140 million miles by the 2030’s: That’s the word on the street and in the papers. Governments and corporations are focused on that date to reach the Red Planet and establish the first Martian Colony.
In the early 2030’s, the orbits of Earth and Mars will approach a near point.
You may recall the wealthy Dennis Tito, who paid $20 million in 2001 to hop a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. Dennis is advertising for a nice young couple to do a Mars flyby in 2018 – all expenses paid, of course. This would apparently be a test run to check out the equipment and get a close-up view of available home sites for a permanent move round about 2030.
Acknowledging the logistical difficulties in coordinating a move to the 4th planet’s suburban neighborhoods, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently stated: “We’re developing today the technologies needed to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.”
The Dutch group Mars One is out in front of those NASA types and is asking for money to be mailed to the non-profit organization to fund a landing in the 2020’s. Mars One already has simulated pictures of a nice little colony, with small white homey motel units connected by tubes, and a space-suited parent walking to the Mars rover parked out front to begin the morning commute to work.
The colony resembles the one my nephew visited to work on Mars in Utah just a few weeks ago. They have Mars set up there . . . in the painted desert . . . way out there between the isolated mesa’s — row-on-row, while in the sky the far-off sun still bravely shines. Water is scarce and the whole place has the look and feel of an other-worldly planetary adventure. It is, of course, a simulated Mars, not the real thing, and its purpose is to prepare young engineers and their friends for a flight to the real thing.
Whereas mine was the Sputnik generation with heads turned up at night scanning the nearer skies for the streaks of satellite flashes, these new engineers, scientists, explorers and colonists are the SpaceShip generation waiting to board and head out “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where where no man or woman has gone before.” Star Trek is upon us. Let the flight begin.
Never wonder that wonders never cease.
Turn on the computer and book a personal space.
The heavens have always been out there, but they have never been so close.
They are waiting and the Red Planet is beckoning.
For you to board and reach for the stars.
Safe travels,
and
don’t
forget to
send a postcard.
You know we’ll be waiting,
Grandpa Jim