If Lt. Heidi Beemer has her way, she'll die on Mars. <\/p>\n
Not anytime soon, mind you. The 25-year-old Virginia Beach native wants a long life, but she wants to live it out as a colonist on the red planet. <\/p>\n
In December, Beemer got a little closer to that dream when she made the first cut of an international effort to start sending humans on a one-way trip to Mars beginning in 2024. As envisioned by Mars One, a nonprofit group based in the Netherlands, four colonists would arrive every two years after that, building a permanent settlement. <\/p>\n
\"It will be lonely for eight years, nine years,\" Beemer said in a phone interview from Kentucky, where she's stationed at Fort Campbell. She's applying for the mission outside of her Army service. \"But as the colony grows, there will be a new community. Jamestown that's something that throughout my entire life was, 'Hey, these people came, they left their families behind, they left everything that they knew to set up a new life, to push the frontiers.' If no one is willing to make those sacrifices, we'll never do it.\" <\/p>\n
Mars One estimates it will cost $6 billion for that first trip, and $4 billion for each subsequent one. Founders hope to fund them through public and private donations. <\/p>\n
Semi-finalists will begin interviews in the spring, Beemer said, and the next round of cuts will be announced in mid-summer. <\/p>\n
Beemer credits her father, a Navy veteran, for her lifelong desire to be an astronaut. <\/p>\n
\"I first really got interested in Mars in, I guess, '97 when the (Pathfinder) rover first landed on Mars,\" Beemer said. \"My dad gave me a newspaper article, and I thought it was the coolest thing.\" <\/p>\n
She wavered a bit in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while re-entering the atmosphere, killing all its crew. <\/p>\n
\"I thought, 'Oh, man, I really don't want to die,'\" Beemer said. \"'So I want to work for NASA and help other people get into space.'\" <\/p>\n
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