12 Chinese advance to next round selection for Mars One  

20余万人报名火星一号计划 6%报名者来自中国

(ECNS) – The Chinese have shown a great passion for living on the planet Mars. Of the 705 candidates who will progress to the next round of selection, 12 are from China, the Legal Evening News reported.

Suzanne Flinkenflogel, Mars One's director of communication, said in an interview that 705 candidates around the globe have passed the first selection and a medical review, including four women and eight men from China.

Mars One, a Netherlands-based non-profit organization, launched a mission in 2012 to set up a permanent human colony on Mars by 2025. It kicked off the application for its first residents in April 2013.

A total of over 200,000 people applied for the project, of which about 6 percent, or 12,000 were Chinese.

According to Flinkenflogel, there will be four rounds of selections, which include online screenings, individual interviews, and regional and global selections. The finalists, two men and two women who would get one-way tickets to Mars, will be announced in 2015.

The first batch of astronauts are to begin their flight on a SpaceX rocket in 2024 and land on Mars after seven months of travel.

The astronauts would receive intensive training in how to deal with an extreme environment, repair equipment and many other skills.

Possible challenges include strong radiation, drastic temperature drops at night, and getting along with each other. Communication with Earth may also be a problem as there's a lag of about 20-30 minutes.