14 DAY TRIAL // At age 76, Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, isn’t your typical lady – she doesn’t have the common passions that you’d expect to encounter from a woman of her age.
However, she does hope to get a ticket to Mars, her favorite planet, even if it would only be a one-way trip for her.
“Of course, it’s a dream to go to Mars. I want to find out whether there was life there or not. And if there was, then why did it die out? What sort of catastrophe happened?” she tells The Guardian.
Surely, such concerns are common to many, but her sense of sacrifice precedes many. Tereshkova says she is contemplating taking a manned flight to Mars, even if this would be a suicide trip. “I am ready,” she admits.
There are others like her, the Guardian points out, such as those who have signed up for a project called Mars One, which wants to land four men and women on Mars in 2023 to found a permanent colony.
Some 165,000 people have signed up for the mission that doesn’t guarantee to even come back to Earth.