On Tuesday, the Mars One foundation took one small step closer to its mission of sending humans to Mars by announcing the "Mars 100," a group of 100 men and women who've moved on from the initial applicant pool of thousands. The private nonprofit reached that number, divided evenly between men and women, after narrowing down from last year's list of 705 hopefuls—all of whom paid an entry fee of roughly $38 to sign up for what's been clearly advertised as a one-way trip to their deaths.

The remaining 100 (which, if you're wondering, does not include the Ars forums' own Quisquis) will now be subjected to "group challenges that demonstrate their suitability to become one of the first humans on Mars, and will be interviewed," according to Mars One's website. The shape of those group challenges has not been clarified, but we don't expect much in the way of intensity, considering that a future selection round will contain the "first short-term training in a copy of the Mars outpost."

Whatever those challenges may be, they "could be aired" either on TV networks or online, which would finally fulfill the reality-TV angle that has long hovered over the project thanks to its founder Bas Lansdorp's ties to TV series Big Brother. As such, the roster of 100 contains some curious choices who seem better suited for reality TV than grueling outer-space missions, including squeaky-voiced Australian teen Teah, folk-loving "joke" teller Dan, and "wack" South African bushwhacker Edwin.

The current round will end with "up to" 24 potential astronauts, who will then be split into teams of four for the final battery of tests before the purported manned mission launches. It's anyone's guess as to whether Mars One is on pace to launch that mission by 2025; a CNN report on today's news pointed to a thorough review by MIT that analyzed just how half-baked Mars One's space-colony aspirations really are. (In particular, the risks of suffocation and under-budgeted rockets, at least under all announced plans, are currently quite high.) In the meantime, the foundation announced that its unmanned 2018 mission will contain a payload full of "seed cassettes" along with measurement instruments to understand how plants may grow on Mars.