Mars One—a nonprofit group that is working to send humans on a one-way trip to Mars—recently announced its 100 finalists out of 200,000 original applicants. One of them is senior Laurel Kaye, a physics major from Long Island, N.Y. Kaye will go through the final round of the application this year to see if she will be one of 24 people chosen to be the first to colonize the Red Planet, in teams of four at a time starting in 2024. The Chronicle’s Georgia Parke sat down with Kaye to talk about her dream of going into space and the path that remains to get there.
The Chronicle: What first compelled you to apply? Did you originally see it going this far or was it a whim at first?
Laurel Kaye: I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut…. My friend actually shared [the application] with me on Facebook and that was how I first found out about it. The plan had been to go on to get a degree or a doctorate and then apply to NASA, but when I found out I started thinking about it, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like—why not? It seems like what I’ve always wanted to do.… I wasn’t expecting it, of course, because they said 200,000 people applied, so you can’t really have high expectations with those kinds of numbers. And they really took a long time in between. I submitted [the application] two summers ago, after my sophomore year, and then I didn’t find out [about the first round] until late January of last year. It was about six months or so after I had first submitted, so it came as a big shocker.
TC: What aspect of space travel interests you the most?
LK: For me, it’s the scientific discovery and that’s throughout the entire process. When you’re building the devices that get you from Point A to Point Mars—the last time NASA kicked off the space program, you had all sorts of things like all sorts of medicines, all sorts of medical technology, all sorts of firefighting technology, more advanced computer systems, so you get a lot of that and think that’s really exciting that we’re discovering things like that.
And I also just love the idea of new worlds. We don’t know much about it and trying to find out more about it, I love the aspect of unknown. We don’t know what we’re going to find there. We have all these rovers and things that take samples that are being brought back, we’re just using like asteroids that happen to make it to Earth. I just always love the stars—there’s something sort of romantic and appealing about seeing a huge starry sky, and then going there.
TC: What was the process of applying like? What have they asked you for?
LK: There’s a video, there’s a short description of yourself and then they had a series of essay questions and those questions were just experiences or challenges that you faced, experiences where you had to work in a team or just other experiences that pushed you or difficult times and how you got through them. The video itself asked three questions. It asked why you want to go to Mars, what your sense of humor is like and why you would be a good candidate.… Between the essays, the little self description and the video was all they went on in the first round.
The second round was a Skype interview. That was with the chief medical officer of the mission, Norbert Kraft. I was told to not let anyone know until this point what the questions were. They gave study materials and I had to learn a lot about Mars and about the mission…like atmospheric temperatures and the highs and lows of pressure depending on where you are and a lot of science. And they wanted you to learn how much oxygen life support machines were capable of...of course, they don’t have all these things built yet, but that’s their goal. I had to remember all these dates of previous Mars missions…. Now we have a much better sense of the timeline of when we’ve been sending things and which countries have been sending stuff. Then more personal questions about a specific challenge I had faced.
An interesting question was—Mars One is a one-way mission but he asked me, if they had built a rocket or if they had the means to take me back after getting there, would I go back?
TC: What did you say?
LK: I said no. I would definitely want to go back eventually if it was possible, but if I had worked for a decade or more and spent so much time trying to get there—again, it’s something I think is the coolest thing ever, to have people living on Mars—there’s no reason that I would want to turn around and go back straightaway.
TC: What type of person does it seem they are looking for? Or are they looking for as diverse a group of people as possible?
LK: I think it’s more [the diverse group]. In looking at the other people who are out there running, they have doctors, they have artists, they have writers. They do have a lot of tech-y people and science-y people, but at least 25 percent of the people are a little bit into different things and able to bring a different perspective to the project. I’m curious to see…once they pick the people who are actually fit and mentally capable and psychologically sound what that [group] will be composed of, whether that will be more tech-y people or even less. I think looking for interesting people and people that are capable.
TC: What’s next for you to get to the final round?
LK: They’ve been sort of vague about it, but what they said is that there’s going to be training now. There’s going to be physical training and mental training and a lot of teamwork and assessment. What they said is that a good individual, that’s something. But it’s really important if you’re living and working with three other people you need to get along with those people and work well with those people. It will be more challenges, whereas so far it’s been interviews and essays and videos… I don’t know what form that will take or when it will happen. I was told I would find out in the next couple of months more about it. It’s a little vague at the moment.
TC: Do you feel like the project has enough resources and support to make it really happen?
LK: I think they have a very ambitious timeline. I don’t know if it will happen in ten years. They’re going to send a lot of unmanned [missions], to send a lander and an orbiter. I think if I see that happen I’ll be more convinced about the timeline. I do think that it will happen eventually, though, in some form. I don’t think necessarily that it will be the same exact form as what they have because technology will change, people will change, budgets will change, so I think that it will look very different.
But this group has gotten much further than any group has before so far. I don’t know enough honestly about the economics of it all to really know exactly how it will all work, but I know that it’s sort of chancy. It has a lot of moving parts but I’m very hopeful for it.
TC: And once they have the set of people, I bet a lot more awareness will be raised for it and people can rally behind those names to get out there.
LK: That’s what I’m hoping for. One of the statistics they have is how much money the Olympics raised in a single day of viewing. If they had that sort of audience like watching the Olympics we could fund it, and if we send people into space, every single person across the world with a television will probably be watching it. So if they get to that point I think they’re covered. It’s just funding the technology until they’re at that point.
TC: What has been the reaction by your friends and family when they saw how far this has gotten for you?
LK: From my friends, complete enthusiasm. I was shocked by how enthusiastic they were. For me it was like, oh, I’m definitely going to apply to Mars, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. And they were so behind me, which was nice. Every time I’ve made it further and further they’ve all been really really happy.
My family started out very enthusiastic and now they’re definitely very happy that I’m happy but they’re starting to be worried just about the safety risks of it all, because it’s something that nobody has ever done before and there is a lot of unknown. But I don’t want to step foot on a space shuttle if it hasn’t been tested at least a half a thousand times.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.