Two South Africans ready to become Martians
Mars One is a private Dutch spaceflight endeavour which aims to launch a colony on Mars and establish a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet. Funding for the project has come from crowd-sourcing, merchandise sales and TV rights.
Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One, told The Telegraph that "The large cut in candidates is an important step towards finding out who has the right stuff to go to Mars. These aspiring martians provide the world with a glimpse into who the modern day explorers will be."
From the initial 202 586 applicants wanting to go to Mars, 100 hopefuls were selected to proceed to the next round of the Mars One Astronaut Selection Process consisting of 50 men and 50 women with 39 from the Americas, 31 from Europe, 16 from Asia, 7 from Africa, and 7 from Oceania. From this group, 24 will be selected to go to Mars in 2024. Thereafter crews of four will depart for Mars every two years.
From the 7 selected from Africa, five are South Africans.
Adriana Rose Marais (photo by Janine Slabbert) and Kobus Vermeulen (photo by New Media Publishing) ready to potentially conquer the red planet.
Kobus Vermeulen and Adriana Marais, 2 of the 5 South Africans shortlisted to be part of the ambitious space programme joined The Complimentary Breakfast to talk about the pros and cons of leaving earth, the reality of potentially being left stranded and were put through a compatibility test to check that if they are selected, they will be okay to live together, until death do them part...
The five South Africans selected for the next round of the Mars One Astronaut Process are:
Divashen Govender, 23 - Science student at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
Edwin Samuel le Grange, 21 from Ellisras.
Kobus Vermeulen, 31, a business intelligence developer from Pretoria.
Adriana Rose Marais, 31, atheoretical physicist specialising in quantum biology from Durban
Alexandra Doyle, 29, a law graduate, currently residing in the UK.
