In a decade, Carleton grad Andrew Rader may become a household name. He could be living on Mars.
Rader, a 34-year-old professor of space engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has applied to be part of the Mars One project.
The program aims to send humans to Mars as early as 2024 in hopes of establishing a human colony, according to the Mars One website.
“The basic idea is that you would send your base first, and then send backup supplies and people to live in a base you already established on Mars robotically,” Rader said.
Four people would embark on the journey every two years, and would include approximately six to nine months of travel time, he said.
Rader said his time at Carleton helped open his eyes to the concept of traveling in outer space.
“I’ve always been interested in space, but I never thought I would actually be someone to go there, until I was at university in Carleton doing aerospace engineering,” he said. “I looked around the room and thought ‘Wait a minute, I’m doing this. I could maybe be someone who goes into space.’”
Signing up for the Mars One project comes with a slight hitch: there would be no scheduled return date as travel is the most difficult and expensive aspect of the mission.
Rader said that’s not a problem.
“If I had the opportunity to go, I’d go, but I’m also cognizant there are a lot of sacrifices you’d have to make,” he said. “Going to Mars beats bungee jumping, beats skydiving, and beats climbing Mount Everest.”
Rader said, though many people have frequently brought up the possibility of death or other accident as this is the first mission of its kind, he is not afraid. He said people who stay on Earth aren’t immortal either.
Mars One can only operate if it reaches its crowdfunding goal. Plans to continue the Mars One project may be delayed or even halted, if a significant amount of financial resources are not obtained.
“We have the technology, in terms of there are no scientific breakthroughs that need to happen to go to Mars,” Rader said.
