Mars, Living Without Earth

        Don’t you, Forget about me

image Credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech

                                    

                                                                                                                         

     Earth: the Goldilocks planet. Where life is created and where life dies, it is where our history is embedded. A place, we call home.

 Throughout the ages, man's ongoing curiosity has led him to explore and map out our lands and oceans. From the first settlements of the ancients. who clearly viewed the world through a muse of fascination and who mapped out the stars, to modern man, whose forgoing curiosity of exploring space has destined him to live within those same stars.


 With a growing number of people, an estimated 7.3 billion, Earth has witnessed the rises of civilizations to their eventual collapse. Wars and differences of opinions have plagued its grounds for thousands of years. We have participated and adapted to its evolution to match our own. It has seen thousands of species come and go The dinosaurs roamed for millions of years before succumbing to a catastrophic event. It has taken an estimation of thirteen thousand years since we started to change our surroundings. From living in caves and mud huts to megalithic stone structures. Now here in our luxurious homes, steel high rises and developed space programs. We did it all as a society with hundreds, thousands, millions to billions of people contributing. Anyone who says they feel lonely must live in a muted world, because people are now everywhere.

 To be human is to have the want, the need and the desire to be a contributor to anything that moves us forward. Nevertheless, to have lived with no residue of oneself is to not have lived at all.

 And what has more want and need then strapping yourself to a rocket with the ability to map out a destination in space and then be picked to go there to build the first human outpost. Even the desire to be among others who will step off our Earth and onto the terrestrial soil of another planet while wearing the same boots has intriguing suggestions of accomplishing new boundaries and breaking old barriers of the impossible. We will have another chance to go beyond our imaginations by ascending to Mars, it may even be a greater endeavor then the Moon landings. I am sure if Neil Armstrong were alive and well today he would have agreed and enthusiastically signed up, having accomplished two of humanity’s most historical events ever. However, would the man who is truly the only one who can lay claim to being the first person to step on our enigmatic Moon, be willing to go if he had the prior knowledge of never returning to Earth? Perhaps, he was a pilot before becoming an astronaut and was trained to know the risk and concerns of technical issues causing death or the possibility of becoming lost in space with no way of returning home. Buzz Aldrin has touched base on the subject matter many times.

"Did the Pilgrims on the Mayflower sit around Plymouth Rock waiting for a return trip? They came here to settle. And that's what we should be doing on Mars. When you go to Mars, you need to have made the decision that you're there permanently. The more people we have there, the more it can become a sustaining environment. Except for very rare exceptions, the people who go to Mars shouldn’t be coming back. Once you get on the surface, you're there."                                 +Buzz Aldrin , Vanity Fair, Jul. 2010

 Whomever it is that joins these pilgrims in the exploration of Mars will need to be thankless because they will never have that face to face human recognition that all the others shared in after going into orbit. 

 When Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins went to the moon in 1969, they became a part of that living history by coming back. More importantly, those astronauts also had the opportunity to live and die as Earthlings, with all the benefits that Earth offers. The Sun's energy provides a wisdom of growth. Our mountains give shelter and drinkable water. Trees help to filter the air. The West Wind picks up fallen seeds and carries them east. Seas and Oceans conspire with the Moon to control the tides and gravity keeps it all in place.

   Earthlings who suddenly inspired to be astronauts is less than one percent, 0.27 percent.  It is also, how many of us want to leave Earth. What compels these people into wanting to take a one-way ticket to the red planet? The majority are ordinary people like you and I with no former inspirations of becoming astronauts, let alone going to Mars. Here is what a few of the remaining selected Canadians said.

