{"id":64592,"date":"2015-02-25T12:09:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T17:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=64592"},"modified":"2020-08-25T11:26:32","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T15:26:32","slug":"ucf-students-are-mars-one-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-students-are-mars-one-finalists\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Students Among 100 Finalists to Live \u2013 and Die \u2013 on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"
If all goes according to plan, UCF graduate student George W. Hatcher will die on Mars.<\/p>\n
Hatcher is one of two 色花堂 doctoral students selected as finalists for a one-way mission to Mars.\u00a0The other, a 29-year-old pursuing his doctorate in computer science<\/a>, is Taranjeet Singh Bhatia.<\/p>\n Mars One, 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