According to CNN, the Paragon Space Development Corporation may hire a husband and wife to be on the first manned (and womanned) journey to the Red Planet. Still in the early planning stages, the space flight would happen in 2018.

The planners may look for a senior couple as volunteers, because Paragon scientists fear radiation and other space hazards would have negative effects on young travelers’ internal organs. That means the travelers would have to be beyond childbearing age.

With new technology, the 70-million-mile roundtrip would take just under two years each way. So far in the plans, there would be no landing on Mars, just a brief orbit of the Red Planet, the total requiring the couple to be away from Earth for almost 48 months.

Old traveler’s response: Four years is a hell of a long time to be away from the grandkids, senior discount at IHOP and the TV soap operas.