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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Zachary Gallegos, the University of New Mexico grad student who wants more than anything to ride off into space to establish the first human colony on Mars, has more reason than ever to believe his dream will come true.

Gallegos, 27, just learned he has made the list of 100 finalists for the Mars One program. He is the only New Mexican on the list, from which 24 earthlings will be chosen. That won’t happen for years, but now, training for the trip to Mars begins in earnest.

The Bosque Farms resident was one of more than 200,000 people from 140 countries who threw their names into the would-be-Martians hat a few years ago. On Monday, after learning he has made the list of 100, Gallegos was ecstatic.

“I’ve never felt this way before,” he said.

If all goes as planned, a team of four Mars One astronauts will soar into space about 10 years from now, the first of six such teams. On the Red Planet, they will live in interconnected pods, likely for the rest of their natural lives. To venture outside, they will have to be encased in airtight spacesuits.

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“UNM grads already make an impact around the world,” noted UNM President Bob Frank. “This is an amazing opportunity for one of our graduate students to take his education, expertise and unique perspective to the cosmos.”

A more-or-less equal number of men and women are expected to make the trip. The idea is to set up a permanent colony, one whose residents will reproduce to maintain the original population.

Mars One expects some finalists to drop out for various reasons – illness, injury, change of heart, other psychological or physical developments. But as far as Gallegos is concerned, there is only one way he won’t be among the first 24 pioneers: To simulate living on Mars, the finalists will train in four-person teams. Should one team member be let go or drop out, the entire team would have to pack it up.

At this point, Gallegos has no idea who his teammates will be. “We’ll have to be matched psychologically,” he said. “But right now, we’re all individual astronaut candidates.”

As the pieces of his lifelong dream fall into place, he is ready to start training.

“I feel it’s a lifetime of work paying off,” he said.

He hopes to meet with Gov. Susana Martinez soon to enlist her support for the mission. The training site is still undetermined, and he would like the work to take place right here in New Mexico, “since we have facilities like (Spaceport America) already in place,” he said.

Gallegos graduated cum laude from UNM in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences. He is now studying the geochemistry of water – as in water found on the fourth planet from the sun. Ultimately, he plans to pursue a doctorate degree in a similar field. He said he would like nothing more than to spend his life doing research camped out on Martian soil.

Mars One is an international nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands. For the list of finalists, project leaders chose candidates from five continents, countries as disparate as Australia and Mexico, Egypt and Canada, South Africa and Russia. Gallegos is one of 38 from the United States.

Because the orbits of Earth and Mars are elliptical and the two planets travel at different speeds, the distance between them changes from moment to moment, like it would for two cars speeding around two separate tracks at different rates of speed. That means Mars might be anywhere from 34 million to 249 million miles away, depending on the day, month and year. The average is about 140 million miles.

Depending on the variables, it probably will take each Mars One spacecraft nearly a year to reach its destination.

Gallegos said his parents don’t share or even understand his enthusiasm.

“They realize this is a good opportunity for me, but they still don’t want me to go,” he said. “They wish I’d do something closer to Earth.”