.
I was very comfortable in tight spaces and
constrained quarters.
But there was also that exploration,
you can get in your boat and
go somewhere, go experience something.
So, and I just got caught up in the aurora
of sailing and tall ships and all that,
the idea of sailing around the world,
pushing yourself further into some place
you haven't gone before,
so that's part of it.
And the other part of it is knowing that
there's going to be constant communication
between Earth and Mars.
And so, what I've been able to say to
the children is I'm not ever stop going
to being your daddy.
If I get into Mars, wanting to go to Mars,
I'll be your daddy who lives and
works on Mars.
And maybe there'll be a chance for you to
come and live on Mars as well or visit.
You can see how technology is advancing
with amazing things SpaceX is doing,
landing rockets on barges in the ocean.
Who knows what's gonna
happen in the next 20 years?
Elon Musk announced a transport
that could shuttle people back and
forth between Mars.
So you can see tremendous opportunities
for a cultural exchanges, for
science exchanges, for
engineering and technology exchanges.
So, I don't think that it's at
all a isolated, one-way trip.
Even at the smallest vision, we're gonna
be constantly connected to one another,
and that's what makes it
really possible for me.
>> So where do you think this drive
to go comes from in the first place?
For me, we've talked about kids,
we've talked about relationships and
those sort of things.
And while I personally have no
interest in ever having kids,
cuz I'm not responsible enough to have
them on this planet, much less Mars.
I'm very much driven to go and be involved
in this project in the first place,
because of kids.
Because when I was seven, I was told that
the only way I could become an astronaut
was to become an American citizen.
>> Right.
>> Because only Americans can join NASA,
and
at the time the shuttle was
launching seven people at a time.
That was the only way you can do it.
>> Right.
>> My drive for wanting to go and
live on another planet is that we'll
have a generation of kids in 10,
15 years time who can be taken out into
a park somewhere, have Mars pointed out in
the sky and told, people live up there and
if you want to live there too, you can.
>> Mm-hm.
>> What, I suppose, why were you so
drawn to being involved with Mars One,
what was the draw to make this a reality?
>> Fabulous, there are a couple of
aspects to that, one of course is that
desire to explore,
see new things, that curiosity.
I was always the kid just
walking out of family events and
walking away from things to go see
what I could see, walk off on my own.
But there's another part of it.
I think I have a responsibility to do it,
because of the 7.4 billion people
on the Earth, a very small number,
a very small percentage thought hey,
this is really great idea.
[LAUGH] Let's get on a rocket ship and
go one way to Mars and not ever come back.
And that's natural, most people spend
their entire life living in the same 50,
60 mile radius from the area
where they were born and raised.
So, naturally, there's a small
number of people who are interested
in uprooting themselves and
going and living someplace else.
Of that small percentage, there's still
a smaller percentage of people who
are capable of doing that, or suitable.
They've got a reasonable education,
and they're healthy, and
they would be accepted into consideration.
Of that small percentage of a percentage,
there's another small percentage of
people who are very capable of doing it.
They can form high performing teams,
they can work collaboratively.
It's not about their ego,
it's about they success of the mission,
they have the right focus.
And then of that tiny percentage,
there's a small a percentage of people
who would riff, why are they doing this?
Every day would be fascinating adventure.
It would be just, everything that
they could want to be able to live in
that kind of environment, subject to
all of the risks that it entails.
And I think I'm one of those people.
So, I think I have got a responsibility
to put myself out there and try.
>> That's incredible,
absolutely incredible.
Peter, what I might do at this point is I
might ask all of the candidates to come up
and join us, and we'll actually shift
over to a discussion table over here.
>> Sounds good.
>> Cuz I would love to hear what
the compulsions to the others could
be, as well.
But thank you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right, so I might
Jump straight off, one of the things
that you said just then, Peter, as well.
What does everyone think
about in terms of risk?
Cuz obviously people ask the question,
why would you accept such
an extraordinary risk?
What was the compulsion to be involved and
take that risk?
>> For me,
it's a simple risk reward balance.
There's a certain amount
of risk to living on earth.
A certain amount of reward for that,
that everyone considers
an acceptable tradeoff, right?
Going to Mars, yeah,
there's all this risk.
But the reward is also so
unimaginably high of getting
to change the human condition
that I don't even care.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Don't even care, brilliant.
>> Do you wanna go by one-by-one?
