Dear Crabby, Please Indulge My Curiosity, Would You Ever Travel to Mars?
Sincerely, Marte Rojo
Hola Marte,
Some days I don’t want to travel to the mailbox, let alone across space. But I will indulge your curiosity – isn’t there a rover on Mars called curiosity? – I am a man for adventure after all (at least I used to be).
I’ve always enjoyed a good road trip, so why not Mars. It’s a long way, and Venus is actually closer, but we could land on and survive on Mars – unlike Venus where we would burn up quickly and die before we could phone home and say how hot it is. Governments, as well as public and private entities, are planning on taking people to Mars. It could be as soon as 2031.
Mars One, a non-profit European company, is planning to launch several missions to Mars – they start training crews this year – with its first launch of a lander in 2022. NASA has been sending orbiters, landers, rovers, etc. for years, and plans to send the first humans in the 2030s. Looks like we have an old-fashioned “space race” a brewing. More missions, including drones, will be taking off in the coming years.
But as for me, it would be a hoot to follow all that, if just to find all the junk we’ve sent there over the years while we search for little green men. But I’m sure there’s not any life on Mars, besides bacteria or something like that.
Read: Dear Crabby, Do you Believe in Aliens?
Currently, it’s about a seven-month journey – one way – a long time to be away from home. And many of the planned missions are one-way trips, as they plan to populate the planet. So we will be leaving humans, in addition to junk, there in the future. And one day, probably not in my lifetime, we’ll hear about the first baby born on Mars.
If I were a younger man, before Mrs. Crabby was my whole universe, I may have climbed into a rocket to go to Mars or some other distant planet. We just found seven planets 40-light years away in the TRAPPIST-1 system, and that sounds a bit more interesting than Mars. Maybe we should go there instead? Although, that sounds like a really, really long trip.
Perhaps, one-day, when we can travel faster in space, some young man (or woman), will hop a ride in rocket to some far off planet. But for now, I just hope to see an American land on Mars before I travel to the afterlife.
Maybe you should go, Marte, as for me, my big journeys are to the mailbox and back.
Send me a post card if go,
Dear Crabby
Stuck in a rut? Need some biased advice from a crabby old baby-boomer? Email me at dearcrabby@rochestermedia.com and ask your question. You can also head on over to my Facebook Page and tell me how wonderful I am.
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