Today, Mars One officially announced its list of Round 3 candidates who will be moving on to more intense challenges. Only 100 people remain in the running, way down from the more than 200,000 people who applied. I didn’t make the cut.

Realistically, I didn’t really expect to make it all the way for the same reasons I never bothered to apply to be a NASA astronaut. I would be competing with people who are way more qualified than I am and I would rather not waste my time or NASA’s time. It’s pretty easy to speculate about why I didn’t make the cut. I’ve gone on record as being anything but a pacifist and I may have come off as a little too war-hawkish for comfort in what amounts to a closed environment that people with claustrophobia would absolutely hate. I think I flubbed one of the questions on the “knowledge” part of the interview with Robert Kraft. I positively hate doing interviews anyway even though I’ve done a few for a Youtube channel. I think my nerves were especially showing for that one. I’ll probably never entirely know for sure why I got a rejection letter this time.

Disappointed? Sure I am, but then, a few candidates I know whom I thought would be surefire shoo-ins didn’t make it, either. This doesn’t mean I’m giving up, though. It just means that I’m unlikely to be part of Mars One’s first manned journey to Mars. I’ll be keeping up with the proceedings as much as I can considering that we’ve had to sign confidentiality agreements. I might reapply when Mars One applications open up again. It’s a little early to say that I’d work for passage to Mars, but Elon Musk’s colonization ships are going to need some kind of crew. If all else fails, I might just start creating my own Martian habitat.

In the meantime, I have time to do my own thing. I’ll need to seriously ramp up efforts with HireCrypto for starters. I might raise some cash to attend the H2M conference in May and then the Mars Society convention in August. I’ve been doing a little writing for a Bitcoin news site called The Coin Front. Being cut in this round doesn’t mean I’m going to be sitting around twiddling my thumbs now and that’s a good thing.

My interests and dreams haven’t changed much. I might still reapply so they’ll know that I’m not someone who gives up easily. However, I applied in the first place because I wanted to get involved in establishing an expanded human presence in outer space in a way that was more meaningful than simply sitting around signing petitions. I just have time to reroute a few things now and I might get on board another serious effort if Mars One seriously doesn’t think I’m a good match for their program after my second try. The way things are sounding, it won’t be my only chance to get to Mars or at least into outer space in a way that’ll be more meaningful than a “space tourist” suborbital hop and that’s something I can look forward to.