>> We can just jump in.
Let's just have a chat.
>> But real quick, risk, fear,
it's not something I constantly think.
A lot of people ask me,
you're not afraid of going to Mars?
And I'm not.
I'm not afraid of getting
on that rocket or landing.
My biggest fear is not trying.
Not making it.
Not myself, personally, but
if anything were to happen to the plan
where we don't get the funding and
Mars One gets cancelled and
we have to wait another 30, 40,
50 years to get humans out of this planet,
that is fear, that is the biggest risk.
>> Yeah, that was deep.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And for me, it's not about the risk.
Because through all of my
experience inside the military,
outside the military, every risk
that we come up against, there's
a way to mitigate it to make it less
of a risk and maybe not even a hazard.
So everything that's about going to Mars,
making the food or
growing the food, producing the water,
keeping air, just landing there or
surviving the trip through space,
we have ways to reduce the risks,
even if it just means
surrounding ourself with poo.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Whatever works.
>> Well, that's the same driver for me.
When I first learned about Mars One and
considered the plan,
I'd liked the structure of the idea.
The structure of the mission.
That it was based, and
it's a direct descendant from Dr.
Robert Zubrin's plan,
20 year old, vetted by NASA plan.
Let's use technology that we have today,
chemical rockets, let's use long throw,
fire the rocket and
drift to Mars technology.
Let's use lander technology that
we've been testing and working on.
Let's use the type of life support
systems that we've been testing for
years on the ISS.
All of this is stuff that we know how
to do, and the great simplification
was let's eliminate the complexity
of trying to come back.
So I thought the mission
parameters were spot on.
It was a good idea, it was the right idea.
The added benefit that there's constant
communication meant that there's always
connection back to Earth.
I don't think the first 4,
even though we might be isolated for
26 months,
that we're ever gonna feel alone.
>> It's an interesting concept where a lot
of people sort of asked Michael Collins,
who was in the command module during
Apollo 11, if he ever felt alone.
And he answered that,
he said he felt isolated cuz he was,
at the time, the most isolated
human being in the solar system.
But he never felt alone,
because he was being continuously hassled
by mission support and ground control,
who were on the radio to them
all the time, checking in.
And the only respite and quiet he got was
on the dark side of the moon because they
couldn't get through to him.
>> Right.
>> So it's an interesting concept between
being alone and feeling isolated.
>> Right.
>> Do any of you have
any thoughts on that?
>> I love the idea of
our self-sufficiency.
That's what will make
this mission succeed.
Find the right people,
teach them what they need to know.
And the right people are those
who are adaptive, creative,
who focus on solving the problems.
We don't know what we're gonna face there,
but
we do know that we're going to
have to keep ourselves alive.
We'll have a limited amount of materials.
And we'll have to use that to
sustain ourselves to handle whatever
situation arises.
That really appeals to me.
>> So it's interesting,
we had a Mars One meetup very recently.
There was about 20 candidates
who were there and
we ran team building
activities during that.
And I was running the team building and
I sent them the challenge and I
explained that, again, MacGyver has three
very clear parameters that are involved.
It's a challenge to be completed,
a set list of resources, and
fixed amount of time to do it.
And much of the challenges that we would
have living on Mars would probably be
MacGyver type challenges
of what do we have?
What do we need to do, and
how long do we have to do it?
So I guess how much experience have you
guys had in those sorta challenges?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Right now,
we mentioned that we're living in an RV.
It's one of the tow behinds, and we're
planning on living in it permanently.
Now I lived in it alone
before coming to Boston.
I lived in it eight or nine months,
and then towed it all the way here.
>> In Arizona?
>> El Paso, Texas.
>> Texas.
>> Yeah, and-
>> Warmer than here.
>> Slightly, it did get below freezing but
because I was living in it,
had no problems with it.
When we got here last year,
we put it in storage and it got cold.
We had pipes crack.
Little bits of damage here and there and
we have been going through fixing that.
We hook it up.
We turn the water on.
And there's water flowing-
>> [NOISE] [LAUGH]
>> There's water flowing under the kitchen
sink, under the bathroom sink, the
shower's leaking, the toilet has a leak.
There's leaking in the plumbing
underneath the RV.
So we have to get all that fixed.
And on top of that, we have to make
sure that when it does get cold here,
our pipes aren't gonna freeze again.
