Mars + water: It's a Kiwi's wet dream, as he hopes for one-way ticket to red planet

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks on the surface of Mars that scientists believe were caused by flowing streams of salty water. Photo / NASA

An Auckland man on the shortlist for a one-way ticket to Mars says he's excited by the discovery of water on the red planet and hopes a manned mission to the red planet will benefit future generations.

In February, Iranian born Saeed Ghandhari - who has a background in cosmology, applied physics and astronomy - was named among 100 people who had made it through to the next selection round of the Mars One project.

The privately run project aims to set up the first human colony on Mars by 2027. Fifty men and 50 women were chosen from a pool of more than 200,000 hopeful candidates.

Mr Ghandari said he was "pretty excited" by the news as he awaits the next round of selections in September next year.

"I think this news will actually support Mars One's mission, because one of the challenges that we had was there was no water, which is the first element for human life on Mars," he said.

"I think this is going to encourage the other investors and also the other agencies to go for manned missions to Mars."

The presence of water could help solve other problems for humans living on Mars, such as extreme radiation from the sun and the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks on the surface of Mars that scientists believe were caused by flowing streams of salty water. Photo / NASA

"Water was the biggest challenge, but I think it's pretty much been solved. I think with the advancement of technology we're going to reach the other problems.

"I think during the next 12 years we can find out a lot of mysteries that we don't know about Mars at the moment and expose them."

Those chosen for the mission will face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives on the red planet - but Mr Ghandari said that didn't scare him and he was keen to take the challenge to raise awareness around space exploration.

"I know that a lot of the sceptics out there are saying, 'that's nonsense, you're going to die there' - but everybody is going to die someday. So we are trying to dedicate our lives to promote this idea."

The next selection round would focus on the applicants' physical capabilities and ability to deal with isolation, Mr Ghandari said. He was spending part of his time living alone, in order to prepare for the isolation of living on another planet.

His main motivation to travel from Mars was to benefit future generations, he said.

"We may benefit from this exploration, for the future generations - like our ancestors who came out of the caves. If they stayed in caves, we wouldn't be in our current position.

"We have to think about the other planets, because who knows - we might have to leave this planet one day."