Out of This World

This week I discovered that a former colleague from CHML Hamilton is in the final 1,000 who want to travel to and settle Mars.  The trip taking four semi-pro astronauts one way is scheduled to leave in 2023.  More than 200,000 people applied to take the ride.  

Karen Cumming is a journalist with courage to spare.  She has traveled to Haiti and other desperate parts of the world. She flew with the British crew of the Nimrod that, one day later, plunged into Lake Ontario during the 1995 Toronto airshow. Her footage of the laughing, happy crew of seven men aged 25-37 was shown around the world after the tragedy.  She designed and released a line of greeting cards.  No dust settles on her.  And now she wants to be the top journalist on the red planet.

The Mars One trip is raising money through crowd-sourcing and a planned reality TV show to narrow the contestants to the final four. They will simply be the first wave of settlers to build a new colony and populate the planet. But first they have to undergo years of training and testing not to mention a trip lasting 7-9 months.

Mars doesn’t have a welcoming atmosphere. There’s radiation, heavy dust and gravity about one-third of that on earth.  And when you arrive there’s no warm shower after months in a tube with other people. No comfy bed. No Starbucks latte. No dog or cat to greet you! Whoever goes will be true settlers.NASA is also working on sending humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s.  And unlike the Mars One mission, NASA also wants to bring people back.

Just thinking about it gives me the willies.

One husband is in deep doo-doo with his wife for making the final 1,000 cut.  He has four children and if he gets selected he’s made it very clear he’ll go. It’s an interesting ethical conundrum. On the one hand you’re making history and helping all of mankind. On the other, you’re abandoning a family you made, for good. When it comes to Mars, I’ll stick with the candy bar, thank you.