Last week we ran an article which featured a video profile of three of the 100 finalists for the Mars 100 mission which will depart in 2024 and take four people on the first mission to Mars. They will never, ever return to Earth again.

More candidates have now emerged and one of them is 24 year old Maggie Liu from the UK. In an interview with the Metro, she explained what the mission meant to her and her family, what happens now she’s in the final 100 and how she hopes to give birth to the first ever Martian baby. Here’s what she had to say:

My family and friends are really supportive. I have been flooded with messages from everyone telling me how proud they are. I liked this one in particular: “You always said you would be an astronaut, very inspirational. Good luck with everything hun”.

My mum was skeptical at first but it’s getting more real every day. I’m her only daughter so we have quite a close bond, but she is so proud and happy for me finally making my dream come true.

I’m very open to having a baby on Mars. I think it would be really exciting to be the mother of the first ever baby born there. No one has done research on giving birth in low gravity so it is a risk. In order to establish a colony on Mars, reproduction is inevitable and essential. Im curious to know the impact it will have on our knowledge of pregnancy in space.

We will now have 10 years of training, Group training to make sure we can work in a team and get on with the people we will be spending the rest of our lives with. Technical training to brush up on all the skills we need to survive on Mars — medical, dentistry, repairs, agriculture and finally personal training to make sure we can cope in isolated conditions, to make sure we can deal with the 3-22 minute communication time delay and to make sure we maintain top shape both mentally and physically.

I am really looking forward to this next part and meeting all the like minded people. I think every one will bring something incredible to the mission.

Well yeah, the mission certainly is going to be one of a kind, that’s for sure. Imagine if you had to spend ten years training for something that might not even happen? I suppose you wouldn’t have to do all of it if you weren’t going to be one of the final four, but you would probably still have to do a hell of a lot of it. And if it’s anything like every other reality show ever, surely they’ve just picked people who are going to annoy each other and create conflicts so that people tune in? That isn’t going to be fun for anyone involved with all this training. It’ll probably make some great TV though.

Honestly can’t wait to see how this turns out, although it’s going to be a long wait to see if they ever manage to touch down on Mars.