Lets go to Mars Mars is waiting for us a big juicy planet with the possibility of water and the possibility of life. Out there looking beautiful and waiting for the Humans to come visit. I think that it is a little strange that the colonization of Mars is such an obvious next step in the exploration of our universe and we aren't recognizing it. Take a good long look at Mars. Look at all of the different reasons we have to go to Mars. There is evidence of water beneath the surface (whatever the creationists say). There is evidence that it was once similar to Earth in climate. Coincidentally Earth was once hit by a meteorite, coincidentally we found it, coincidentally the rock came from all the way from Mars, coincidentally it came from a place on Mars where there was once water, coincidentally this meteorite seems to have signs of possible life. We have taken pictures of regions with seemingly geometric structures. Isn't it obvious that Mars is calling to our world. It's a little bit to coincidental for me. Almost like there is someone or something out there giving us signs to GO TO MARS. We need to listen! Unfortunately there are very few institutions that have enough money to spare to put together a Mars mission. These institutions are things like the entire population of America combined, The American government, Microsoft those kind of institutions. Unfortunately these institutions don't have the vision, the insight, the initiative... to do it. But wait, what about the American public. There sure are a lot of us and most of us would love to go to Mars right, but we don't have the organization. The government has that organization but they think its better to send 20 little missions and then one big one at the end then to just send one big one. I understand that we want to learn about Mars in a cost effective way. What they are doing may seem cost effective now because they aren't spending all that much money for their little missions. In actuality what they are doing is everything that could be done on a very expensive manned mission over a couple of weeks, except they are doing it on twenty little missions over a period of years and maybe decades. Of course the way NASA is doing it would be much cheaper then the manned mission except for one small factor. Ask anyone in NASA or in the high ranks of our government "Will there be a manned mission to Mars within the life of our country" and they will say "Yes". So we are going to be spending the money on the manned mission anyway so why waste all the money now on all the little missions. We have the technology, we have the people, we have the need for a manned mission to Mars. SO WHY CAN"T WE JUST DO IT! During this whole essay I have completely ignored the fundamental concept of the need of human beings to explore and I have presented it the way the government thinks about things I plan on tapping the exploration reasons in another essay. . . |
© Copyright 1997 Hank Green
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