Alyssa to be the first person on Mars?

Alyssa Carson attended her first space camp at 5 years old. She graduated from the Advanced Space Academy program at 16, the youngest person ever to do so. Before the pandemic hit, the rising college sophomore had planned to spend her summer flying airplanes, reports the Business Insider.

The eventual goal: fly to Mars 

Carson is one of a small group of young people who are already positioning themselves to be astronauts in the US's next phase of space exploration. They are attending advanced preparation programs and building social media personas to put themselves on NASA's radar now, all with an eye towards being in the astronaut class sent to the red planet in the next couple of decades. 

The group, mostly teenagers, talks online about the latest developments in space exploration and works to broadcast their interest to a wider audience. Carson's online personality is NASA Blueberry — she uses the name on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. 

"We're kind of translating space talk and doing science experiments on TikTok," she told Business Insider. "It's definitely a lot of the science geeks trying to learn this new TikTok thing, but it's about being entertaining while talking about science."

Going to Mars has been Carson's dream since she was 3 years old and watched an episode of "The Backyardigans" about astronauts going to Mars. She's the only person who's attended every NASA space camp. When she was 12, she was invited to speak at NASA about her interest in the red planet. She's currently pursuing an astrobiology major at the Florida Institute of Technology.

The draw is that stepping onto the red planet is something no one has done before, she said.

NASA aims to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. A crucial though preliminary step in that effort launches later this month, when the Perseverance rover will begin its journey to the red planet. Assuming it lands there safely, the robot is expected to search for signs of life and measure Mars's weather, dust, and water conditions. This information could help set up future crewed missions.