Mission to Mars

So in case you haven't read the link I posted below, you need to go and do that. It's all about how NASA is trying to seriously push for a manned mission to Mars.

The deal is though, that it's a one-way trip for anyone who decides to go.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately, what it would take to leave, what it would mean to go, and how you would survive over there. (Obviously this has some exciting sci-fiction plot bunnies as well) They say that what they might do instead of modifying the mars atmo for humans is modify the human genome for mars using synthetic biology. How freaking awesome is that?!

It would be nuts, absolutely nuts, to leave. And you know that the first people they're going to send are the old codgery astronauts with nothing to lose who have decided that this would be a hell of a way to go out. But they won't make it all the way there. They really need someone younger. Someone, well, more my age than anything else. Someone with enough life in them to give them that will to live, that desprate need for exploration, that something that makes youth so enviable.

Can you imagine being that teen? Signing the dotted line and literally saying goodbye to the only home we have ever known? To the only body we have ever known? Because it won't just be a matter of "It's too expensive to bring them home" or "We just didn't build the rocket to return" No. If you sign up for this, if you let them modify your body, you won't even be able to breathe Earth's air anymore. You literally can't come home again because you'll die.

Imagine knowing that not only was the next breath going to be your last breath ever on earth, but that you weren't going to die. You were going to be the first humanoid (for are you even a human being anymore? Talk about identity crisis) to ever set foot on another alien world. (Not just a satelite of our own dear earth).

I figure too they'll send you out in pairs. With a young guy and a young girl, an older guy and an older girl, and a pair of old astronauts with dust coming out of their rears when they fart. All of whom have been altered for Mars. Martians, if you will. But you just know that they won't all make it. You just know that the two kids are going to be the only ones who are able to adapt to the new life quick enough to survive.

And of course, there will be things we didn't think about either. Things we, as earth-kids, didn't even consider. Like how skin will react when exposed to such sun (talk about tan, hey?) or our eyes. If they aren't properly modified, you could go blind from such exposure. Our blood. You would have to flush our bodies with a different type of blood that used a different element (not oxygen) to power our being. Who knows if it would even be possible to do this. Maybe we'd just end up like spongebob with a fishbowl of water on our heads instead. Keep  it simple.


Still, it's a desprate return to our Exploratory past. People didn't think they were coming home when they decided to travel to the new world. And they won't this time. Who knows, maybe in 100 years I'll be buying a condo on Mars. :)