Mars One narrows applicant pool to 1,058 in first cut for 2025 colonization mission

Mars One, the organization attempting to send small teams of astronauts on a one-way trip to Mars, has made its first round of applicant decisions, selecting just over 1,000 people to move on to the next stage of what it hopes will be a decade-long, televised training and colonization mission, The Verge reports.

On December 30, 1,058 of the roughly 200,000 people who applied were told that they had made the cut. Between 2014 and 2015, all but a few dozen of those will be weeded out, leaving a final set of four-person teams that will theoretically begin heading to Mars by 2025.

Before then, though, there's a long process of testing, prototyping, and fundraising ahead of the company.

"We fully anticipate many of our remaining candidates to become celebrities in their towns, cities, and in many cases, countries," said co-founder Bas Lansdorp in a statement. A documentary, One-Way Astronaut, already profiled a handful of applicants from the first round.