And it really feels like space related efforts have gained a lot of momentum recently. The plan to capture an asteroid, to send a couple on a fly by mission to Mars, and now this. Even if it doesn't get fully pulled off, I feel like all of this is leading up to at least something.

As for going to Mars... I dunno. It would be a pretty hard life, but on the other hand, it's life on freaking Mars! And I'm pretty well suited to long term isolation, so that aspect of it would bother me very little. Hell, couldn't they just send a satellite over and supply the colony with an internet connection to earth? Imagine the revenues that would bring in, if your Mars colonists had their own facebooks and twitter feeds, youtube channel, and so on. People watch reality shows all the time, so this would practically pay for itself! Plus, with e-books, television, video games, there would be enough content to keep the colonists busy for their entire lives. And to be honest, video games, books, and tv take up most of my life already, so I may as well do it while living on an alien planet rather than in my house.

I wouldn't actually go, simply because it's just too inconceivable, but thinking about it logically I'm actually having extreme difficulty coming up with reasons why it would be a bad idea. It's a hard life, with unfathomable difficulties, and likely medical problems, but everyone gets health problems and dies eventually. Doing it because of Mars would just mean going a little earlier... But it would also mean living on forever in history books, people's minds, and just knowing that you accomplished something real.

I really hope this succeeds.