These four people do not know each other and are unlikely to ever meet on Earth. They are united by the fact that all of them, among 202 thousand earthlings, applied for participation in a one-way flight to Mars.
Each team of colonialists consists of four people. The correspondent of "Russian Reporter" spoke with one such potential team about why they want to change their planet of residence.
Mars today is a dreary place. The sea of red sand, the surface is strewn with uneven boulders, broken by meteorites, covered with sand dunes, cut by the channels of nonexistent rivers, the sky is pink from dust storms, the average temperature is minus 50 degrees Celsius, sometimes minus 153. Turbulences, nicknamed dusty demons, constantly rise, day last only 39 minutes longer than on Earth, but a year is twice as long as on Earth.
On the planet's surface, you can find a pile of broken space equipment, somewhere the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity are still working. The latter recently discovered water in solid soil samples, and future colonizers will only need to heat the soil in order to drink and wash. Nothing more.
But neither the seven-month flight, nor life in an airless desert, nor the inability to return home scares 202,587 people who paid $ 16 to apply to participate in the Mars One non-profit initiative. The plan is as follows: in 2023, the first crew of four will start from Earth, fly to the Red Planet, land, settle and stay there until the end of their days.
Space Cossack nomad
Aleksey Palkin, a researcher at the Steppe Institute of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is a hefty fellow with gray hair cut to almost zero. Alexei falls out of the automatic lockers at the Kazan station, smiling broadly.
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Almost Captain America: a cool morning, but wearing only a camouflage shirt with a signal corps chevron and blood type, a camouflage jersey and ankle boots. With him is Professor Sergei Levykin, also in camouflage and also from the Institute of the Steppe - Doctor of Geographical Sciences Levykin is in charge of the department of nature management there.
Palkin walks out of the station building, the unshaven professor barely keeping up with him. Palkin is studying what has changed in the capital since his last visit. Examines the monument to the creators of the railway. The monument, he says, is wrong, everything is mixed up, and the city is full of bustle.
They reach the nearest eatery, take tea and sit down at a table. Alexey busily puts the sugar packets into his tunic pocket: he's on an expedition. There are still 9 hours of waiting for the plane ahead: the staff of the institute are going on an expedition to the North, the final destination is the Novosibirsk Islands.
- The landscape there looks like a Martian one, - laughs Palkin to the whole audience. - So this expedition is the first stage of my flight to Mars.
Palkin's chances of getting into the program are negligible, but he has no doubts that out of all 8197 Russians who applied, he will be chosen. Palkin simply says to himself: “I am a man. Not a Martian yet. And smiles. Born in Chelyabinsk in a family of rocket engineers, three years later the family moved to Zlatoust. I entered the Chelyabinsk pedagogue at the Faculty of History and Law, because in 1989 there was nowhere to study to become a lawyer in Chelyabinsk. Palkin became a doctor of legal sciences only twenty years later and does not regret: history and law stand at the junction.
He was not in the army even a day, he received a tunic (along with the rank of lieutenant) at the military department, and wears it on campaigns. But he has the uniform of the Orenburg Cossack army and a medal for organizing a paramilitary game in which difficult teenagers and employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs took part. Alexey was always engaged in teenagers: after university he was invited to work as the head of the committee on youth affairs in the administration of Zlatoust.
The young official became interested in philosophy, began to study geopolitics and in 97 went to Moscow, where he met the ideologist of Eurasianism, Alexander Dugin. Dugin was still without a beard at that time, he was sitting in the basement of the NBP he created together with Limonov and signed the book "Fundamentals of Geopolitics" to Palkin. Then Palkin taught at his native Chelyabinsk State University at the Faculty of Eurasia and the East, international relations and national security. But he left because of the reforms.
If you imagine the team of Martians in the form of four basic elements, then Palkin would be earth. He explains the evolution of his views: he used to be a Russian nationalist, then he realized that this is narrow and unusual for Russia, then Eurasianism, but now the next, even higher level is Russian cosmism and steppe studies. So he ended up at the Steppe Institute.
- The steppe, - Aleksey explains to me, - this is the basis of everything: here there was a Pugic uprising, and the Golden Horde, and nomads, and Cossacks.
Palkin speaks of the steppe with poetic inspiration: the culture of the steppe people is based on a cosmic worldview, the steppe is similar to its opposite - the sea. A nomad is a traveler crossing the earth from one end to the other, an information carrier.
- Mars is a pure steppe, - Alexey is more and more inspired. - And the unique Russian spirit must go out into space and populate other planets. So we have to fly.
Palkin has no family, his age does not bother him: in ten years he will hit 51, and he will be in his prime, and he already has training.
