As it turns out, Rob Ford, Toronto’s embattled, fiscally conservative, crack-smoking mayor is amongst those who have applied for this one-way ticket to the future.

This is his application.

Tell us a little about yourself:

My name is Rob Ford and I’m still mayor of Toronto, one of North America’s largest cities and greatest sport’s towns!! You might have heard of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the CN Tower or maybe some lies that the media made up about me. We’re pretty big-city here.

Anyway, I’m an alpha male, big and powerful, like a lumberjack or a white football player who ferociously protects his QB; loyal, not stubborn. I’m a straight-shooting son of gun who tells it like it is, and I like to have a good time. Let me tell you, you’ll always know when the Big Dog is in the house because there’ll never be a dull or non-confrontational moment! I will bring the energy and flat-out RAWK the Martian Mansion! I am a walking exclamation point!!! Think Snooki times six!

I’m also straight. The idea of guys kissing grosses me out. They can do what they want underground or wherever, but when it’s in front of me, I need them to show some respect.

I’m really into the ladies, am likely still able to father children and would be totally open to any romantic entanglements that might develop on Mars. I think everybody should have a shot at love, even if it’s on a different planet far away from your wife that you’ve been married to for a like a billion years. Personally, I like blondes the best, blondes like Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager and Jessica Simpson. Hell, I don’t care that Jessica Simpson went out and put on some weight from drinking and having a baby! She was under a lot of stress, which I completely and totally understand, so if Jessie put on a few, big whoop, it just means there’s more for me!

Favourite movie:  A Clockwork Orange

Favourite city: Chicago

Favourite band: Triumph

Tell us why you’d like to go to Mars:

My favourite colour is red. LOL!! I’m just kidding. (I have a really good sense of humour and could really boost the spirits of the other pioneers, and keep our massive viewing audience laughing.)

But seriously, Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian who was up in the International Space Station Tweeting back to earth, has inspired me to want to become an astronaut. I could totally do what he did.

Here are some of my sample Tweets:

“From space, Chicago is an intricate tapestry of partying lights.”

“Who let the dogs out? Rob! Rob! Rob!”

“The Earth, small and blue and beautiful in eternal, floating silence.”

“Quietly, like a night bird, floating, soaring, wingless, I can blot you out with my thumb.”

Anyway, Hadfield is like a saint around here and can’t do anything wrong. The media, who tell lies about me and hunt me like I was a big, beautiful wild animal, think that everything he does is right and everything that I do sucks and instantly turns to crap. They’re trying to tackle me, the media, and that’s not fair. Earth people are negative all the time, and just don’t get Rob Ford. I think I’d like to get off this little blue bean and take on the challenge of colonizing a new, media-free planet.

I’m not scared to kill things with my hands if that’s what it takes to live on Mars.

If I can quote, “I’m not the man they think I am at home

Oh, no, no, no, I’m a rocket man.”

Also, I believe very strongly in free enterprise and would friggin’ love to start a brand-new economy that has no bureaucrats and very little municipal governance. That would be a dream, that and coaching football again. I would LOVE to be the greatest football coach in Martian history, and one day, I would hope to become mayor of Mars, too, or rather, my district of Mars.

I was built for space.

Rob Ford

PS: The rumors that I was rejected for “Celebrity Apprentice” are ridiculous.

After this, as a means of contrast, Rachelle and I watched Commander Hadfield’s return to Earth. For those of you who are not Canadian, Commander Chris Hadfield is a Canadian Astronaut who has spent the last 5 months on the International Space Station. It was here, through his use of Twitter– where he accumulated nearly one million followers—that he became something of a folk hero.

Avuncular, proportional and competent, Hadfield seems like a really, really nice guy. A Canadian guy. His moustache is friendly, like the sexually non-threatening moustache of a well-liked high school teacher, and his manner is sincere, thoughtful and fun, but still, you know this guy is operating at a very high level. You want him as your next-door neighbour. He would know what to do when the power went out and you thought you heard something funny in the basement.

Attached to a parachute, the Soyuz space capsule drifted down from space into a field in Kazakhstan like a child’s toy. A bunch of unofficial looking Russians then went over, as if farmers inspecting something that had fallen from the past rather than the future, and pulled the astronauts from the capsule. This was done without the least trace of urgency, like something they were practicing for in their street clothes rather than the main event.

The first out was the Russian and he looked hale, hearty and ready to start tossing a Kettlebell around. The next to follow, the American and Hadfield, looked small, pale and a little worse for the wear, like space travel extracted a physical toll.

They were all put on what looked like unmatched lawn chairs and gave the cameras the thumbs-up. Our CBC commentators were giddy, gushing about how robust and great Hadfield looked. It was surreal, like watching some weird variation of a Soviet propaganda film.

Regardless, what Hadfield did on his mission was utterly wonderful. From his photographs, videos and tweets, he shared with the public a suggestion of what might be considered the divine. The world is stunning in its beauty, and by extension we, all just brief, tiny organic outcroppings of the same living entity, are beautiful, too.

There are many who think that the International Space Station is a huge waste of money, one that doesn’t provide sufficient scientific benefit, but Hadfield, (his Space Oddity video was the most watched on YouTube Monday) showed us that data is perhaps secondary to the opportunity to see ourselves through eyes never imagined.