Just years ago, the space conquests we’re actively planning were considered sci-fi. Humans are on the verge of going to Mars for the first time ever, and you could be one of them. Last year, Mars One, an international nonprofit based in Netherlands, announced its plans to send humans to the red planet in 2023. This year, those plans become even clearer.

The nonprofit hopes to send a team of 4 astronauts to mars in 2023. Additional teams will join those cosmic pioneers every two years. The project will be financed by private enterprises – no government bureaucracy. All astronauts must plan on spending the rest of their lives on Mars.

It’s an ambitious but realistic plan – one that could be delayed by cost overruns or a single ill-fated launch. For the first time in history, however, a planet other than our own appears well within reach, even if it’s 140 million miles away (according to Space.com).

“My first reaction was, I think anyone who is confronted with such an idea, ‘this will never work,’” says Dr. Gerard ‘t Hooft, a Nobel Prize winner and staunch supporter of the project. “But now, look and listen more closely, this is really something that can be achieved. I think this might become the most spectacular media event ever, watched by everyone on the globe.”

The trip to mars will be made for TV, with the cameras rolling well before astronauts lift off into space. The astronaut selection process might be the best reality show ever. Individuals from around the globe will compete with each other to prove they are capable of living on a lonely desert planet where one wrong move could be fatal. Then, according to the selection rules posted at the site, applicants will be placed in teams. Viewers and judges will vote for the winners. Revenue generated from the spectacle will be put towards paying for the multi-billion-dollar project.

Already, more than one thousand people have expressed interest in taking the one-way trip to Mars. The official start of the astronaut application program, however, won’t begin until later this year. Subscribe to the newsletter to be notified when the selection process officially begins, and read the official qualifications to apply. Applicants must be 18 years or older, and according to the official site, “intelligent, creative, psychologically stable and physically healthy.” That’s just a start.

If you think you have what it takes to live on another planet, check out the Mars One website. It’s more likely than ever that someone is going to step foot on the red planet in your lifetime. Why can’t it be you?