“Write me down too,” Palkin’s partner, Professor Levykin, says dreamily. - I also want to go to Mars.
Until they come in large numbers
The Dutch company Mars One appeared in 2011. It was created by Bas Lansdorp, who had previously developed new ways to generate wind energy. Lansdorp has no doubts about the realism of his project. He says that all the technologies necessary for human flight either already exist, or almost exist. On August 31st, Mars One finished its online submission of applications from around the planet. Now the received questionnaires are being studied. The first selection is promised to be made by the end of the year. And then, within two years, during three additional rounds, out of 202 thousand people, six teams of four people will make up.
Norbert Kraft, MD, who heads the medical wing and the selection of candidates at Mars One, explained to me in an email that there is really only one selection criterion: they are looking not for individuals, but for team members who can get along with each other.
Recruits will begin seven years of training, go through survival school in remote parts of our planet, learn to repair models of a Martian house and rovers, learn medicine and grow food. Then the training will be transferred to the arctic deserts.
Raw food scorpion
If the soil worker Palkin is the earth, then Yulia Yaglova is, without a doubt, fire. A punchy native of Uralmash would not hesitate to go to Mars right now. Blonde Yulia is 36 years old, she moved to Moscow seven years ago. Her tailbone is tattooed with the emblem of the Finnish group HIM, and around her navel are two dolphins swimming in a circle. He visits his native Yekaterinburg once a year and calls the election of Yevgeny Roizman as mayor a horror: “I don’t believe in his whitewashing - such people do not change”.
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Yaglova recalls how she grew up at Uralmash during the heyday of local criminal gangs, when there was an equal sign between the concepts of “a person who achieved something in life” and “a person in a group”.
- Of course, the Uralmashevskys rushed after me, - Julia laughs. - Where to go, then. And then those who survived went into business and politics.
Yaglova herself graduated from the Ural State University of Economics. In my third year, I went to work as a sales representative - I went shopping and negotiated the supply of tea, coffee and alcohol. In default, she made good money on the growth of the dollar, rose to the position of economic director, worked in consulting, and went to France for an internship in strategic management under the presidential program. During the day I worked for a local company, in the evening for my own, on weekends I rode around the country. Julia liked it abroad, but she did not look for a French husband, as fellow interns, and moved to Moscow. In the capital, an interview was scheduled for a consulting firm, but Julia realized that this was not at all what she wanted to do.
- Here, in Moscow, boltology: you have to tell it well, present it correctly, - says Yulia. - And we in Yekaterinburg were purely practical, did not speak in clever words, but said: this will be good, but so bad.
Now she works in a company that supplies printers and equipment, has gone on business trips around the country, almost moved to her fiancé for permanent residence in Tallinn. She ran away from boredom and horror, enrolled in a rock school, jumped with a parachute to stop being afraid of heights, took online programming courses and is going to get a second degree: she wants to become an IT specialist and make mobile applications.
In 2008, Yaglova spent a month and a half in the Himalayas, engaged in meditation, became interested in vegetarianism and raw food. During meditations, I learned about my past incarnations. Julia was already a scorpion, a king, a rapist, a murderer and some kind of extraterrestrial life form. In her profile on the Mars One website, Julia writes why she believes that she is the ideal candidate for the harsh Martian conditions: she spent 9 and then 11 more days without food or water.
Dry hunger strikes became a logical continuation of the raw food diet: first, she went on hunger strike once a week for 12 hours, then 24, then 36. In the end, Yulia went to starve in the Ivanovo region in a cottage to a woman doctor.
“You pay six thousand rubles and for nine days you don’t eat or drink anything,” she says. - You have to walk a lot while you have the strength, because you still can't do anything else, except watching TV. Brains are cut out, it is impossible to concentrate, thoughts are fragmentary. On the eighth day, the body is poured with water, and water enters you through the pores. And it feels like you drank it.
On the fifth day, Julia realized that all problems are vanity and trifle. I was blissed out by nature: forests, the beauty of sunsets and all that. On the eighth day, her blood pressure dropped, but after the hunger strike, her skin became like that of a baby, and the whites of her eyes were white. Julia says that stones and even medications that were taken in childhood leave the body. I hope the team will not have to refer to her hunger strike experience on Mars: it is not known what will come out there in the following days.
Julia wants to go to Mars because in ten years there will be no places and things on Earth that she would not have tried. In addition, as a child, she had a favorite book "I'll be back in 1000 years" - about how the communists fly to another planet and try to build a socialist paradise there. In the book, everything ends with a struggle for survival: the travelers are never accustomed to the primitive order. Julia herself will not have such a problem, she knows how to get along with any people and is ready for hardships:
- What's the point of swearing and hysteria when there is no choice?
