Space exploration volunteers wanted (The catch? It’s a one-way ticket)
It is often described as “the final frontier”, and not just by those who follow the adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise. The phrase, though, may take an even more literal meaning for those exploring space in the future.
The next generation of astronauts may hurtle through the cosmos for years or decades on a mission to explore distant planets and stars – and never return.
A senior Nasa official has told the Guardian that the world’s space agencies, or the commercial firms that may eventually succeed them, could issue one-way tickets to space, with the travellers accepting that they would not come back.
The prospect of spending years cooped in a spacecraft would not deter people from applying, he said.
“You would find no shortage of volunteers,” said John Olson, Nasa’s director of exploration systems integration. “It’s really no different than the pioneering spirit of many in past history, who took the one-way trip across the ocean, or the trip out west across the United Stat