Destination Mars

We are going to have to examine the whole issue of the future of manned space travel. There is no doubt that the enthusiasm for the whole space effort has waned over the years. Most Americans don't know what we are doing in space."

—Senator John McCain

Let us consider the history of the world in a few hundred words, starting with the terrible fact that our planet blazed out of the Sun and took several billion years to cool, for the rains to fall, the oceans to form, the lands to arise, for the grass to appear and then for the simple amoebic forms that gradually developed eyes to crawl out onto the land.

Then the reptiles of the world stared at the sky and decided to learn to fly, and the bird was invented.

Very slowly this progression of genetic ideas occurred in the world, and we finally arrived to look at ourselves and be astounded by our creation.

All this we know.

In recent centuries we've voyaged around the world because the kings of various countries said the voyages should occur. The king and queen of Spain sent Christopher Columbus, and then Henry VII became jealous of this and called upon Giovanni Caboto to go forth on a similar venture. Finally Verrazano was sent by Francis I to touch land in the United States and brought his boats up on Kitty Hawk 400 years before the Wright brothers went the other way.

During all of these adventures we were willing to sacrifice minds and lives and knew that they had to be sacrificed for us to go where we wanted to go. It never ends. In recent times we have reached for the Moon, and now we reach for Mars.

Our whole history is one of survival, but survival is not enough. Survival for what? Mere survival is not an excuse. We must turn to ourselves for further answers.

What is it all about? Why will we do this? For what final aim?

In the past months we dreamers stopped staring inward at our war-torn planet, invented two eyes and last June sent them into space. Sometime in January these cameras move in on our red planet, Mars. They will touch down for the first time in years, to stare close-up at the rough terrain, promising us territories where we will build sites for future towns just as the other explorers before us did.

So in January many of us will gather in churches or stand on lawns to watch the sky and to pray for the safe arrival of these twin cameras. The world's planetariums will be crammed with people hoping for a clearer view of the world.

Why all this?

Because for too many years we have abandoned the Apollo missions' dream. When the first footprint was left on the Moon we promised ourselves to keep moving from that lunar base outward to distant worlds. Since then we have lost ourselves in political warfare and the terrible attrition of death in a dozen nations.

Finally, we have let our dreams beyond Earth be erased by the circumnavigations of the shuttle. Year after year the shuttle has charted our seas and scanned the complexion of Earth's present and past. It has become as familiar as the poles whirling in front of 10,000 barbershops, so we have increasingly stared at our shoes instead of up at the stars.

Elsewhere I have described the position of mankind in the 21st century: too soon from the cave, too far from the stars. We are the in-between generation, having emerged from the genetic wilderness to this position where we look at the universe and are stunned by the revelations we find there.

Late nights, haven't each and all of us thought to ourselves, How did we get here? Where did Earth come from, and how did the people on Earth arrive? We have thousands of religions with 10,000 answers and none of them completely agreeable.

Years ago I took an incredible light-year glance at the cosmos, wallowed in panic and shouted so I could hear over the din of facts from the farsighted astronomers.

"What if there never was a Big Bang?" I heard myself say.

"How's that again?" I gasped.

"What if there was never a Big Bang?" my demon muse repeated. "What if the universe and all its galaxies and hot-fire suns and hot and cold planets were never born and simply always existed?"

"Impossible."

"So is the Big Bang," said my demon muse quietly. "Look up: 10 billion light-years of stars. Look sideways, you'll see the same. How the hell do you find and detonate a Big Bang that immense?"

"You can't," I said.

"You said it," said my demon.

"You mean the universe has been here forever?"

"It's scary stuff. The universe has existed beyond time and eternity, waiting for a final thing."

"What final thing?"

"Us. It lacked one great miraculous item. It was a cosmic theater but with 10 million times a million empty seats. The stars knew not themselves. The moons and planets were born deaf and blind, unhearing, unseeing, unfeeling. The great tomb yards of space were just that: gravestones with no names. The universe collected its genetic phlegm and at last coughed forth——"

"What?"

"An audience. It needed to be seen, heard, sensed, touched. It needed to be recognized and applauded. We are that audience. We, you and I, have been birthed amid the blind, mute, soundless tombstones to stand upright in a rain of senseless light and shout against the dark. Religions? They're false. We are our own real religions. We are our own gods. That's why it's up to us."

"So," I said, "that's what it's all about. Millions of watchful humans birthed as half-formed philosophers who have asked again and again, 'Why are we here? Why are we alive? To what mysterious purpose were we born? Give me a reason for life and living.'"

My muse replied, "What's the use of a universe unseen, a theater of empty worlds? We are here, hallelujah! And again wild hallelujahs to witness it all, to witness and celebrate and explore."

So there you have it. For the past two decades, in a shuttle circling Earth, we have been the dreamers of the dream, and that dream, despite our lagging behind, was of the Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto, Alpha Centauri and beyond forever. That's life everlasting. That's true eternal salvation. That's why we must go to Mars. And that's why we can't stop there.

Real Close Encounters

Many human interactions with alien life-forms have ended in tragedy

Mork

Galactic origin: Planet Ork

First contact: September 14, 1978, in Colorado

Human accomplice: Mindy stows Mork in the attic of her house and eventually succumbs to his hirsute charms.

Technological wonder: His spacecraft is modeled after the humble egg, complete with crack-open cladding.

Unfortunate end: Mork marries his protector and produces a fully grown man-child, only to have the family chased from Earth by Kelnik, a warring alien.

Uncle Martin

Galactic origin: Mars

First contact: September 29, 1963, in Los Angeles

Human accomplice: Tim O'Hara, a reporter, disguises the alien as his eccentric, slightly disreputable relative.

Technological wonder: Martin's head contains retractable antennae.

Unfortunate end: Martin disappears on September 4, 1966. Reports in the early 1980s suggest he may have found a job teaching at Ridgemont High.

ALF

Galactic origin: Planet Melmac

First contact: September 22, 1986, in an unspecified suburban location

Human accomplices: The Tanner family

Technological wonder: A gift for sarcasm

Unfortunate end: Rousted out of his hiding place by the Alien Task Force, he's been on the run since June 18, 1990. In recent years he has been seen making inexpensive long-distance calls with former NFL star Terry Bradshaw.

E.T.

Galactic origin: Unknown

First contact: June 11, 1982, in California

Human accomplice: A young boy named Elliott hides the alien and helps him outrun police, scientists and the FBI.

Technological wonders: E.T. can heal wounds, make bicycles take flight and reduce humanoids to tears.

Unfortunate end: Not as tech-savvy as ALF, E.T. is apparently unaware of how much he could save with cheap long-distance rates in his repeated efforts to phone home.

Kal-El/Superman/Clark Kent

Galactic origin: Planet Krypton

First contact: 1938, in Smallville

Human accomplices: Jonathan and Martha Kent adopt Kal-El—the future Superman—as an infant.

Technological wonders: X-ray vision, ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, near invulnerability

Unfortunate end: In December 1992, Superman is beaten to death by the villain Doomsday, only to be reanimated a year later. No wonder he sees a supershrink these days.