If they take her to Mars, Julia will be delighted: she will only have to live concentratedly for the next ten years, and a second life will begin on Mars.
- Scary and interesting. This is research! she admires. - You even come to another country - the brains change, the mentality is different, the language environment is different. I think everything will be perceived differently there.
She will play sports to get herself in order by the time of the selection of candidates. Well, if they do not take it, Yaglova will not be upset - she will go on an expedition to Antarctica for a year. I always dreamed about it. And it would also be cool after this post to get the opportunity to get to know Assange.
- That's cool! - says Julia.
Colonization plan
In January 2016, Mars One launches a communications satellite to take pictures and videos, in 2018 it sends the first rover, which is looking for a convenient place for a future camp, clearing the area for living capsules and solar panels. A second satellite is launched, this time into the orbit of the Sun, to maintain 24/7 communication with Mars, even as the Sun separates Earth and Mars.
In 2020, six cargo ships are launched, carrying two housing blocks and two life support blocks. They land on the planet's surface next to the rover in February 2021. Rover transports the capsules and sets them up, connects solar panels and gets the ability to recharge its batteries several times faster. According to the project, the life support compartment begins to synthesize water from the soil and supply it to living quarters, as well as produce oxygen from it. Other necessary elements for creating air will be obtained from the atmosphere of Mars. By the time the first crew starts from Earth, the Martian house must produce the atmosphere inside the residential buildings, three thousand liters of water and 120 kilograms of oxygen.
In 2022, the first team of four will embark on a 210-day flight to Mars. There will be no way back. The conquest of the planet Mars One wants to turn into a round-the-clock reality show, something like Dom-2: Build Your Love.
Buryat analyst
Zorikto Dabaev, a logistics specialist for a large international food company, has many questions for the organizers of Mars One. For example: if it is a reality show, then round-the-clock surveillance can be a serious challenge for an astronaut. If it is a media project, then there is a possibility that they will lose interest in it. The human body is designed for life on Earth, not on Mars, so it is not clear how the problems arising in this connection will be solved. Zorikto says the project is 60% realistic.
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Zorikto has an analytical mind. He wears glasses, slowly chooses his words, listens carefully, and approaches the questions logically. Zorikto is Buryat, he is 27 years old, he was born in Ulan-Ude. His father works as an engineer at a locomotive repair plant, his mother is an accountant in a media company. Zorikto has an excellent education: he studied 10th and 11th grades at the specialized educational and scientific center of Novosibirsk State University (physics and mathematics school), then at the Novosibirsk State Technical University.
Zorikto moved to Moscow four years ago. I was looking for a job for a long time, I lived on the savings received for two trips to the USA under the Work & Travel program. In America, Zorikto worked in an amusement park and as an assistant waiter. For a year and eight months he spent an internship in the company where he works now. In addition, Zorikto is studying for a master's degree at the Higher School of Economics.
As a logistician, he has many questions about the organization of affairs in the country: a lot rests on nepotism, resources and opportunities are huge, but they are not used. He really likes Moscow:
- Here you can find what you need. If you have a hobby, you can find like-minded people, resources, rare books, materials, people, get in touch, you can go to study anywhere, you can be realized.
So the flight to Mars for him is a question of rationality: resources are less and more people, it is necessary to expand the habitat. True, people are subject to the romantic perception of a flight to Mars and do not understand that this is a routine job and limited space. One of the problems is getting along well with the team.
- It will be like a hostel. I lived with guys from different regions, - says Zorikto. - Yes, it's hard, there are everyday issues, but you rub yourself somehow. The question is how the organizers will overcome addiction and anger. Much depends on this. The emotional atmosphere will prevail over the physical. It will be hard, you have to learn to relieve stress. Maybe through a sense of humor.
The biggest problem, in his opinion, is not technology, but people. He is going to write for himself a sports training program for flight. Chances, however, are small, he says - 1: 5000, - but all the same. He thought a lot about the answer to a simple question: is it an escape for him or not? I decided not, because with the astronaut's salary he would be able to support his family, and he would also make room on Earth for future generations.
“I read somewhere that we borrow the Earth from our children and grandchildren,” says Zorikto. - So this is not an escape. This is an investment for the future.
Barzikov flies to Mars
Mayor elections in Moscow. Engineer Konstantin Barzikov leaves his native Perov school No. 423. He is phlegmatic, thin, he is wearing a black shabby leather jacket, his eyes are joyless. And if Zorikto is water, calm and thoughtful, then Barzikov is a sad whisper of air.
An exit poll comes up to Barzikov and asks who he just voted for in the mayoral elections. Absent-minded Barzikov says:
- For Sobyanin, - and immediately corrects himself: - Oh! For Navalny, of course. Mom voted for Sobyanin.