And right now, we're waiting on a part for
the toilets, so
the toilet-
>> [CROSSTALK] You mean you're not gonna
make it out of paperclips and-
>> [LAUGH]
>> We don't have a 3D printer yet.
>> We have to use what works.
But right now, we have a jug of
water that sits in the bathroom.
And we fill it up each day so
that we can flush the toilet.
>> Excellent.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So we're gonna-
>> It's practice.
>> We're gonna be setting you to on
actually fixing toilets on Mars.
>> [LAUGH]
>> If that's all it takes,
then send me to Mars.
>> I don't know how many
general people know.
But the toilet is arguably one of
the most complex pieces of equipment on
a spacecraft.
>> Right.
>> So I'm glad you two are getting in
practice-
>> [CROSSTALK] None of this is
going on the walls.
>> Plumbing is very important.
>> Thank goodness there's gravity on Mars.
>> It helps.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Yeah.
>> Make sure it all flows downhill.
>> Do you all know about
the Apollo 10 floater?
>> Yes.
>> What?
>> Well, the transcripts of the Apollo
10 floater is hilarious to read.
For anyone that isn't aware, the Apollo
module didn't have actual toilets,
it just had plastic bags.
Has anyone here ever
pooped in a plastic bag?
>> This might be a good conversation for-
>> I wouldn't recommend it.
Yeah, let's talk about it later.
It's not good.
>> [LAUGH] So, obviously,
a whole variety of different challenges.
We've talked about relationships,
we've talked about all this.
Is there something that you're all
specifically excited about living on Mars,
in terms of a day-to-day type thing,
an opportunity that you'll have
living on Mars that you might not
ever have here living on Earth?
>> I wanna see the stars.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I wanna see what they-
>> I wanna float in zero gravity.
>> [LAUGH] One of the things that I've
consistently said that I wanna take to
Mars, and some people look at me strange,
is when I go to Mars, I want a shovel.
>> A shovel.
>> A shovel, I'm not an archaeologist,
I'm not going to be out there digging for
life.
I just want to dig,
see what's down there, and build from it.
We have research going on, talking about
building bricks out of moon dust and
martian dust, and
I wanna be a part of that.
>> So, at first, kind of,
martian brick builder?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, awesome.
>> Well,
our goal will be to be self-sustaining.
And to do that, not only will we have
to be able to grow our own food, but
we'll have to be able to create
our own protective habitats.
As wonderful as these habitats are,
they're significantly unprotected.
Mars doesn't have a thick atmosphere to
protect us from small objects falling
on our heads at great speed and
with great force.
So, at some point, we're gonna
have to create habitats that are,
not only comfortable, and secure, and
safe, but protected from the dangers
until such time that Mars can provide
those kinds of protection itself.
>> I actually apologize,
I've put this on the wrong slide, but
if you have a look on the next one,
>> There you go.
>> One of the things that Mars once talked
about for quite some time is covering
with about five meters of soil, which is,
I don't even know how many feet that is.
>> Five meters is a lot, yeah.
>> We need like about a meter or
so for radiation.
>> About 15.
>> 15 feet, okay, so
a bit of protection there, but obviously,
having larger habitats would be-
>> Actually, I don't know if you noticed,
it's kind of way in the back there.
But all the way to the right,
there's a structure that looks like
it's built out of bricks that's hollow.
So that is the eventual goal, to not-
>> There's a pointer, use the pointer.
>> A pointer, my God.
[LAUGH]
>> Magic.
>> Right there,
there's a little building right there.
It's cute little building.
So, yeah, that is actually part of
the goal of being self-sufficient.
>> Or tests.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Before I forget,
did you not get the memo that
we're eating crickets on Mars?
>> Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Yeah. [LAUGH] >> So,
I do the thing about vegan-
>> Well, you said vegan diet.
>> But I try not to like, yeah, crickets.
Who's up for cockroaches for breakfast?
>> [LAUGH]
>> Wow.
>> [LAUGH]
>> They're ground up into
burgers and stuff.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Cockroach burgers.
>> Okay.
>> Meal worms, come on, meal worms.
>> Meal worms.
>> Has anyone here tried a cricket,
a fried cricket, or a meal worm, or
anything like that?
>> Yes.
>> How did you find them?
>> I see a couple of hands.
>> Crunchy.
>> They're actually not that bad.
