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It's been described as a 'suicidal mission' that is doomed to fail.

Despite this, the Mars One project - which aims to send people to live on the red planet - has whittled down its shortlist of candidates from more than 200,000 to just 100, the Daily Mail reports.

From this, a final crew of four will eventually be selected for a 'one-way ticket' to the red planet scheduled to arrive in 2025 following a grueling seven-month journey from Earth.

'The large cut in candidates is an important step towards finding out who has the right stuff to go to Mars,' said Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of the Dutch Mars One mission.

'These aspiring Martians provide the world with a glimpse into who the modern day explorers will be.'

The Mars 100 Round Three candidates were selected from a pool of 660 candidates after participating in personal online interviews.

They include 50 men and 50 women who successfully passed the second round.

The majority of the 100 applicants come from the US, 31 come from Europe, 16 from Asia, seven from Africa and seven from Australia. 

Additional teams would join the settlement every two years, with the intention that by 2033 there would be over twenty people living and working on Mars.

There, they will collect data, plant oxygen-producing vegetation and set the foundation for human colonisation.

In the next stage, which may involve 'rigorous, potentially televised competitions', the current shortlist will be reduced to 40.