Mars One project wants to put a reality show on Mars. No, seriously.

If you think there are too many reality shows on this planet, just wait. If a pioneering Dutch company has its way, you'll be watching people live on an entirely different planet in a little over a decade from now. The project is called Mars One, and it aims to send people to the Red Planet in the year 2023, for the enjoyment of us Earthlings. This is a legitimate project, but of course we're skeptical about whether or not it will actually happen.

Here's how it will work. The show will send four trained astronauts to Mars, and every two years they will be joined by new inhabitants. Everyone will be bound by a stipulation that they can never return to Earth, so the population will grow ever so slowly. Apparently at some point a bunch of cameras will be set up on the planet, streams of which will be edited for a reality show like no other. It's been described as being like the CBS show Big Brother.

An ambassador to the project, physicist Gerard 't Hooft, said, "This project seems to be the only way to fulfill humanity's dream to explore outer space. It is going to be an exciting experiment. Let's get started." The monumental funding task will be handled by years of media spectacles. The first scheduled launch to Mars for initial equipment delivery is 2016. Hopefully we can look back on this post four years from now and say that things are actually on schedule.

[via Space.com]