Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp holds a press conference to announce
the launch of astronaut selection for a Mars space mission
project, in New York, April 22, 2013. Mars One is a non-profit
organization that aims to establish a permanent human settlement
on Mars in 2023 through the integration of existing, readily
available technology that can be purchased from the global
private space industry. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)
One in four of the 202,586 applicants for the one-way trip are
Americans, said Mars One, the non-profit group which initiated
its hunt for "would-be Mars settlers" in April.      The project
has the support of Gerard 't Hooft, the Dutch joint winner of
the Nobel prize for physics in 1999.  "The long term aim is to
have a lasting colony," said 't Hooft in New York in April.
"This expansion will not be easy. How soon that will be
accomplished is anyone's guess."  Space agencies including NASA
have expressed skepticism about the viability of Lansdorp's
plan, saying the technology to estab