Student has Mars in his eyes
A TRIP to go beyond your dreams and reach the outermost limits that life has to offer.
This is how aspiring astronaut Divashen Govender, 23, of Pinetown, sees his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity after being shortlisted for the top 100 in the Mars One Project.
The third-year Applied Maths and Science UKZN Westville student is now just one step away from making the final cut of 24 people from around the world who would set out to establish the first human settlement on Mars from 2025.
Mars One is a project formed by an independent, non-profit organisation based in the Netherlands which aims to employ and train two dozen people to become astronauts in the next 10 years, with a view of sending them to live permanently on the planet.
Govender said he always wanted to be an astronaut, but as he reached adolescence, he realised South Africa could not facilitate that dream, so he hoped his university course could one day get him into astrophysics.
He described how his Mars One journey started while studying at home one night. “My younger brother alerted me to a news story on e.tv while I was studying. He told me, ‘You might be interested in this’. It was about sending people to live on the planet. So I researched the project on the internet and applied. It was around August, 2013. We had to submit a video and answer various questions.”
More than 200 000 people from around the world applied, and that figure was narrowed to 1 058 in January last year.
The second stage required them to visit a physician and undergo full medical.
Govender said he had to learn more about the project over the internet. He also had to learn about previous missions to Mars.
He heard last Monday that he, along with fellow Durbanite, Adriana Marais, had been shortlisted and were in contention to make the final 24.
“The final 24 will train in Antarctica and other extreme places of conditioning. The first crew of four will be launched in 2025. Before that is done, Livepods will be launched to the planet. These are living units which will allow us to live on the planet and are modular structures that can expand and facilitate us living in them,” he said.