{"id":11688,"date":"2015-02-26T13:49:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T18:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.cos.ucf.edu\/?p=11688"},"modified":"2015-02-26T13:49:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T18:49:28","slug":"cos-student-among-finalists-to-travel-to-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/cos-student-among-finalists-to-travel-to-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"COS Student Among Finalists to Travel to Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mars<\/a>If all goes according to plan, UCF graduate student George W. Hatcher<\/a> will live……and die on Mars.<\/p>\n

Hatcher, pursuing his doctorate in planetary sciences,\u00a0is one of two University of Central Florida doctoral students selected as finalists for a one-way mission to Mars.\u00a0 The other, a 29-year-old pursuing his doctorate in computer science, is Taranjeet Singh Bhatia.<\/p>\n

Mars One<\/a>, a not-for-profit foundation based in the Netherlands, plans to colonize Mars with a series of missions starting in 2024. More than 202,000 people applied to be colonists after the company issued a global call for applications in 2013. The list was winnowed to 660 in the second round, and a third round announced last week narrowed the pool to 100.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s plans call for six, four-person missions staggered two years apart, carrying a total of 24 astronauts. That means Hatcher and Bhatia each have a roughly one-in-four chance of being on one of those first colonists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was speechless for about the first five minutes after reading the email,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cThis has been a life goal of mine for as long as I can remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatcher, 35, decided he wanted to be an astronaut at age 3. He\u2019s built his life around that goal, earning a master\u2019s degree in aerospace engineering and taking a job with NASA as a flight controls engineer. For seven years, he helped repair, test and launch space shuttles.<\/p>\n

When the shuttle program was retired in 2011, Hatcher enrolled at UCF. He now splits his time pursuing his doctorate in planetary science while continuing to work as a NASA avionics engineer.<\/p>\n

He has twice applied for NASA\u2019s highly competitive Astronaut Corps. Some NASA colleagues have applied unsuccessfully a half-dozen times or more.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year that passes, it gets a little bit less likely that I\u2019ll be selected as an astronaut candidate with NASA,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cTo see an opportunity like [Mars One] come along, I definitely didn\u2019t want to pass it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

A manned mission to Mars \u2013 let alone a series of missions aimed at colonization \u2013 is an enormously complex and incredibly costly undertaking. Returning those astronauts to Earth would be so exponentially more difficult that Mars One doesn\u2019t even plan to try.<\/p>\n

Those selected \u2013 if they survive the 150- to 300-day trip \u2013 know they will almost certainly die there, 140 million miles from everything and everyone they have ever known. For Hatcher, that means leaving behind his wife and two young children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one-way aspect of it is the cost of the ticket,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cI would definitely prefer to return to Earth, unquestionably. But I\u2019m committed enough to human space exploration that I\u2019m willing to live out the rest of my life there indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatcher said he would not be willing to make the one-way trip if he didn\u2019t have a religious background and believe that he\u2019ll be reunited with his family and loved ones in an afterlife. His wife shares his Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed faith and supports his plan.<\/p>\n

The 100 remaining candidates will be tested to determine how suited they are to surviving the hardships of settling another planet. The tests will also focus on whether they can work together as a team.<\/p>\n

Those tests will determine the final pool of 24 colonists.<\/p>\n

The view the original article, please visit UCF Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If all goes according to plan, UCF graduate student George W. Hatcher will live……and die on Mars. Hatcher, pursuing his doctorate in planetary sciences,\u00a0is one of two University of Central Florida doctoral students selected as finalists for a one-way mission to Mars.\u00a0 The other, a 29-year-old pursuing his doctorate in computer science, is Taranjeet Singh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":11689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[38,40,13,14,15,28,29],"tags":[736,3457,3608,3611,3723],"class_list":["post-11688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-graduate-student-news","category-news","category-physics-departments","category-planetary-sciences","category-top-news","category-ucf-news","tag-college-of-sciences","tag-ucf","tag-ucf-physics","tag-ucf-planetary-sciences","tag-university-of-central-florida"],"yoast_head":"\nCOS Student Among Finalists to Travel to Mars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If all goes according to plan, UCF graduate student George W. 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