 Justin Semenoff,35, told CTV Saskatoon the risks associated with the one-way ticket are worth it. “As an average person, you can go and do something extraordinary… It's very exciting.” Quebecer Audrey Roy, a 19-year-old technical engineering student, told the Canadian Press it's always been her dream to travel in space. “It breaks my heart to actually leave them, but I've had a talk with them and they understand it is my dream since I was young.”  source CTVNEWS

 Karen Cumming, a former CHCH reporter and a teacher at Sir John A. MacDonald School in Hamilton, said she was captivated when she first heard about the project.Just making it this far has brought new opportunities to Cumming's life. She sought the advice of astronaut Chris Hadfield at a trade show last year and took to heart his admonition to ask lots of questions to Mars One about their plans for safety."He said, 'Be relentless in your questioning about your hardware,'" Cumming said. "That injected a dose of reality into this whole endeavor. It's so easy to get carried away with the fantasy of it without realizing this is real."  source CBCNEWS 

    

 For a reference to the physical effects of space and the plausibility of being ready for a mission to Mars, we will be so compelled to listen to retired astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station, +Chris Hadfield  whose total time in space was 166 days, in an interview with +Joe Rogan

 They all share the same commonality, the need of wanting. Wanting to be the first persons to go down in the history books as the first to colonize Mars. When asked what they would miss about Earth, One said, she would miss her husband and hamburgers. When I had learned six months after the fact that two hundred thousand people volunteered to go and +Mars One was wanting to send them. My initial reaction was regret, for not hearing about it sooner. More than likely, I would have applied to go myself but, I have eradicated that opinion. I have since realized that I am also guilty of those same reasons of wanting. It is the reality, you and twenty-three other people, of whom you really do not have any
prior knowledge of, have chosen. Eventually you will learn to live with one another for the remainder of your lives. For now, your willingness to adapt and participate will be an acquired asset, in order to keep ones sanity intact and to be able to live with your fellow colonist. Until others come, these people will be the only ones you will ever interact with on a physical level.I assume some, not all of course, know exactly what it is they will be giving up. While others would simply be collectively bargaining with themselves to bury the human factor. 

Only the lonely


Outline for Mars, Living without Earth is based off this poetic transcript.

...Imagine for a moment if you will, a time that is set twenty-five years into our future. Then consider a place where humans are living among the stars. 

Twenty-four people will go to Mars in groups of four, every two years respectively. In the beginning, it should be quite exciting and overwhelming. It is however foreseeable that over time the colony would have experienced the true meaning of the word loneliness. 

Somewhere out there on the plains of the Martian soil is a man who has taken on the weight of the world in establishing a new frontier for humanity. 

Commander Mike Barron, along with a group of others have chosen to live out the remainder of their lives on a desolate planet called Mars. In which they are living in a world without Earth. Twenty people now call this place their home. 

It has been eleven years, six months and they now await for the last arrivals. 

The greatest gift humanity has ever achieved is the ability to adapt, without it, we would never have left the Stone Age. That gift is about to run its course in one man, he is about to endure an awe awakening feeling and will come to terms with what the true meaning of being human is.

Please stand by… 

How would ones gravestone read? 

When you are born on Earth and your final resting place is here. 

What would be engraved on it? Maybe it would be full of meaning but with little to no regard to the actual occupant. It could read like this; “Here lies the first Earthling to explore Mars” or perhaps “Kilroy was here” is better suited. After all, who else will be travelling from Earth to read it? 

Earth called today, she found your marbles in a jar on a shelf in the living room beside your plant and if you close your eyes you can still see yourself sitting in your favorite chair next to the spot your cat sheds its hair. 

Day in and day out it has become one in the same. Blood in, blood out, toiling astronauts are deep in the garden. 

Sunrise, Sunset, atones for the chirps of instruments used to define the body of soil to emphasize its retained information about its environment. 

Walked into an EVA Spacesuit that is jarred with earth’s atmosphere, Run on a spot. Breathe into a machine. 

Personal Audio Log. Day 3,952 

Commander Mike Barron 

This morning I showered, exercised and ate. Bloodwork was clean and all systems are running. Walked into the suit, stepped into the airlock chamber, hatch shuts and locks behind me, the plenum vacuum turns on and the outside hatch opens. 

