Mars One, a Netherlands-based non-profit company that hopes to deliver the first humans to the Red Planet by 2023, has issued a list of basic requirements for those willing to become Mars colony pioneers.

The most important criteria are to be at least 18 years old, to be intelligent, in good mental and physical health and to be dedicated to the project. Candidates will be subject to a prolonged televised selection process that will begin later this year.

"Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria," Norbert Kraft, Mars One's chief medical director and a former NASA researcher, said in a statement. "Now, we are more concerned with how well each astronaut works and lives with the others, in the long journey from Earth to Mars and for a lifetime of challenges ahead."

The first colonists will land on the Red Planed in April 2023. New members will arrive every two years after that. None of the Red planet pioneers, the company notes, will ever return to the Earth.

To cover the mission costs, about $6 billion, Mars One says it will launch a reality show, a sort of interplanetary reality show a la "Big Brother", and raise the needed funds by selling corporate sponsorships.

Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four astronauts on Mars. While this may seem like a daunting sum for a non-governmental entity, the company is confident it can raise the needed funds by selling corporate sponsorships.

While candidates for the Mars mission will be undergoing the selection process and the whole planet will be observing it on their TVs, Mars One will launch a communications satellite and a supply mission to Mars in 2016, then send a large rover to the Red Planet in 2018, according to the video.

The rover will find the most suitable site for the new Mars colony. After that in 2020 the company will send all necessary settlement components - habitat units, life-support equipment and another rover.

Mars One officials admit they have already approached a number of private spaceflight companies and secured one potential supplier for each colony component. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket which is still under development but expected to perform its first flight next year, is expected to deliver many components of the first colony to the Red Planet.

Source: Voice of Russia