Unites States millionaire, Dennis Tito is looking for a couple to send on a round trip to Mars in 2018. Tito reportedly paid £13 million in 2001 for a ticket to become the first private space tourist. The round trip to Mars will reportedly take 501 days, and project leaders are looking for a couple who have been married for a while, to ensure they will be able to withstand the annoyance of having someone else all up in their grill for 501 straight days.

Tito explains is that the orbital paths of Earth and Mars will be at their closest in 2018, which means that this mission needs to get organised, fast. The next time this will happen is in 2031.

The mission “will be a test of endurance and willpower as the man and woman will be in a zero-gravity confined space for more than one and a half years and will be solely responsible for maintaining the ship.”

Jane Poynter, a writer who spent two years living in Biosphere 2 – a land-based space simulation facility – recounted her experience of being stuck with other people in a small space for an extended period of time:

We had mood swings, there was depression … we broke into warring fractions. The idea that we have a man and a woman going on this mission is an important idea: they also are going to be a trusted, tested couple.

“Warring factions.” That’s going to be great.

[Source: BBC News, Aljazeera]