Mom is a pensioner, she once worked as a junior researcher at a research institute where concrete was tested. Father was not there. Barzikov sits on a bench at the school and tells the story of his life.
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He has no special memories of school. Barzikov is 26 years old, his school youth saw the heyday of the Perovsk criminals, so he was beaten, then he himself beat someone. I went to a circle of radio amateurs, but I could only assemble a power supply unit for a radio receiver. As a child, he became interested in computers, learned to program. Graduated from the Mining Institute with a degree in systems engineer of automated control systems.
He worked in an artificial intelligence company, but the intelligence was never created due to lack of funding. In the fourth year, at the invitation of friends, I went to the “march of dissent”, ended up in the police department, and was summoned to court. Barzikov met people from the Civil Front of Garry Kasparov and went to court with them.
He was able to challenge a fine of 500 rubles, but he almost flew out of the institute due to problems with the session, and even a request to the dean's office came from the FSB. He began to attend rallies and help the Kasparovites. Then he was disappointed, he left, because everyone does nothing but quarrel and fight for power in the organization.
I got acquainted with the Voina art group. “The guys are cool, crazy,” Barzikov recalls them. He helped prepare the "War" action to weld the doors of Mikhail Leontyev's restaurant "Oprichnik" - he went to buy electrodes. Now he works as a senior engineer at the Torii Research Institute, developing microwave technology. The work is stress-free. He is writing a dissertation on the topic "Modeling of evacuation processes", which the teachers imposed on him. I ask: what is the best way to evacuate from, for example, Perov school number 423? Barzikov asks for time to think, looks at the entrance of the school and explains:
- In the main building, emergency exits are closed. The keys to the exits are kept by the guards, technicians, and the manager. In the event of a fire, it will take a long time for these people to figure out what to do. A cluster can form at the main entrance plus a cluster on the stairs, on the site between the first and second floors - everyone will run together. There are a lot of people at school during the day, the hustle and bustle, plus the children are an unpredictable thing: where will they get there …
Barzikov is sure that the most "ambush" is in the second building, where the assembly hall is. There and during a normal situation - after a concert, for example - you can't go through normally, but what if there is a fire? There is a secret staircase leading to the dining room from the dressing rooms, but no one knows about it. It is necessary that they know - just in case. So the solution is as follows: put a centralized system for opening emergency doors with the push of a button.
Konstantin Barzikov is developing evacuation plans. Mars is also an evacuation plan. He really wants to fly there, because he doesn't want to be here anymore. She does not complain about life, I would not call myself a loser, but I also cannot say that I was very pleased.
- Still, such an ordinary, standard, everyday life somehow, I don't know, subconsciously oppresses me, - says Barzikov.
But before I learned about the project, I did not think about the flight to Mars. But he tried to understand what is the most advanced in the field of research, science, politics. I was looking for the answer in literature: the futurist Lazarevich, Lenin (State and Revolution), Nikola Tesla. So far it turns out like this: the world produces something, but all technical efforts as a result become flash drives, new iPhones and other goods of the consumer world.
Barzikov himself is not a consumer, except that he likes to drink good beer. But I didn't change my phone for seven years until it broke. In general, Barzikov realized that mankind has not really implemented any breakthrough ideas.
“The world wants everything better, more and more money, but qualitative, not quantitative knowledge is hard,” Barzikov regrets. - You need to think, there should be an insight. I thought and thought and realized that if humanity wants to continue its progress, then it must promote the ideas of posthumanism, changes in the body of the person himself. Humanity must move into space. What the hell is not joking - maybe they will take me too …
True, he himself does not seem to believe in this. But he wants to fly away.
- To some extent, I want to fly away from what awaits me here, - explains Barzikov. - I work at a research institute, study in graduate school. If I can defend myself, I will be a candidate of sciences. If I don’t defend myself, I’ll work at the Research Institute. Maybe I'll stir up projects. Everything will be the same: wife-work-home. Children will appear. Sad enough.
Barzikov thinks:
- I want to escape from what awaits me: the ordinary, unmarked, standard existence of an ordinary, standard person.
And he adds dully: his wife jokes that he decided to run away from her. To Mars.
Head of the Cosmonaut Training Center. Gagarin, Sergei Krikalev recently said in the press that such a number of those wishing to participate in a non-return flight to Mars seems strange to him. “When people are going to fly to Mars one way - this is already a clinic, it is necessary to contact a psychiatrist,” said Krikalev. "From the point of view of professionals and astronauts, anyone will tell you that no one will allow it."
But if they do allow it, then at least there will be more than only "dusty demons" on Mars. For example, Barzikov.