BB ON MARS - BUT WITH NO EVICTIONS.

Byline: Mark McGivern

A BRITISH space expert believes astronauts should be sent to live on Mars for good - and asked to take part in a Big Brother-style TV show.

Professor Paul Davies insists a one-way mission with a reality show broadcast to Earth would save money and eventually lead to "a permanent human presence on another world".

He says humans could survive and stay "reasonably cosy" by living like cavemen on the Red Planet, sheltering from deadly solar radiation in under-grountunnels called lava tubes. Professor Davies, 63, added: "How do we pay for all of this? I think ultimately this would have to be an international collaboration or commercial venture.

"Imagine the TV rights. Think of what people pay for football rights - huge sums of money. So a spectacular like this, a real-life soap opera from another planet, would be worth a lot of money."

The former professor at Cambridge, London and Newcastle told NASA's Astrobiology magazine there would be plenty of adventurous people willing to take up the challenge.

He explained: "I would envisage probably four people would go in the first instance. But a one-way mission to Mars would not just be a one-off exercise. They would be trailblazers.

"Although they would go without the expectation of returning, they'd have the expectation they would be joined by others and this base would grow into a permanent Mars colony that might take hundreds of years to establish."