In 1990's Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger had a simple directive to himself: "Get your ass to Mars." Now a Dutch company is promising to help real-world adventurers do just that.
The company, Mars One announced plans this week to establish a colony on Mars by 2023, and is about to begin looking for prospective Martian pioneers. The catch is that it will be a one-way ticket to the red planet.
While the requirements for Nasa's astronaut programme are demanding, assuring only the finest and fittest of humans will ever make it into space, Mars One is casting a wide net. Its requirements are resiliency, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust, creativity and resourcefulness.
What about the ability to fly a spaceship or solve unforeseen, unimaginable problems caused by being one of the first humans on an alien planet? Those, evidently, are skills that one picks up with time.
Mars One only asks that applicants be at least 18, speak English and do not have any pressing business on earth - ever again.
After submitting themselves to the selection process, the chosen astronauts will then be entered into a full-time training programme that will prepare them for their blast-off date in 2022. In the meantime, Mars One plans to send preparatory probes and rovers with supplies to the planet as early as 2016. The first group of four colonists will follow a few years later, with a new team of colonists arriving every two years after that.