Culturally, we've seen we
have a problem with insects,
and things like that here in the west.
>> But you eat lobsters,
those are giant sea bugs.
[LAUGH]
>> It can't be worse than hot dogs,
either, it's just protein ground up.
>> I do not eat your food here.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I love it.
>> [LAUGH] It's koalas and
kangaroos all the way for me.
>> [LAUGH] Stop.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Should we open it for questions?
>> Yeah, that would be fantastic,
I'm sure there's a mountain of questions.
>> Up here?
>> Just quickly, folks,
we've got two microphones that are gonna
be running up and down on the aisles here.
Please raise your hands,
please don't call anything out.
We're gonna be recording
all of this tonight,
and it's really important that all of the
audio goes through an amplified device, so
that we can actually hear
you on the final recording.
So, where's our first question?
>> Okay, our first question's
over to your right, hi.
>> When do you find out when the final 24
and then the final 4 are gonna be chosen?
>> That is all dependent on how much and
when Mars One receives funding
to begin the next round.
They have what they're going to
do to narrow down the selection
from 100 to 24 planned, but
they need funding for it.
Right now, they are hoping to get
the funding secured to start it next year.
>> All right,
your next question's right here.
>> Hi, thank you,
your stories are excellent, I love it.
>> Thank you.
>> I heard that it cost $1
billion to go to Mars, and
it was my impression that only
rich people were gonna go.
So I was wondering if you guys had to pay
anything to be a part of the program,
or how is it gonna be funded?
>> There's probably two stories that
have blended together with this one.
The total cost for the first mission that
we're talking about is $6 billion US.
Are any of you millionaires?
>> No.
>> Not yet, no.
>> Not that I'm aware of.
>> Not that I ever will.
>> What has been talked about very
recently is Elon Musk's plan to be sending
100 people to Mars at a time.
His eventual goal is to have the cost
of a return ticket to Mars and
back down to about the median
cost of a house here in the US.
But one thing that was proposed early
on was that it would cost roughly half
a million dollars US to buy that ticket or
more to be on the first crews.
In my case, I'm not sure what
it costs here in the US, but
in Australia, it costs about
$38 Australian for me to apply.
And that was the cost of someone
to review my application,
which had taken me three days to write.
I don't know what it works
out to exactly in US dollars.
>> 15.
>> It was about 15.
>> It's probably about 30 cents.
>> [LAUGH]
>> It was a very nominal cost to apply.
We don't have to buy any of
the Mars One merchandise,
we don't have to make any
financial contributions.
The only thing that is required
is our continued interest and
our compliance, our eligibility.
>> Next question,
in the center to your right.
>> Hi, I was wondering if you guys have
given any thought to how you think
the social fabric might evolve over time.
You're going to a place, it's essentially,
you're gonna be a small family, and
then maybe a small town at some
point in the years to come.
It's gonna be very different from living
in a country with millions of people.
And how far you see yourselves going
off the reservation with everything
from social customs, to politics and
governance, to beliefs, what have you?
>> I think, actually,
the best kind of analogy for
what that might look like is like early
settlements in the US, for example,
where it was a very small number of
people kind of starting out from nothing.
And like you said, it starts as
kind of almost a family unit, and
then it gets to be a bigger family,
and a bigger family.
And then, eventually, at some point,
there's some critical mass of people,
where it's like a really small town
where everybody knows each other, and
everybody's friends, ideally,
depending on who they pick.
>> [LAUGH].
>> And I don't know,
maybe another analogy would be,
being in school when you're a young kid,
and
you go to a really small kindergarten
where you know everybody.
And then, eventually, you end up at
a college with thousands of people,
and you know only the people
who you interact with.
Probably will kind of unfold
in some kind of organic
way in that we'll experience
kind of like that, but
in terms of what the actual fabric
will be, that's kind of up to us.
We can pretty much do whatever we
want in terms of creating rules,
and standards, and determining how we
interact there's,
it's kind of all up to us.
>> It's a running discussion among
the candidates, and it's something that
Mars One is allowing the 24 candidates to
decide what the structure's gonna be like.
>> Knowing that we're also going to
be heavily dependent on Earth for
support for a considerable amount of time,
we can't imagine that we're going
to veer wildly off in a direction.
We're gonna be maintained,
we've been asked,
are you going to escape the worst things
of human society and human culture?