…end 

At night I stare through my oval window and watch the Earth, blinking in and out. Then a warm sensation usually comes over me or rather it does not. I now often wonder what it is to feel the sun’s rays at sunrise. I can no longer remember. The Sun is obviously one in the same here but its energy is different. 

Personal Audio Log. Day 4,027 

Commander Mike Barron 

What I would give up to have a front door instead of a hatch. 

Today I woke up on time, again. Ran on a spot, breathed into a machine, showered and then I ate. Blood in, blood out, and once again I am clear to leave the pod. Walked into the suit. Hatch opens, stepped into the airlock chamber, hatch closes behind me, deep, deep breaths, door opens. I look up and still I have not recalled in my mind’s eye a Sunrise that I have seen. I go to work. 

…end 

I separate myself from my body, exhausted I walked towards a boulder and sat down. I see myself, I am examining rocks while wearing the gloves. My nails are becoming detached from my fingers. The consequences of wearing gloves every day for eleven years or it may be from chronic nail biting. Never have I or has anyone else ever worked without them. Work is over for the day, and there I am waiting for the door to open with my tray of samples. I think I will stay here for a little while longer, sitting on this rock. 

Personal Audio Log. Day 4030 

Commander Mike Barron 

Hatch closes, door opens. 

…end 

I notice my inner self has not moved from the rock. Today as I worked, I watched as I just sat there starring at my gloves. Why am I entranced with my gloves? Fed up, I cannot ignore the mirror no more, and I have had enough. I head towards the rock and ask the question. When will you stop chasing the light? I then heard a voice in my helmet. An angel perhaps. 

Communications Audio Log. Day 4030 

Sync 

Science first officer 

 “Who are you talking to? Are you alright sir?” 

Commander “No one” 

…end 

I look back and I am gone. 

Alarms, red and yellow streams of lights, screams in the air and splashes of colour everywhere. 

Systematic Computational Analysis Log. Day 4031 

Sync 

The crew is awakened to the sound of alarms. Heat sensors and life monitoring systems are detecting one missing person. Commander Barron has no traceable signatures in any of the pods for the last twelve hours. A team has been assembled to search for the Commander. Medical logs state the Commander has been displaying post-traumatic stress syndrome and questionable

 P.A. Logs 

...end 

EVA Spacesuit on, hatch opens, step into the airlock chamber, hatch closes and locks, the plenum vacuum turns on and the outside hatch opens. 

Acting Commanders Audio Log. Day 4031 

The footprints started out at more than a hundred feet; we followed. 

...end

I look across the Victoria Crater waiting for Sunrise, my thoughts wonder, I am fascinated by how much this place resembles Earth but with no benefits, to live as a human with all its faults here is illogical. 

I see the Suns atoms getting excited, gaining energy to give it off as light. The Sun is coming over the Martian lands and as it does, it is ever so revealing. I see mountains that give shelter and drinkable water. Trees, to help filter the air. I can see a West Wind picking up fallen seeds and carrying them east. Seas and Oceans conspire with a Moon to control the tides and gravity triggering a memory reflex, remembering to keeps it all in place. Finally, I feel the convection of the Suns energy radiating by warming my cheeks. Children are playing, animals of every species running, hunting and taking to flight. For the first time in eleven years I can take in a long drawl of pacific coast air, I can taste the Sea Salt. I see everyone who has ever held any meaning to me and I remember every Sunrise to Sunset that I have ever witnessed. I am reminiscent of my former self. 

Acting Commanders Audio Log. Day 4031 

We found Commander Mike Barron at the edge of the Victoria Crater. He was without his helmet.

It was not the absence of people that moved him. It was the loneliness from Living without Earth

.I sit now on the rocks beside the Victoria Crater, laying back I face the sky waiting for the night, so I can once more gaze upon her,

Home.