These are the questions the Mars One mission asked its applicants

GlobalPost

This is satire, mostly. Read more from Emma Rathbone.

The Netherlands-based Mars One Mission, which plans to send four people on a one-way trip to Mars every two years starting in 2024, has narrowed its search from 200,000 to 1,058 candidates. GlobalPost was able to attain the questionnaire for applicants, which is based on the five characteristics they seek in their astronauts. Here’s a look:

Resiliency:


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1) Are you resilient?

2) Do you get freaked out by pop-up books?

3) What about if a spider jumps on you? Do you go nuts?

4) If a cactus in your home was shaking a little, and then it exploded with tarantulas, would that phase you?

5) Say you close the medicine cabinet and in the mirror behind you is an alien, like, he’s been there the whole time. You gonna lose it?

6) Say you’re going to sleep in your sleeping pod on the spaceship, and you hang your hand down, and the person below gives your finger a little affectionate tug, as if to say, “Sleep well, and remember, we’re all in this together.” Then it turns out it was an alien. You gonna freak out?

Adaptability:


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7) Can you roll with the punches?

8) What if it turned out your step-mom was your real mom?

9) What if you were distracted and your hand was casually foraging for a nut in a nut bowl, and you accidentally ate a pair of dice. You gonna just go with it?

10) What if an alien showed up at the dinner table in a dashiki and started making fart noises with its hand under its armpit? You gonna be weird about it?

Curiosity:


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11) Are you curious about things?

12) Do you look up unsolved mysteries on the internet?

13) Do you print them out?

14) If a burglar came up to you and was like “Here, I’ve got a sack full of stolen beans, guess how many beans I have!” Would you throw him a bone?

15) What if you were on another planet, walking through a field, and you saw a glowing crystal on the ground. Would you be like, “How the hell did this get here?”

Ability to trust:


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16) Do you trust yourself and are you able to trust others?

17) When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you see a trustworthy person?

18) When you play the “trust” game, where you’re supposed to fall backwards into someone’s arms, do you participate or do you go batshit?

19) What if your step-mom/mom was like “Here, I crocheted this tube, go into it, and never come out.” Would you do it?

20) What if you went to a therapist, and he was like “I’m not an alien.” But then he started to doze off, and when he jolted awake he was like, “Woop, sorry, still on alien time.” Would you trust him?

Creativity/Resourcefulness:


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21) Are you creative?

22) Do you keep a diary and write in it every day?

23) If someone threw some terms at you: “Tolerance” “Sarsaparilla” “Racism” would you be able to make a painting out of it?

24) If a crazy woman forced you to make a macaroni necklace would you get into it or would you just do the bare minimum?

25) If someone made a painting of you, and you looked at the painting, and it was of an alien, but then it turned out it’s because an alien was standing behind you the whole time, what would you do?

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