As a child, Adriana Marais always wanted to live on another planet. Today, the 31-year-old scientist born in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, is almost half-way to realizing that dream.
Marais is one of 100 hopefuls from around the world and one of seven from Africa to have cleared the third round of the Mars One project for its maiden trip to Mars. Mars One is a not-for-profit foundation with the goal of establishing a permanent human settlement on Mars; crews are expected to depart for their one-way journey to the planet starting 2026.
It would seem Marais has been preparing for this moment all her life.
“When I was in standard seven, a friend and I did a project for a school science competition, and we built a paper mache city on Mars; we had the crops, we had the habitat, we had the lifestyle,” she says.
Marais, who has been a doctoral student (quantum biology) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, says she is taking the leap of faith for the sake of science, knowing she will never be able to return to planet earth once she makes the trip.
Adriana Marais
“I have become interested in how life emerged. This is a question that can most certainly be researched on Mars as well, because it has been indicated that it may have been possible for life to exist on Mars at some point.
“The surface of Mars on average is very cold at minus 55 degrees, the air is 96% carbon dioxide, so it is not breathable, and the pressure is very low. The air is very thin. And also the radiation from the sun is dangerous on the surface of Mars. A lot of [our] time on Mars will be spent indoors.”
For now, all the short-listed finalists have on paper are artists’ impressions of Mars’ habitat, and some idea of the life-changing expedition.
“But I imagine that there will be a lot of developments taking place from now until then. So I don’t think it’s possible to imagine what it will be like,” says Marais.
Her own work so far has not gone unrecognized; she has already been published in journals. In March, Marais won the L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science International Rising Talents Grants program award in Paris. She was one of 15 women globally to win.
Marais is confident it will be extremely fascinating traveling to Mars – and settling there.