Since it is summer and I have chosen to take a break from teaching summer school (if you can call a massive decluttering of our house and writing the first draft of a novel ”taking a break”), I have picked up several books to keep my mind active. One of them is Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight. While the first-person narrative took a bit of getting used to, I quickly fell in love with the story and began asking the question Margaret Lazarus Dean was asking: When are we going back up there?
The problem with missions beyond our own lands is that the idea of discovery is the domain of the wealthy. People without significant resources don’t do things just to learn what they are like. Having read a book on Queen Isabella of Spain recently, I am reminded of how we always have needed to attach a cost-benefit analysis to our voyages of discovery. We could get into a shouting match about spending priorities and practical applications, as many have already done, but doing so robs us of our sense of wonder and innate drive to explore the unknown. Just looking at the NASA webpage on going to Mars makes me both happy that we have a plan but sad it likely will not be realized until I am an old man.
Among many other TV shows, I am a fan of The West Wing, a show, at its core, about dreams fulfilled and failed. In multiple episodes, they discussed the idea of exploring space as part of our shared duty to humanity. Whether they were talking about the benefits of sending an unmanned probe to Mars or people themselves, humans “slip the surly bonds of earth,” as it were, because “it’s what’s next.”
So, no matter how old I am, if I am here when we go there, I will be watching with bated breath as the first person places the first bootprint on Mars. I missed Apollo 11, but I remember Challenger and the only thing, in my mind that can match our “one giant leap for mankind” is another such audacious jump.
For many of my generation, it’s all about three little words:
Mars or Bust!
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