Grady Bolding of Great Bend is in the running for a trip to Mars. The 27-year-old man says he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be part of a colony on the Red Planet, even though it would mean never returning to Earth.
“It’s not every day you get an opportunity to go to another planet,” Bolding said in an application video. Posting that video online and undergoing a physical were the latest requirements of Mars One, a nonprofit foundation based in the Netherlands that plans to establish permanent human life on Mars. Using donations and by televising its mission for funding, the group hopes to launch as early as 2023.
More than 200,000 people originally applied for a chance to go. In December, the list was reduced to 1,058 candidates, and this month that number was reduced to 705 potential Mars settlers — 418 men and 287 women, with the following geographic breakdown: 313 from the Americas, 187 from Europe, 136 from Asia, 41 from Africa and 28 from Oceania.
Mars One Chief Medical Officer Norbert Kraft, MD, said the next step will be individual interviews conducted by the Mars One selection committee. About 50 candidates will be chosen to go through training.
“We’re incredibly excited to start the next phase of Round 2, where we begin to better understand our candidates who aspire to take such a daring trip,” Kraft said in a statement. “They will have to show their knowledge, intelligence, adaptability and personality.”
Mars One will reportedly start with unmanned missions in 2018, sending pods for a future base on Mars. Then crews of four will depart to establish the Martian colony. Existing technology has been used to design the missions.
Bolding is a Great Bend High School graduate who has returned here after earning a Bachelor of Science degree in theater from Kansas State University. He works part-time at Great Bend’s Brit Spaugh Zoo, where he greets people as they enter the Raptor Center.
Several friends have helped him in his effort to earn one of the final Mars One spots. Dusty and Debbie Jones helped him get the required physical, since he didn’t have health insurance at the time, Bolding said. The Marketing Department at Barton Community College created his video profile, which can now be seen online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtug4_K8ZYE.
Since he’s single, Bolding said he doesn’t worry about the prospect of never returning if he’s selected to go to Mars. The thought of having a chance and NOT taking it would be harder to live with.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said. “If I don’t do it, I won’t know what happens.”
Bolding notes that space exploration may be his destiny, since his birthday is May 4, or International Star Wars Days — as in “May the Fourth” Be with You.
“I like to rise to a challenge,” he says on his video. After talking about his sense of humor, his final words on the subject are, “I always felt like I was from another planet, and I thought this might be my chance to return to the stars.”