We're people, we're humans.
We're taking with us everything that
we are, and we're just going to,
the first priority will be survival and
safety, and
then as we gain confidence through
those experiences then we can start
pushing out into more areas
of cultural complexity.
>> Then maybe we wanna also just,
maybe we wanna not start using money.
>> Right.
>> Or, you know, I don't know,-
>> What would it even mean?
I mean-
>> Right.
>> You've got four people, eight people,
12 people, what does that?
I mean, exactly.
>> Right, and you know, when there gets
to be enough people to form a government,
what does that look like?
>> Right.
>> Ideally, we take the best of,
what you said about kind of
escaping the worst of humanity.
>> How about, how about this one-
>> You know, we wanna take the best.
>> What do you do with
the person who has died?
Do you bury them, or do you reuse
all of those precious resources?
That's a complex,
[LAUGH] that's a tough question to answer.
>> [LAUGH]
>> If you ask some of the seven year olds
that I go and speak to, they say eat them.
>> Wise seven year olds.
>> Not even joking.
Like multiple, half a dozen kids over
the last three years all saying,
are you gonna eat them?
Like, really excited.
It's terrible.
>> [LAUGH]
>> That's why we're not bringing kids.
>> We need to keep an eye out for
those candidates.
>> [LAUGH] Yeah.
>> Man.
>> All right, we have one question
over here, right in the middle.
Hi, you've mentioned about all the round
that you have to go
through to get through.
Like what are the tasks that you
have to accomplish, and how do
they evaluate you, like psychologically,
and how you perform the task?
Most of what Dr. Novocraft,
the head of the selection committee,
looks at where this is psychological.
Because, as has been said, the hardest
part about going and staying into space,
landing on other planets, setting up
colony there is the human aspect of it.
We can fix all the technology,
we can grow food anywhere,
we can recycle water, or
get new water almost anywhere,
but we can't change how someone is.
So, with all of the rounds of selection,
it's going to be mostly psychological.
The first thing that we had to do
that really was psychological was
a motivation letter with our application.
It was what, up to 5,000 characters?
>> 5,000 words, yeah.
>> Yeah, motivation letter,
which the selection committee reviewed.
Then we had the medical fitness,
was all physical.
There was no psychological
evaluation with it.
Then we had the interview with Novocraft,
which he and the rest of the selection
committee reviewed, and that's how they
selected who was moving into the 100, and
it was all about psychology, how we
thought about what the mission meant?
How we thought about how
we're part of the mission?
>> And-
>> This primarily the psychology side
of things was primarily looking at
how we worked together in teams,
and what our motivations were.
So, one of the questions that I was given,
and
there were some variation amongst
the interviews as to which questions were
asked, but the one that I've heard
quite commonly is describe a time when
you worked together in a team, and
if you turn around and say, well,
I worked together in a team where I took
the lead on this, where we were sort of
suggesting these different things, and
I showed the team what we needed to do,
and then I worked together with
them in order to do this stuff.
The common words that's coming
through all the way there is I.
Whereas if you were describing,
well, we work together,
we carried this person out,
in order to get them to an ambulance.
We made sure that everyone was okay.
If you're using the word we,
it's showing the shift in your
focus is not towards the self,
it's towards the team, and that was one of
the big sort of aspects of that question.
The one that I'm pretty sure all
of us got as the last question
was if you had the opportunity
to come back would you take it?
I don't think anyone said yes to
that that's still in the program.
>> I didn't say no.
>> I also didn't say no, but yeah.
>> The question was, if you, say you've
been on Mars for a year or two years,
and we have the capability to bring
you back, would you come back?
And pretty much anybody
who told Novocraft yes,
I wanted to come back, they were
probably selected out at that point, but
like he says, I didn't say no.
What I said was, well I don't
wanna leave my team behind, but
if at that point we have
a self-sustaining colony that
I'm not needed there, I would like
to leave there, and go out farther.
I want to go to Europa or Pluto, I want
to keep going, I don't wanna go back.
>> The idea of the focus on the team,
we understand will be a significant
component to the next
rounds of selections.
That we'll be able to self-select into
teams and that the team will be subject to
a series of challenges that will require
the entire participation of the team.
I think Dr. Craft has already demonstrated
a tremendous amount of expertise in,
if we look at the time that we
spent in Los Angeles a few weeks
ago, 18 of us or so, coming together
from a number of countries,
a wide variety of ages and
backgrounds, and we just jelled.
