The rush to put a human on Mars appears to be heating up, with none other than SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk leading the way, calling for human colonies on the planet in his lifetime. As advances in space tourism make a Mars settlement increasingly more realistic, a ground-breaking cosmonaut has stepped forward to voice a desire to help push the dream forward.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut, recently admitted that she is ready to volunteer for a one-way trip to Mars as one of its first settlers. The comments came as part of the run up to the 50 year anniversary of her June 16, 1963 orbit around the Earth. Now 76, Tereshkova is apparently not a fan of space tourism and believes that only specially trained individuals should be allowed to travel into space for the foreeable future.
However, when Tereshkova herself was selected to travel into space, her only training was as a parachutist. So her opinion could be colored by the fact that space tourism will eventually make being an astronaut, by and large, no big deal.
Speaking with Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Tereshkova said, "of course, it's a dream to go to Mars and find out whether there was life there or not... If there was, then why did it die out? What sort of catastrophe happened?" At age 76, it's doubtful that she'll actually be given the chance to live out her dream, but we'll stay tuned to see if any offers pop up to make the still robust Tereshkova once again a part of space history.
Via UPI and RIA Novosti
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