So people are going to go to Mars. At least, that's what they keep telling us. When I first heard about this, I honestly thought it was a joke. In fact, because one of the guys who is in the running to go to Mars is the foster brother of my cousins, I assumed THEY were playing the big joke on everyone. It turns out, however, this is a real thing. People are really going to go to Mars and more than likely, not come back from it.
Understandably, my cousins are having a difficult time with that last part. The idea that someone they love going to another planet and never coming back is pretty awful. It will basically be like him dying. I'm hoping if he does end up being selected that he can still have ways to communicate back to them. Otherwise, yeah, that's sad and scary.
Outside of this personal connection to the whole thing, I have to admit that I'd somewhat given up hope that people would colonize another planet in my lifetime. When I was under 12, I thought we would, but then Challenger happened and things changed about how people viewed going to space. Suddenly, all of our 'off the planet' motivation seemed to have dried up.
The interesting thing about being a kid in the '80s is that I've already lived through quite a lot of people's predictive futures (1984, 2001, 2010, and so on) that didn't end up the way people thought they would. Instead of going into outerspace, we made a home in cyberspace. People became citizens of the internet, for good and for the bad. It seemed that technology was going to stay in that direction, the stars, for the moment, forgotten.
And then suddenly this private company has decided to send people to Mars. Wow. Just . . . wow. This really blows me away. A colony outside of our planet. I'm not sure it's a good idea, but it's certainly an exciting one. And I have to admit, it fills my inner child with serious happiness. Finally, space. Finally.
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