MARS ANYONE?

Last night, after almost 60 days of not seeing a clear sky partly due to smog and partly due to the weather, I went star-gazing. I noticed one of the stars was being a renegade, it had refused to twinkle. That is when my Physics Form one smacked me and I remembered that the “star” was actually a planet. Mercury or maybe Venus, I couldn’t quite remember which appeared on the East.

At that moment I chuckled. I remembered reading about some space exploration program by NASA (who else) seeking to have guys go to Mars in 2032. The bonus: Live there forever and have the government take care of you. Who doesn’t dream of such a life where all you do is sleep and fatten? So, for the sake of it and having nothing better to do on a Thursday evening, I sat in front of a screen to sign up for the alien program. Honestly, this was the simplest big thing one can get, it took me less than 2 minutes to run through the form. Plane tickets to Greenland take longer. And as it happens on all internet forms, at the bottom(where you have Visa, MasterCard and PayPal logos competing for space) there was a section where you are supposed to remit some money depending on your country. Reason? To make sure the act of giving money makes you go back to think if you seriously want to go to Mars, for the rest of your life, possibly with strangers. Needless to say, NASA does not need my $4, neither did I have $4 to give so that I can be a Martian citizen for life, either I was broke or I did not feel their vibe.

Anyway, I chuckled because I was worried that NASA would find enough humans, who will most likely be silly: to join their program. Now, you see, what they are not telling applicants is that they are guinea pigs. The “brave” trailblazers to Mars who will tell us how crunchy is Mars surface or how the weather there is. Have these guys thought of all the things they will miss on Earth? I could start with swimming and end with scenery. (That place looks really dusty and depressing)

Then I got worried. At 7 billion people, the Earth has diminishing resources that are gradually being weighed down by the burgeoning number of humans. Daily we are cutting down a huge number of trees while at the same time increasing our family sizes. Third world countries are feeling the brunt of the situation more than anyone else. Two things are sure to happen soon if things don’t change. One, the world population will be too high and become unsustainable. The earth will be in chaos as we destroy each other to share the few resources available. I’m talking nuclear war here as people fight for the few remaining boxes of Kenyan tea. Two, with the technology available then, there would be mass exodus to Mars, which really is a piece of rock covered in red dust and no resources. There would be the “Scramble for Mars” by the big nations reminiscent to the “Scramble for Africa” about a century ago.

Now since I got you thinking, the earlier you get to Mars the better. You will secure some land for your family and descendants and have enough time and pleasure to fence your acquisition before the scramble begins. You could even offer “Mars Tours” for the visitors when they arrive and introduce them to some trusted Martians 😉 The countdown is on, will you be on-board?

By Victor Brian Njagi