Why I want to go to Mars

OK, 78,000 signed up in the first two weeks, but only about 600 have completed their application which includes paying a small fee and making a video answering a few questions such as why you would want to go on a one way trip to Mars. So, at first glance, it appears that the dream to go to Mars is especially strong for…well, dreamers. Here are just a few of the forceful reasons given to go to Mars:

• Allergies
• I'm currently in prison. It would save taxpayers' dollars if I went.
• I'm excited to get on reality TV.
• I was high when I sent in my application
• I'm on the witness protection plan
• It beats Venus!
• I need a job.
• The challenge really. Never seeing family or friends again. Never coming back to earth. Who wouldn't want to go?
• First I thought it would be too dangerous, but then I checked the data: thousands of people die each year from car accidents, no one has died taking a spaceship to Mars. It's the safest thing I could do.
• I've always had this sort of Through the Looking Glass reaction to The War of the Worlds.
• I'm an environmentalist and we're destroying Earth. I'd like to live in a place where the atmosphere has not been polluted by mankind. 
• No big deal—I have cancer.
• I haven't been out of my room in 16 years. Mars would be perfect for me. 
• I keep reading that the dust on Mars is like cigarette smoke. I love to smoke.
• Ya know, I enjoy Doctor Who.
• Ya know, I'm pretty clueless about everything here on earth. I'm betting Mars will be 360° different.
• Sooner or later an asteroid will wipe out all of humanity with one blow. Watch the movie "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis. Mars is much smaller so the chance of an asteroid hitting is smaller.
• 3 times space camp; 5 times adult space camp.
• Excitement, history, scientific opportunity. The list goes on
• Have you looked at nightly news lately? Mars is bound to be better.
• The final frontier
• I'm 20 years old. I don't know any better.
• Because there is an end for the Earth. We need a better place to survive.
• I love science fiction.
• Why would I leave the Earth, birds eating in the forest, beautiful sunsets, walking on the beach, warm sand beneath your toes. those and a thousand experiences I will never have again? because not going would be a real tragedy.
• Why wouldn't I want to go to Mars? It's a dream come true.
• I've spent my whole life in an iron lung, so I know exactly what the experience will be like.
• A large burial plot is barely an option any longer on earth.
• I love hemp.
• I hear we get to watch Star Trek for the entire 8 months travel time.
• I'm a nice person. 
• After watching the videos of the people applying, I find that basically they are all nuts. Those are my type of people, and I'd like to be with them.

More Why I want to go to Mars
(Frankly, you can't make this stuff up.)

• I would like to go to Mars because I like eating food out of pouches.
• I want a do over.
• It would broaden the meaning behind of the word 'adapt'. 'Adapt' is a very upper filled word.
• My theory is that we have grown old. We have grown older much like childhood cartoons. We are no longer in the experiencing phase, because everyone is always into the last one.
• Hi, what's going on? I love space travel and all that stuff.
• I have no idea how to answer these questions without sounding cheesy, so I would like to give it a go.
• Men are from Mars. I'm just trying to get back home. Hey, come on, give me a boost.
• I think maybe I have what it takes.
• Well! I love intellectual adventures. I will write your name on Mars. Thanks for everything.
• I've always dreamed of doing something that others can only dream about and getting to Mars is certainly one of them. 
• I believe it's time to go to another planet.
• . . . and I'm stable.  .  . . I'm just so excited I could beat myself.
• It would be easier to list the reasons why I wouldn't want to go. I grew up wanting to be Arthur Dent or Zaphod Beeblebrox. 
• Frankly, I'd like to go further.