Earlier this week, the Mars One Mission announced that it had narrowed its candidates from an initial 200,000-plus down to a field of 100 — the Mars 100.
One of those to make the elite group is Carl LeCompte, a 28-year-old Microsoft programmer from Bellevue, Wash. In an interview with GeekWire today, LeCompte talked about his fascination with living in a hostile environment, how he made it through the process and how would feel — if he’s selected for the mission — about leaving Earth for good.
What made you decide to apply?
LeCompte: I actually read about it in a CNN article and did a little bit of a double-take because I never expected to see space colonization efforts in my lifetime. Then, in another heartbeat, I realized that they were taking applicants.
I took a couple weeks to think about it—even signing up for this is a major decision. Would I want to leave everything behind for a trip with no return?
The more I thought about it, everything just seemed to align. It felt right. It felt like this was an important thing to do and it was worth spending my life on. That’s what made me decide.
What has the process been like so far?
LeCompte: Mostly waiting. There’s the phrase, “long periods of waiting punctuated by moments of sheer terror,” and that kind of describes the process.
The application was maybe a month or two worth of work, then I submitted, then it was wait, wait, wait as to when I was going to get news. Then I got that little bit of “whoa!” rush when I made it past round one.
The next step was to contact our doctor and get our signed medical statement of general health. After that, the interviews didn’t start until later in 2014, and about a month before the interviews started, we were given a packet of info, basically “This is info you will need to know for your interview,” to demonstrate that we can learn and pick up this information. We had just one interview online. Mine was about seven minutes, not that long, not that many questions, I think it was more a weed-out process. Then, just a few days ago, they told us our results.
What is next?
LeCompte: I haven’t gotten any official communication, but in the interview they said that the next step is that we are going to get split up into groups of 10-15 people organized by who we would be most compatible with. I have a sort of a sense they will give us a survey for living preferences, almost like a thing you’d get going into college.
Then, as groups, we will go through series of challenges that demonstrate our ability to learn quickly, work as team, assess how we get along, function, that sort of thing.
What have you done to prepare?
LeCompte: Nothing official yet. Personally, I’m just sort of keeping in general good shape and paying attention to things as they come along. I have no idea what I will be specifically learning or doing, because we need to split up our knowledge among four people for a mission like this. I have a technical and computer background, but will I end up being one of the more technical ends? I figure that’s likely because that’s what I’m good at, but I could be in horticulture, or discover I have a great bedside manner and learn medical knowledge.
What do you think gave you an edge in the interviews?
LeCompte: A big part of what Dr. [Norbert] Kraft [chief medical officer and interviewer] was looking for in the interview was less focused on people who were looking for adventure or to be an astronaut or things like that. He was saying that’s not really the point of the program. We’re more settlers and colonists than anything else. I don’t want to say that adventure isn’t a part of it, but the point is much more to go there and settle and a build a home.
What are your feelings about giving up life on Earth?
LeCompte: It’s hard, talking with friends and family. On they whole, they usually wind up being encouraging, but you can hear it in their voice, they don’t want me to go. These are people I like, and who like me, and it’s hard to leave them behind.
One of the best ways I’ve been able to describe it is that I have this really, really high bar, and because of how good I have it—I have a good job, I love Seattle, I have great friends I’m very close to—that this is a very high bar as to what it would take to get me to leave them behind. It’s not that I’m excited to leave them behind, it’s just that the opportunity to do something this big surpasses that bar—as high as it is—it beats that bar.
When do you find out about your team assignment and what’s next?
LeCompte: They say we will know by the end of the year. It sounds like it’s meant to be televised and recorded, so they are a little bit dependent on the production company, so the intent is that the round three will happen sometime later this year, possibly in the fall, with round four sort of lock-step right after. We should know whether we’re part of the group that’s going to be trained end of year or early next year.
Is your interest Mars specific or just exploring space?
LeCompte: I suppose it’s not Mars specifically. I’ve always had this fascination with making a home out of place that’s not meant to be made a home out of. Something like Mars is so ridiculously hostile to life…freezing temps, thin atmosphere, no magnetosphere to keep out radiation. It’s a very hostile environment, but actually being able to not only survive but try to build a life there, build a home there, that concept has always really interested me.
I don’t see Mars as a kind of ark for humans because Earth is still where we’ve evolved to live—you don’t want to risk a place where you can breathe air—but I do feel it’s very necessary as part of our species to expand our influence and keep growing.
This is me speculating, but you have this situation where everyone needs to work together or you die. You need to recycle everything you have, or you die. You need to utilize resources, or you die. Being in a situation like that, you have to recycle, use resources wisely, work together and have it publicized, maybe if we’re lucky we can actually act as role models.
If nothing else, having people will see what it takes to live on Mars, and maybe that will help people realize that we really don’t have anywhere else to go like what we have with Earth. It could be an immediate benefit to humanity. Who knows?
You can see more of LeCompte in the King 5 interview below:
