It was one of the core assertions of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars books that any human being who wished to be in the first batch of permanent immigrants to live on Mars would virtually have to be insane. Either they would go insane from the paradigm shift of living in a situation which was so different from everything humans have evolved to interact with, or they would have anti-social tendancies whic allowed them to break ties with their loved ones on Earth more easily than normal people. I’m not sure I agree with this evaluation of potential settlers, but the decision shouldn’t be made lightly. What you’re doing is taking a citizen of a global community and essentially isolating them permanently from this community, aside from electronic interaction and even that will not be real-time. Herd animals don’t often do well when forcibly extracted from the herd. Even if a small community of people were sent together this may just serve to break them even faster as they have to deal with each other intimately at all times and with very few outlets.
It is a rare human being who can completely cut ties with Mother Earth and the world-girdling human civilization and re-locate to as alien and inhospitable a region as the Moon would be without going mad. It is a rarer person who has so few things they treasure on Earth which could not go with them(family and loved ones typically occupying the top spot, but don’t underestimate the importance of fresh air, 24 hour days, 1.0 g’s, and blue skies) as to allow them to relocate without severe impact to their psyche and biology. The human animal is both a social creature and a creature adapted live on THIS planet. Overcoming those barriers won’t be easy, even if out brains say we can/must.
Enjoy,
Steven