Mars: The red planet

Mars One announced startling news last week that they would receive applications from those willing to travel to Mars and establish a permanent colony on the Red Planet. A Dutch entrepreneur named Bas Landsdorp heads Mars One, and he hopes to send four astronauts to Mars by 2023, and then another four every two years thereafter. Landsdorp and his associates say, “this is not a hoax.”

The catch is that no Martian colonist can expect to return to Earth. Those chosen for the Mars flight would live, die, and be buried there in that planet’s reddish soil, at least 34 million miles from Earth. Absen...