Durham student Hannah Earnshaw is into the final 100 candidates for the first human colony on Mars. Mark Tallentire reports

THE message was one small step for Hannah, but it could mean one giant leap for mankind.

The communication informed the 23-year-old Durham University student that she had made the final 100 candidates for Mars One, a privately-funded mission which aims to not only put humans onto Mars but establish the first human colony on the Red Planet by 2025.

“It was much a relief as anything else,” the Birmingham-born, Highlands-raised PhD student says, over a coffee.

“I’ve spent the last 18 months in a sort of limbo, with two possible futures – one where I finish my PhD and do what I’m doing; one where I drop everything and go off to Mars One.”

It’s a situation so surreal it’s difficult to comprehend. All kinds of questions flood one's mind; from the huge, (where will you live? what will you eat? what will you breathe?), to the everyday and human: what of a love life?

Hannah doesn’t want to discuss that, but says she has a very supportive family – indeed she inherited her passion for science from her dad.

“I’ve very grateful for my family,” she says. “They understand it’s something I really want to do.”

On the bigger issues, the Mars One colonists will live in inflatable capsules, which the official website describes as “relatively spacious” – over 50sq metres per person; and they hope to produce their own food, water and oxygen, initially using elements taken with them from Earth.

The brains behind Mars One is Dutch entrepreneur Bas Landorp. A not-for-profit mission, it will be televised – although talks with Big Brother producers Endemol collapsed earlier this year.

Hannah first heard about the project in January 2013, from a friend’s Tweet.

“I’d always wanted to be involved in space exploration,” she says.

“But I saw that being by joining the space industry. I never really considered the possibility I might be able to do it myself.

“It was like the awakening of an old childhood dream, that I’d put aside because it was unrealistic.”

She applied, along with more than 200,000 others, the following August, just before starting a PhD studying black holes, and made it to the final 1,000 that December, before medical checks whittled down that number to around 700.

The self-confessed introvert was named in the last 100 last month, triggering an onslaught of press interest.

“The limelight isn’t my favourite place to be. The last couple of weeks have shown me what it’s like in an intense period of media attention,” she says.

The next step will come this autumn with a two-week residential including group work, team challenges and an isolation test, all of which will help mission leaders choose the final 24 by the end of the year.

Those 24 will comprise six crews of four. One will make the seven-month one-way trip to Mars first, followed by others.

So why should they pick Hannah?

She handles isolation well, works well in small groups, performs well under pressure and is emotionally suitable, she says. Of course, she’s also young, well educated and in good health.

“This isn’t about me wanting to become famous or find myself.

“It’s about getting humanity into space, establishing a colony and making a permanent home.

“There’s no room for an existential crisis 20 years on. It’s about a bigger project, making the place better and safer for the future.”

As well as being an environmentalist, Hannah is a committed Christian – something she has in no way hidden during the selection process.

“There’s a perception of Mars as a desert wasteland. For me, Mars is part of God’s creation and has inherent value itself.

“Settlers will have a duty of care over it, just as we have for Earth.

“I can imagine myself there. It’s stunningly beautiful.

“I would really love being there, just as I love being in the mountains.”

Hannah hopes the way the first colonists work together could inspire humanity on Earth to put aside its differences and says the idea of living off this planet is “becoming more real”.

But, whether she makes the final mission or not, she feels the adventure of the selection process will have been beneficial.

“I don’t feel like I’m gambling my life on it,” she says.

“Either way, I feel like it’s something good. I really want to see the mission happen.”

The countdown to 2024 has begun. Check ignition, engines on...