- Should we go to Mars? I don't mean personally, of course.
I, for one, am unable to go to Mars because of a dental appointment. But
should humans, in general, go to Mars?
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- As you know, the idea of a Mars mission was proposed
recently by President George "W" Bush. What happened was, one
evening he and his staff were sitting around the Oval Office, trying to
think of something for the nation to do, and they got to looking out the
window at the vastness of the night sky, and the president suddenly said:
"Hey, we should go to Ö to Ö whaddyacallit!"
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- The president actually was thinking of a Chinese restaurant
on Wisconsin Avenue, but before he could clarify this, his staff had worked
out this whole big Mars mission. So he figured, what the hey.
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- This is not a new dream. As long as humanity has been
human, it has looked toward the heavens and dreamed that some day, some
way, there would be giant federal contracts involved. And there has always
been a particular fascination with Mars, the fourth planet from the sun,
unless we count Marlon Brando.
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- Mars - sometimes called "The Red Planet," because
it appears, to the naked eye, to be orange - gets its name from the ancient
Greek or Roman name "Mars," meaning "Mars." The planet
has long captured the popular imagination, because for many years, people
believed that Martians might live there, based on the fact that there are
canals, which suggests the presence of boats, and, in the words of the
late Carl Sagan: "If there are boats, then there would have to be
somebody to fix them."
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- In 1938, Orson Welles did a radio "news" broadcast,
based on "The War of the Worlds," about invading Martians landing
in the town of Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The broadcast created a nationwide
panic, although it was, of course, a hoax: The Martians actually landed
in Philadelphia, where many still reside, as evidenced by U.S. Senator
Arlen Specter.
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- Today we are pretty sure that nobody lives on Mars, at
least not year-round. We base this on the fact that NASA has spent hundreds
of millions of dollars sending unmanned probes up there, and they have
sent back thousands of pictures, all of them showing: rocks. Granted, there
was one picture where, if you magnified the background, you could just
make out a sign that said "PALM SPRINGS 47 MILES." But a NASA
spokesperson quickly explained that this was "an optical illusion,
caused by, um, hydrogen."
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- As I write these words, we have yet another probe scooting
around on Mars, and it has been sending back exquisitely detailed photographs
of: rocks. At this point, I, for one, am willing to stipulate that Mars
is, basically, covered with rocks, but our space scientists apparently
do not intend to stop until they obtain photographs of every last one of
them.
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- Which leads us to the president's plan for getting to
Mars, which consists of four stages:
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- STAGE ONEWe set up a base on the moon, which has less
gravity than Earth, because it is farther away.
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- STAGE TWOWe build a rocket up there, using cheap local
labor.
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- STAGE THREEAstronauts get into the rocket, blast off
from the moon, and fly back to Earth, where they go to a Wal-Mart and stock
up on supplies, especially deodorant.
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- STAGE FOURThey blast off again, and, after a difficult,
tedious and extremely dangerous six-month space voyage, arrive - if all
goes well - on Mars, where they find: rocks. So the benefits are obvious.
But what about the costs? The Bush administration says the Mars mission
can be accomplished for only 143.8 zillion dollars, but critics claim that
the true cost is likely to be much more like 687 fillion dillion dollars.
(These numbers are imaginary, but trust me, they're as accurate as any
other cost estimates you see about the Mars mission.)
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- The question is, could this money be better spent? We
have many urgent needs right here on Earth. What about the elderly? What
about the young people? Could we maybe kill two birds with one stone here
and send the elderly and young people to Mars? Will the young people want
special "low rider" astronaut pants with the waist at roughly
knee level?
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- These are indeed complex issues, and clearly what we
need, if we are to resolve them, is a serious and sustained national dialogue
on our priorities and our goals. You start! I'll be at the dentist.
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- Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune
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