Growing up in the 1960s, and watching the space race between the Soviets and Americans, Kayla Bonham believed this was a frontier worth exploring. The science fiction of the time had us reaching for the stars by the 21st Century. She, like many of us, were disappointed space lost momentum in the public imagination after the first moon landings were done. With the focus shifted to near earth exploration, the space station, and the robotic exploration of space, it didn’t seems as exciting to her. "The actual human presence of going out there and seeing what’s there with your own eyes – that adventure has not been present." It was fortunate for her the Mars One came along.

For those who haven’t heard of it, Mars One is a non-profit organization which is pushing conceptual plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2024. They recently narrowed the selection down to 1058 applicants (from over 200,000 applicants), and Kayla was one of two Calgarians who got into this group.

Deciding to colonise a different planet is a huge step. Yet this 57 year old native Calgarian has dealt with tough decisions, being transsexual in denial until her mid-40s when she then completed her transition. Leaving family and friends behind might scare the average person, but to many in the LGBTQ community, it’s parallel to the decision to come out of the closet with family and friends – there’s that possibility you will lose them.

"Coming out is a big enough step...you risk alienating all the people and leaving them behind. When you do a physical gender and sex transition, it is a giant commitment to decide what you want to be for the rest of your life...once you’re taking the hormones and the surgery, you can’t go back. It’s a one way trip. So I’ve committed to something like that in life already. This (Mars One) is something I know I can do."

Kayla did try out for the Canadian program in the 1990s, but due to the sheer amount of qualified applicants she didn’t get a reply. That’s probably not a bad thing, as "in traditional space programs they’re looking for specialists in a lot of scientific fields. They wanted PhDs...multiple PhDs if possible, and medical doctors experienced with flight medicine because of the focus on evaluating human capacity to live in space." While Kayla does have a Masters in Computer Science and a lot of work and life experience (we talked for almost an hour discussing both) her perspective is more of a generalist

With the Mars One project, the overall crew skillset is different than governmental space missions. Two of the crew must be trained with mechanical skills to keep the equipment running. There’s one dedicated scientist with a geology/physics background and one dedicated medical specialist. The rest? Generalists. The concept behind the mission for the people would be that of the small village; in many small villages (especially those separated by vast distance from a large metropolis) villagers would wear many hats. True, each would have a specific skillset in one area, but often many would have significant training in overlapping areas, leading to a certain level of redundancy.

Of course, while she hopes to be our Rocket Gal living Life on Mars (apologies to Elton John and David Bowie) she will be leaving family and friends behind. The feedback has been mostly positive. "My daughter has been the most vocal about it. She fully supported me in my gender change...when I told her I was applying to this she said she’s really proud of me for applying. For sure she’ll miss me if I go, but she wasn’t holding me back." As for Kayla’s friends, most are supportive. One friend doesn’t want Kayla to leave; however, as per the information on Mars One’s website, it’s not like there won’t be communications between the two planets:

Kayla told me communications will just be reduced to sharing experiences through electronic means - which is pretty much how most people connect now.

Even if Kayla doesn’t make the final cut, she is hoping to contribute to the project. It could be professionally, or through one of her hobbies: riding a fat bike. A fat bike is a modification of a mountain bike – frames built with large forks to accommodate over-sized tires, typically 94mm or larger and rims wider than 44mm. These bikes are designed for riding on soft, unstable terrain such as sand – of which Mars has a lot. "I got one of the fattest available now and I want to evaluate it to see if something like this can be useful in an exploration environment. People have already taken it to the Arctic and Antarctica, they use it in the desert." Kayla says they are quite remarkable even compared to a mountain bike when it comes to traversing sand and snow.

It’d have to be modified to deal with the Martian fine sand; however, based on her experience with this new bike, Kayla is thinking she might be able to get some cooperation from bike manufacturers to try out various models suitable for Mars. "It’s a fun, optional idea, totally on my own...it might provide a point of interest to bring in all the mountain bikers of the world." Not only that, a manually powered vehicle would be smaller to transport and you wouldn’t have to worry about power sources. It could be an emergency vehicle or a supplement to the existing rovers on base.

As for the long-term outlook on Mars one, while it appears the mission is one way, if the colony is successful there will be other colonies and eventually there may be two-way traffic between the two worlds. It’s all a big unknown. "The thing about this project is nobody can see how it’s going to succeed because the funding isn’t in place. They only need 6 billion dollars."

This is only a drop in the bucket to a lot of organizations and nations in the world (Bill Gates could fund it and have plenty of cash left over). Yet they continue fundraising, the project is progressing on schedule, and there’s even a plan to release the media rights to watch the training program. This is on top of exclusive partnerships and sponsorships.

Talking to Kayla about her history and past; you could see how something like reaching for Mars wouldn’t be terrifying to her. It would be exhilarating and a chance for her to further be all she could be. "As soon as I gave myself permission to be female, I turned into this Mother Hen to all of my friends around me. I was always the cheerful one, trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. That aspect of my personality came out. I feel much more at ease with myself and expressing myself with other people." This "can-do" attitude parallels what many earlier farmers and ranchers felt 100-150 years ago when they settled the prairies.

Regarding her age, she admits by the time of the mission she’ll be closing in on 68, yet doesn’t think that should hold her back. "I think it’s an advantage: I’ve had time to build up knowledge and skills over my lifetime, I have few attachments, my kids are grown up, I would like to spend the last 20 or 30 years of my life doing something this worthwhile. Then when I’m no longer contributing, just keep me up there, I’ll retire on Mars. For the 20 and 30-year olds applying for this same project, they have far more to give up, committing more like 40 or 50 years to this project. If you look at ants, the dangerous job of exploring and foraging for food outside the nest is undertaken by the older ants, younger ones stay close to home where it’s safe!"

For right now she’s just enjoying whatever comes up next in her life. Very few people have been asked to go on the Mars One mission, or very few people have thought it possible or desirable, but we all hope she might be the one of the few to do it.