The Dutch company Mars One has selected 100 candidates who will compete for a one-way ticket to the Red Planet.
The 50 men and 50 women were narrowed down from a pool of more than 200,000 applicants, the company said in a news release Monday.
The lucky 100 will be further winnowed down to only 24 though a reality TV-style competition, which could be aired internationally.
Candidates in this round “will participate in group challenges that demonstrate their suitability to become one of the first humans on Mars, and will be interviewed,” according to the company’s site.
“Being one of the best individual candidates does not automatically make you the greatest team player, so I look forward to seeing how the candidates progress and work together in the upcoming challenges,” chief medical officer Dr. Norbert Kraft said in a statement.
The final 24 will be divided into six crews of four each. Mars One hopes to launch a new crew every two years, starting in 2024. The goal? To colonize the Red Planet.
But there are doubts about the project. An MIT study published in 2014 determined that explorers could expect to survive no longer than 68 days using current technology – and that’s assuming they’re successful at landing on the planet in the first place.
Still, as Alison Rigby, one of the final 100, told CNN: “Pioneers are always ridiculed, but I am doing this for something better, which will hopefully benefit more people than just staying at home and keeping my mum happy.”
This article originally appeared on People.com.
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