Ever since her childhood years, Alyssa Carson has beheld a fascination with outer space.
So much so, that the 24-year-old is willing to sacrifice everything she holds dear for the sake of making developments in the realm of space exploration - literally.
For years now, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana-local has been hailed as a candidate for a future mission to Mars - which would be the first of its kind in history. She's is currently studying for a PhD in astrobiology, and already goes by the callsign 'NASA Blueberry'.
And despite not having yet achieved an official affiliation with NASA, Carson said to be ready for that phone call.
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Making an appearance on the Flight Club podcast recently, she revealed why she's so keen to step foot on the 'red planet'.
"I think that we’ve always been interested in Mars, in fact next to Earth Mars is our most studied planet," the aspiring astronaut explained.
"I think with the natural progression within the space industry, Mars is kind of like our next destination."
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Asked what specifically about the mission interests her, she admitted that most of all, she looks forward to assessing whether or not the planet really does boast life.
"The potential of life, especially in my area of interest within astrobiology, but the potential for life on Mars has been a huge question that we’ve had for so long," Carson explained. "But nothing can compete with the amount of information we’re able to gain once we send people to Mars."
The major downside to the future mission is, however, that NASA technology has already estimated that it could take over six months to actually reach Mars - a timescale that would limit the amount of time humans could actually spend exploring the planet from the offset.
As has also been the case with every single former mission into space, a voyage that far from Earth is already deemed as a colossal risk to life.
And whether or not Carson is willing to take that risk isn't yet certain.
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She added, however: "We could go the other way to Venus but Venus is kind of hot and horrible, so we're going to go the other way to Mars which is a little bit more inviting to send people to."
Currently, there is a potential mission to Mars planned for 2033, following the successful assessments of satellites and Rovers that have been monitoring the planet for years.
Alongside NASA, tech boss Elon Musk is also said to have a particular interest in exploring Mars, having emphasised on several occassions that it's one of the many goals for his space exploration firm SpaceX.
In fact, back in March of this year, the CEO claimed his company could achieve ‘self sustaining life’ on Mars in a relatively short amount of time.
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"That is the long-term goal of the company, to make life multi-planetary," he told Fox News presenter Sean Hannity.
"I think we could do it in 20 to 30 years."
Rhianna Benson