10,9,8, the countdown to Mars has started…

A big congratulations to one of our customers Mars One who this afternoon announced the start of their astronaut selection program at a press conference in New York.

For those of you who have not heard heard of them, Mars One is a not-for-profit organization that will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023 through the integration of existing, readily available technologies from industry leaders world-wide. Unique in its approach, Mars One intends to fund this decade-long endeavor by involving the whole world as the audience of an interactive, televised broadcast of every aspect of this mission, from launch to landing to living on Mars.

Over the last few months Trifork has been working together with the team at Mars One to build a global platform that will support Astronaut Selection Program. A scalable site has been developed which expects applications from hundreds, perhaps thousands more likely even millions of applicants in the coming months from all across the world.

Using the services from SoftLayer, MongoDB, Bits on the Run and a lot of other cool technologies and services, we’ve been able to create a very robust website which will make everyone across the world  able to participate in this great journey.

You can watch the press conference on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJNGH4NZJ4U