Five Britons have got onto a shortlist for a trip to Mars — from which they will probably never return.
They are part of a 100 person shortlist for the Mars One mission — a private trip by volunteers to Mars, which will be funded by a reality TV show — which has been whittled down from a list of 202,586 original applicants. The next round will see the contestants go through a training programme, with 40 people being chosen to eventually head to Mars.
The five Britons chosen include Maggie Lieu, a Birmingham PhD student who says that she would like to be the first person to have a baby on Mars. The other British people are Hannah Earnshaw, a 23-year-old Durham University PhD student; Ryan MacDonald, who is 21 and an Oxford University student; Alison Rigby, a 35-year-old science lab technician and Clare Weedon, a 27-year-old systems integration manager at Virgin Media.