A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook from FOX News, entitled, “Mars-One Plans Suicide Mission to Red Planet for 2023”. The headline is a bit deceiving since there is a difference between planetary expatriation and 'suicide'. Death is an eventuality whether you are exploring Mars on a one-way voyage or just sitting at home here on earth watching FOX News. The article had a link to the Mars-One website which can be found right here: http://mars-one.com/en/. I encourage you to check it out for yourself, to click around, and to consider the possibilities. It turns out, “Mars-One” is a Dutch project to actually go to Barsoom (shout out to you John Carter fans) and establish the first station on another world. “Fantastic”, you say? The fact of the matter is, right now, with the use of existing technologies humanity could reach the planet Mars in 11 years.
That’s big.
Earth shaking big.
To paraphrase Norbert Kraft, “History is what happens when
the impossible is made possible.” I
have said it several times on the pages of this electric soapbox of a blog of
mine; there is no such thing as science fiction.
The obstacles that immediately come to mind are, “who goes?”
& “how do you pay for it?” Mars-One
has come up with some unique strategies.
If one considers the seven month voyage it will take to get to Mars, the
mind-bending isolation, the crushing claustrophobia that the first few
generations settlers would have to endure, the harsh environment of an unknown
world that has 40% the gravity of Earth and the fact that there is, at this
stage in the game, no possibility of a return trip to the planet of your birth
it becomes quite obvious that the selection process for the astronaut settlers
will have to be rigorous with extra care taken concerning their psychological
condition. They will have a pool of 40
screened and trained people to choose from for the first generation of
settlers. I assume that the process
would be the same for the next generation of settlers who would arrive two
years later.
So how does one fund a trip to the fourth planet of our
solar system? Mars-One has come up with
a unique way of making this happen.
Everything will be displayed for the world to behold via making it a
global “reality TV” event. Yes, the
revolution will be televised. By doing
so Mars-One grantees two things that give me hope for success of this ambitious
project; first, no tax dollars will be spent and second no
politics. Mars does not care
where you come from or what your political ideology may be. This is the liberation that free enterprise
and brilliant minds brings to the table.
We have seen this evolve even before the Space Shuttle program was
deemed too expensive to continue. The
X-Prize’s Space Ship One, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, all examples of
how the future will be shaped by free enterprise and brilliant minds. One does not simply look to governmental
structure for technological progress – you look to a freethinking populous for
that. Thank God for free enterprise and
brilliant minds.
You may have more questions than this humble blog can
provide so here is the Mars-One FAQ page: http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en. The only way any progression forward happens is when
people take risks. No doubt this is
risky business but it also means that mankind, in my lifetime (he said
selfishly) may have an established colony on Mars.
That’s big.
Earth shaking big.
I have but one modest request for their program; when the
time comes to name the first town established on Mars please consider the name,
“Bradbury”.