Yesterday, I waited breathlessly to hear whether the most recent Martian lander had made it safely and successfully to the surface of the red planet. With a half hour to go before touchdown, CNN was running a countdown clock complete with a voiceover commentary on what the NASA engineers at Mission Control were probably thinking. Mind you, what they were thinking HAD to be more exciting then what they were actually doing, which was sitting around in big cushy chairs at their Mission Control workstations while looking pensive. One was fiddling with her glasses and I think another one was playing Tetris(TM) on his computer, but that was about it.
My understanding is that most of the process is automated. That would explain why they'd sent the interns out for pizza.
I had pressing and urgent writer-type business to attend to (something concerning a cheeseburger, if I remember correctly, possibly inspired by the NASA engineers' pizza), so I missed the end of the countdown. But I expected to be able to turn on the telly at nearly any point and find out the fate of Pathfinder.
Unfortunately, when next I turned on CNN the heads were talking about somebody's missing cat in Tennessee. Or it might have been about something one of the Democratic candidates for President had said and how this was 1). A really, incredibly, stupendously stupid thing to say, or 2). An extraordinarily insightful commentary on the human condition. Take your pick.
Meanwhile, human beings had put ANOTHER lander on Mars. Somehow, using only our own native intelligence (which you might not suspect we had, were you to listen to very many debates among Presidential candidates of various ilk and party affiliation), we curious little humans had sent a packet of electronics, plastic, and steel some 34,600,000 miles to another planet.
The same planet, mind you, that has already invaded us innumerable times in the past. Starting with that Halloween invasion in 1938 -- when the Martians, commanded by their fearless leader, Orson Wells, sacked the Earth using only water towers and a near limitless supply of Death Rays.
Or that could have been a misunderstood radio program.
In any case, whether in reality or in fiction, the idea of life on Mars -- or the idea that at least once there might have been life on Mars -- has haunted our collective psyches.
We don’t want to be alone in the universe, even if it means running away screaming while we're being attacked by water towers equipped with Martian death rays. And if the desire to find out if there's life out there (little microbial life or big, green, bulby-headed Martian life), is what takes us to other planets, then I'm all for it.
There are plans for a bigger, better, hopefully-won't-fall-apart-when-looked-at-funny-like-the-current-one-does International Space Station. There are plans for an eventual Lunar Outpost. And, yes, there are plans, albeit vague and constantly changing ones, to send a manned mission to Mars.
To Mars.
It's taken us a long time to send a living, breathing human being (Daffy Duck in "Duck Dodgers in the 21st and a Half Century" cartoons doesn't count) to a hunk of rock that wasn't Earth. It's about time we did it again.
Then the Martians can be us. Won't that be cool?
Oh, and by the way, I eventually found the news I was looking for on the Internet (motto: Finding New Ways to Sell Martian Death Rays Since "2001: A Space Odyssey"). The lander had made it and was happily taking pictures of Mars' North Pole.
No water towers yet.
The author admits to being able to do a passable imitation of Marvin the Martian from those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. He's currently teaching onboard an U.S. aircraft carrier, chugging around the deep blue Pacific, right here on planet Earth.
