Humans to travel to Mars? First humans to depart in 2024.

Mars One first mission planned for 2018:  Mars One will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. Unmanned missions will prepare a habitable living environment. Crews of four will depart every two years, starting in 2023 or 2024. Our first unmanned spacecraft will land on Mars in 2018. Mars One website: http://www.mars-one.com/en/

Can I apply to become an astronaut?-It is currently not possible to apply. The closing date of this first online astronaut application round was 31 August 2013.  Mars One will start new selection programs regularly, so you will have the possibility to apply for subsequent astronaut selection programs.

If you want to stay up to date, you can sign up for the Mars One Newsletter, and receive all Mars One updates.

View these application videos: https://applicants.mars-one.com/

Best Applications for a one-way trip to Mars: National Geographic’s Picks

Mars One will conduct a global search to find the best candidates for the first human mission to Mars. The combined skill set of each astronaut team member must cover a very wide range of disciplines. The astronauts must be intelligent, creative, psychologically stable and physically healthy. On this page, Mars One offers a brief introduction to the basics of our astronaut selection process.

Five Key Characteristics of an Astronaut:

• Resiliency
• Adaptability
• Curiosity
• Ability to Trust
• Creativity / Resourcefulness

Age requirements , physical and medical requirements, country of origin and language (English will be official language) area all part of the selection process.

Source: http://www.mars-one.com/en/faq-en/21-faq-selection/251-do-i-qualify-to-apply

Here is a list of Frequently Asked Questions

200,000 would like to live on Mars!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4tgkyUBkbY

If you have ambitions of being one of the first people on Mars, listen up: A Dutch company says it is moving along with its plan to send four lucky Earthlings to colonize the Red Planet. The catch: They won’t ever come back.

The Mars One foundation announced Tuesday that it has secured lead suppliers for an unmanned mission launching in 2018, which involves a robotic lander and a communications satellite. Lockheed Martin has been contracted to study building the lander, and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. will develop a concept study for the satellite, Mars One said.
This first mission will demonstrate technology that would be involved in a permanent human settlement on Mars. If all goes well — and that’s still very much an “if” — the first pioneers could land on Mars in 2025.
Enthusiasm has been growing since the project’s first big announcement in April.

• More than 200,000 people have signed up to be prospective astronauts, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp said in Washington on Tuesday.

Apparently, they’re OK with living out the rest of their lives on Mars.

• The technology for a return flight doesn’t exist
• There’s no Kennedy Space Center launch pad over there
• Having a one-way trip greatly reduces costs, the company has said.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/10/tech/innovation/mars-one-plan/index.html?iid=article_sidebar