We had such a great time getting to know
one another and working together, and
what's the likelihood that you're gonna
meet more than a dozen total strangers,
and feel comfortable,
and connected to them in a very rapid,
very short time, very rapidly.
I think that shows the type of-
>> That's exactly how I felt about
this training.
>> Yeah.
>> [LAUGH]
>> I think it demonstrates the validity of
the process Dr. Craft is using,
to identify people who can participate
in the program, and
who'd be successful in it.
>> And if you remember, what was the movie
with Bruce Willis and the asteroid?
>> Armageddon.
>> Armageddon?
>> Armageddon, if you remember Armageddon,
you had the psychological interview where
they had these big, tough Workers crying,
crafted plans and interview,
similar to that for us [LAUGH].
>> One of the challenges was that,
once we're in one of those isolation
pods, the toilet is gonna break
halfway through our stay there.
And one of the challenges, is for
us to figure out how to fix that problem,
because we can't open the windows.
We can't go anywhere.
>> [LAUGH]
>> It
always comes down to the pool doesn't it.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Always.
>> Yeah.
>> It's an interesting one that feeds
back into the other question about,
whether or not you would come back.
Eliza said, I didn't say no straight out.
I turned around, and said if I had
spent ten years trying to get to Mars,
if I'd spent ten years training and
preparing, and
all these sort of different things,
I would hope that I would stay.
But, at the same time, I left the British
commandos about three years before,
where we had all these
young guys who were 18,
19, fit as fiddles, like,
now we're dead set, like
the Royal Marine Commanders is the longest
infantry training course in the world.
It's eight months of just grinding hell.
And we had quite a few of these guys,
going home after the first month.
They were dead set on the first day,
I'm gonna go all the way through.
I'm gonna be an original.
I'm so determined, and I think the
learning thing that I got from all of that
was, until you were truly tested,
you don't know if its suit you.
And so, by being out we would
create those horrible situations,
where you have a pressure breach, and
at the same time the toilet breaks,
and you have to make a decision
which one's more life threatening.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Definitely the toilet.
>> Definitely the toilet
>> [LAUGH]
>> But, until you've been sleep deprived
for four or five days, and had one
challenge thrown at you after another,
after another, after another,
you don't really know what you're made of.
And I think the experiences that many of
us have had, is the you are made of so
much more than you think you are.
You just don't know,
until you're tested and challenged.
So, I was honest with Dr.
Kraft when I said, I don't know whether or
not living on, I would accept that lift.
Until I was truly living on Mars.
Until I was actually experiencing it,
there's no way for me to say for
certain, no, I would not get on
that spacecraft to come back,
it's not until you're truly challenged,
and
I'm hoping that he really punish us,
for quite a long period of time.
>> [CROSSTALK]
>> Just promise that by the time we get to
Mars, we will be so
relieved to not have these tests.
>> Yes.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Next question in the front row.
>> My father told me that,
there might be some way to create
plants in a stable atmosphere on Mars.
I was wondering how long that would take,
if it would be easy, and
if it will happen in any of the lifetimes
that I can see in front of me?
>> Can I grab this one?
>> Go ahead.
>> Just because,
I've literally just been at the
International Astronomical Conference in
Guadalajara, where Elon Musk
made his huge announcement.
At the same time, an Australian
researcher that I know very well,
was actually presenting on how easy it
would be to potentially grow plants,
in the martian atmosphere.
And when I say the martian atmosphere,
I don't mean planting trees, and
things and
that in the exposed in the environment.
I'm talking about sucking
up that atmosphere,
that highly enriched carbon
dioxide environment,
pressurizing it to a reasonable pressure
that humans would be able to walk into.
They wouldn't be able to breathe it,
but it would be above the point,
where our blood would boil,
if we walked in there.
And plants would thrive
in that environment.
We'd need to add a little bit of oxygen
in, because plants have a cycle, where
they absorb carbon dioxide during the day,
and then they exhale during the night,
so you need that balance between carbon
dioxide and oxygen at the same time.
But, plants would actually thrive
in a compressed martian atmosphere.
So, growing plants on Mars is potentially
not gonna be that difficult at all.
We have to be concerned about giving them
enough energy in terms of light, and
giving them the correct frequencies,
so that they'll grow.
