Kevin Lilley

Army Times

WASHINGTON — When it comes to post-service plans, 1st Lt. Heidi Beemer has a clearer picture than most: She's going to win a global contest, get launched into space, become one of the first humans to land on Mars, and stay there.

There are still a few hurdles between Beemer and her childhood dream, but she is one of roughly 700 candidates in the running to make up six four-person Mars One astronaut crews, the first of which organizers plan to launch in 2024 for an arrival the next year.

The Netherlands-based group doesn't plan to launch so much as a test mission before 2018 and hopes to fund its goals via broadcast rights and sponsorships to the selection process and eventual landing — a cross between the Apollo program and "Survivor." But that setup hasn't deterred Beemer, the decontamination platoon leader for 63rd Chemical Company, 83rd Chemical Battalion, 48th Chemical Brigade, who'll participate in her first face-to-face selection interview with Mars One officials later this year.

The dream started with fascination at the Mars Pathfinder mission, which launched in 1996. More than a decade later, Beemer interned with a NASA program and found herself, then a student at the Virginia Military Institute, surrounded by Ivy Leaguers with jaw-dropping résumés, all wanting to go to space.

"I wanted to figure out what would make me more successful than my peers," Beemer said in an Aug. 22 interview, two days before her 25th birthday. "The answer was, I had the opportunity to join the military."

She shifted out of her Air Force ROTC program at VMI and instead received an Army commission, then chose a chemical defense-related career path because the ability to survive and problem-solve in dangerous environments "directly translates to becoming an astronaut," she said.

She's received support from her command and from fellow soldiers. She's talked with about 4,000 grade-school students, either in person or via Skype, about the science behind a mission to Mars and the program she hopes will get her there. She's pursuing a master's degree in aerospace science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

She's even part of the "Aspiring Martians" Facebook group. It's all part of a childhood goal she's not ready to part with, even with the stakes proposed by the Mars One mission plan — there is no return ticket.

"To me, the reward outweighs the risk," she said. "From a practical standpoint, I truly understand why this has to be a one-way mission."

Final crew selection isn't scheduled until 2015. Until then, she said, "I'm not going to stop myself from falling in love, from being me, because this isn't a sure thing yet, but it's part of the deal.

"We're all going to die eventually. I'd rather die doing something for the rest of humanity."

The applicant field started with more than 200,000 would-be explorers, then dropped to about 1,000 before the most recent cuts earlier this year. Organizers haven't told Beemer how many will make the next cut, but she expects a few hundred to remain in consideration after the interviews.

Other military members were among the 1,000 or so Round 2 selections, but Mars One did not respond to requests for a full list of U.S. service members in the global applicant pool. Chief Warrant Officer 4 David Thomas Woodward was among them, according to a January piece by The (Clarksville, Tenn.) Leaf-Chronicle. Woodward and Beemer both serve at Fort Campbell, Ky; Army Times could not confirm whether Woodward, who earlier this year deployed to Afghanistan with C Company, 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, made the most recent cut.