The View From Mars

2006-06-05
By

To start the week off, seen below is a picture from NASA’s website of the Earth that was taken from Mars. They say that if you’re quiet, even from Mars you can still hear some of the bitching.

If anything, the picture’s amazing view as it captures the miniscule appearance of our planet should strike a chord, and make us feel, in comparison, large and significant.

The photo may also give some of us the urge, and make us excited about, “getting away from it all”. Could we someday be sitting in the very spot this photograph was taken, after having colonized the Red Planet? Could this be the view from our living room someday?

I’m all for space exploration. However, our need to “escape” may never be satisfied by the colonization of other planets.

Why would we go? Well, some may be influenced by the constant stream of people, such as Al Gore, saying the Earth may someday be uninhabitable, or it will run out of room and resources. Off to Mars we’ll go, searching for respite from the misery of earth’s overpopulation, illness and disastrous environmental conditions.

After arriving on the Red Planet to get away from all that, we’ll sit in a crowded Starbucks, elbow to elbow with a thicket of people who are voicing concern about Mars’ depleting ozone layer and debating over whether or not to allow oil drilling in the Valles Marineris canyons while Al Gore points out to anybody who will listen how much hotter it’s getting. All this as the guy next to us aims a hacking cough directly into our mocha latte.

Back to the drawing board.

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85 views

  • Sean

    You’ve obviously never heard of helium-3. No need to terraform Mars; one shuttle loaded to the gunwales with helium-3 represents 300 billion dollars of energy, and a goodbye to fossil fuel. It’s lying knee-deep on the lunar surface..why do you suppose China, Japan and Russia have lunar missions in the cards.

  • Sean

    You’ve obviously never heard of helium-3. No need to terraform Mars; one shuttle loaded to the gunwales with helium-3 represents 300 billion dollars of energy, and a goodbye to fossil fuel. It’s lying knee-deep on the lunar surface..why do you suppose China, Japan and Russia have lunar missions in the cards.

  • Sean

    You’ve obviously never heard of helium-3. No need to terraform Mars; one shuttle loaded to the gunwales with helium-3 represents 300 billion dollars of energy, and a goodbye to fossil fuel. It’s lying knee-deep on the lunar surface..why do you suppose China, Japan and Russia have lunar missions in the cards.

  • wblackburn

    Um, Helium-3 doesn’t “lie” anywhere. It’s an inert gas, just like ordinary Helium. We currently don’t make use of the He3 we have available here on Earth.

    Thermonuclear Fusion will indeed remove most of the energy bottleneck we face today, but we don’t need to go to the Moon to get it, at least not for a long time.

  • wblackburn

    Um, Helium-3 doesn’t “lie” anywhere. It’s an inert gas, just like ordinary Helium. We currently don’t make use of the He3 we have available here on Earth.

    Thermonuclear Fusion will indeed remove most of the energy bottleneck we face today, but we don’t need to go to the Moon to get it, at least not for a long time.

  • wblackburn

    Um, Helium-3 doesn’t “lie” anywhere. It’s an inert gas, just like ordinary Helium. We currently don’t make use of the He3 we have available here on Earth.

    Thermonuclear Fusion will indeed remove most of the energy bottleneck we face today, but we don’t need to go to the Moon to get it, at least not for a long time.

  • Sean

    Nitpick if you like, but you typed “um”.

  • Sean

    Nitpick if you like, but you typed “um”.

  • Sean

    Nitpick if you like, but you typed “um”.

  • Sean

    Nitpick if you like, but you typed “um”.

  • Hal

    Do you really think the enviro-weenies would allow a shuttle full of anything even remotely nuclear to fly? Don’t give me facts and figures – liberals don’t hear facts and figures. If you can attach the word “nuclear”, it’s anathema.

  • Hal

    Do you really think the enviro-weenies would allow a shuttle full of anything even remotely nuclear to fly? Don’t give me facts and figures – liberals don’t hear facts and figures. If you can attach the word “nuclear”, it’s anathema.

  • Hal

    Do you really think the enviro-weenies would allow a shuttle full of anything even remotely nuclear to fly? Don’t give me facts and figures – liberals don’t hear facts and figures. If you can attach the word “nuclear”, it’s anathema.

  • Hal

    Do you really think the enviro-weenies would allow a shuttle full of anything even remotely nuclear to fly? Don’t give me facts and figures – liberals don’t hear facts and figures. If you can attach the word “nuclear”, it’s anathema.






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