But, in the environment, and
we're talking about on Mars,
it's certainly less challenging than
growing things on the space station,
with plants don't know which way is up,
and which way is down.
There is still a gravitational direction.
And we can used that martian environment
that they'll be able to breathe
that carbon dioxide, and
grow much more effectively in a normal
air environment here on Earth.
So yes, we can do it, and it would
probably be easier to grow things on Mars,
than it would be to grow
them here on Earth.
Excellent.
>> All right, we have our last question
in the middle all the way in the back.
>> The last one, okay.
>> No pressure.
>> Yeah, no pressure.
>> [LAUGH]
>> All right cool.
This is more like a personal question,
you know,
it's not like a scientific question,
it's more like personal.
You all guys have families, and
you have friends, everything.
Like Peter for example,
you have kids, children.
I just want to know, how you guys are
going to be able to communicate with them?
Are you going to have Skype calls,
something like that?
I just want to know,
the relationship is going to involve,
maybe to a higher step, or a lower
step I want to know how it's gonna be.
How would you guys are going to
communicate with your family,
your friends, or I don't know.
>> Well, the trick with this,
is there's a time delay.
What is it,
like a half an hour [CROSSTALK]?
>> 4 to 20 minutes for each one.
>> Yeah.
Not even close.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So, we can email, and
send video messages, and kind of many
of the same things that we do here.
But, the challenge is kinda conversing.
So, any of us could make a video greeting,
and send it to any one and vice versa.
But, you can't sort of sit, and have
a conversation like you do over Skype.
Maybe in the best case scenario,
when the Earth and
Mars are closest, you could have
a really weird conversation,
where you say something
every four minutes.
>> [LAUGH]
>> But that's as close as we can get.
Otherwise, we have the whole wide
world of communication open to us,
but in this kinda weird way,
that we're not really used to.
So, it's like,,
it's gonna be really different.
It's gonna be a barrier
that is there forever,
that we can't interact with
people on Earth in this way,
that we're so very useful.
But, in other sense
everything else is the same.
Right.
>> You can imagine putting
yourself back 200, or so
years, when you had to write a letter.
And it had to be carried, and it took
three months before you got a response.
From somebody who had gone
off to another country.
So, it's not that dramatic.
>> That's a really good point.
>> But, it's the same kind of feel.
It is, you put your thoughts down
into some form of communication, and
send it off.
And then wait patiently for a response.
And so there's that,
you can see that it's exciting.
There's you've got mail now
means something different.
[LAUGH] On the other hand it's
gonna be very difficult to
maintain the same kind of connections.
They will have to change.
We won't be here.
We won't be able to be next to our loved
ones at important events in their lives.
And the way we're gonna learn about it and
experience those events will be just
a small fraction of the bandwidth
that we're use to being
face to face with people.
These are the costs that come with
this mission, it's rolled up and
part of the package.
And I think we all accept that our
lives will change dramatically
in this manner and we accept that.
>> But we won't be leaving
all of our family behind.
Before we leave to go to Mars,
we're going to spend ten years or so
training with four other people as
other teams of four are also training,
and those people are going
to be our family.
So we're leaving some of our family
on Earth, which we'll have limited
communication with, but we're still going
to Mars with three members of our family.
>> One of the interesting experiences I've
had during the last six months is actually
getting a bit of a taste for that delayed
communication side of things in that
I'm hopping around all around the world in
different time zones, different places and
trying to organize a time to Skype
someone is next to impossible.
So what I've actually figured out now,
one of my very best friends and
I do is that we pre-record video messages,
not video messages, audio messages.
So to set up a video message, you have to
sit down, you have to look at a camera,
lots of stuff.
I can be walking from
one place to another,
I will get a message from my friend
in Ireland and I can sit there and
very quickly record a five minute message
of what I've been doing, all those sorts
of things, and she will hear it whenever
she wakes up like on whatever time zone.
And so that idea of rather than instant
messaging, but taking a little bit longer
to record something and
someone gets it on a slight delay.
I have that experience every few days of,
I've got mail, I've got a new message.
>> [LAUGH]
>> It's like
technology has come full circle.
>> You sit down and you listen to it,
and you're like, this is extraordinary.
And yeah, it's come full circle, so.
>> Great, well wonderful.
Please join me in giving a huge
hand to these five candidates.
>> [APPLAUSE]
