Mars, we have a problem!

OK this is weird.

I went to check out a link in an email I received because I’m in the running to go to Mars.  But that’s not what I meant about weird.

I mean you knew that already, right? 

I have my application in with Mars One, the non-profit organization that’s raising $6 billion to fund a one-way colony-building mission to the Red Planet. 

My application’s not quite finished.  I haven’t submitted the requisite two-minute video explaining my sense of humor and why I want to go to Mars.  It’s due the end of the month.  That and the essay explaining why I’m an ideal candidate to leave earth and never return.

But other than that, I’m good to go. 

So, I’m on their email list.  They’re keeping me posted.  I’m in the loop. 

But, to be honest, I’ve been ignoring their reminders. 

Anyway, today’s message was titled “Packing for Mars,” and I just had to look.  If I’m selected from among the anticipated one million applicants, will I need sunscreen?  Aluminum foil?  Can I take my cats?

There’s no urgency of course, since the blast off isn’t until 2022, but I like to think ahead.
 
To my dismay though, no packing list was included.  But there was the link that I followed to check out two “local Martians” meetings coming up this month.

One is in Darmstadt, Germany, and the other at Cloud Gate in Chicago.  So.  There’s that.  If I want to hang with like-minded Martians-to-be …

I’ll admit the notices for these gatherings raised some concerns.  I’m thinking some folks might just want to make fun.  Flash back to that Star Trek convention sketch on Saturday Night Live when William Shatner broke character and told the Trekkies to “get a life!”  How demoralizing! 

Mars is serious business!

Then, in the margin of the site I noticed a “People You May Know” sidebar.  Hahaha, I thought.  Wouldn’t that be something if oh my GOD!  Other people I know have applied to go to Mars!?!

Here’s a guy from my high school class back in Tulsa.  No way.  We had nothing in common back then.  He made bad grades and wore 27 rabbits’ feet on his belt. 

Oh.  Well.  OK.  I get it.  Here we go to Mars together.  Me and Mr. Lucky.

But that was only the outer edges of the bizarre.  My eyes drifted upward, to the corner of the screen.  And now spine tingling and hair standing – I swear I could hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing ever so faintly in the background – there are pictures of MY Elvis party on the “Aspiring Martians” webpage with the caption, “Where were these pictures taken?”

Mind boggled.  I rubbed my eyes.  But yes.  There’s the picture of the life-sized cardboard cutout of young Elvis in his gold lame` suit with that one sprig of black hair broken free, resting just so on his forehead … in MY entry hall. 

And THERE I AM!  ME!  In my gold lame` suit and ridiculous black wig and my ludicrous attempt to look cool while sneering like Elvis.

For a moment I thought – is Elvis alive ON MARS!?!  Of course!  Dominoes are falling.  It’s all coming together!  The universe makes sense now!  Hallelujah!  Whoop!  Whoop!  Whoop!

But then reality crashed in – the loud clang of a face-slapping gong – Of course:  “Aspiring Martians” is a Facebook page. 

Mortification.  Sadness.  Dismay. 

Mars One isn’t serious business.  I’ve signed up to be a space cadet.  Aspiring Martians must have used Facebook’s new “graphing” technology and found me because I dressed up like Elvis.  Mr. Lucky and I are just the sort they’re recruiting.

But on reflection and more humbling still, I had to admit, that’s not it.  They didn’t find me.  I found them.  I started the process and then they rooted around in my photos and put them on their page! 

All I can say now is that my world has shifted.  My commitment to the mission is in question.  I won’t ride seven months across the cosmos with a hodge-podge of peculiar people who have no place better to go. 


And I won’t leave earth only to be mocked by those who deny the King.

To Mars and beyond!

I really may have done it this time.  I was researching for this column when things got out of hand.  Snowballed, as it were.  Ricocheted.   

Now I may actually have to go to Mars. 

As I said, it began innocently enough.  I was following my nose, looking for a good story for you, my Reader.  When, what’s this?  Christian Science Monitor?  They never got me in trouble before.   

Their headline:  78,000 to live on Mars: Have you signed up? 

I’ve heard about the Mars rover, but this article says that 78,000 people have already applied to take a one-way trip to Mars?! 

You’d be curious too, wouldn’t you? 

Of course you would. 

So I pulled up the article.  Turns out Mars One, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands, intends to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent colony.  They’ll go on to deliver more astronauts every two years thereafter. 

And get this:  They will kick off their two-year, televised search for Mars explorers this summer. 

That’s right.  Mars One will fund its $6 billion mission with a global reality television series that will follow the colonization effort from astronaut selection to the first landing and on through the settlement’s expansion.  With that, and the sales of hoodies, posters and coffee mugs. 

I hope you’re appropriately boggled.  I was.   

A TV show recruiting and selecting astronauts and sending them to MARS!  Shades of “Running Man.”  You remember - Arnold Schwarzenegger and yes, Richard Dawson.  Futuristic and cheesy all at once.  

It’s “Survivor,” but they’re going to vote people off the planet!  For real! 

It was perfect for me.  And for you.  That’s why I did it.  I clicked on the link.  It led me to Space.com and from there to the Mars-One.com official website. 

Mars One has already posted application videos from aspiring space travelers.  Of the one million anticipated applicants from around the globe, 3,000 will make the first cut.  Then 28-40 finalists will train for seven years before four are finally selected to leave earth and live forevermore on Mars. 

Well, I had to see the videos.  For you.  I had to see.  Oh, register here to view them?  OK.  Email and password.  I’ve done it a million times.  Easy peasy.  

And OMG was it ever worth it! 

Pages and pages of one-minute videos from future space cadets, all answering prescribed questions, many while holding their iPhones at arm’s length.   

What makes you a perfect candidate for this mission to Mars?  Ljubinka from Serbia says she’s ideal because her double major in geology and interior design will allow her to “prettily arrange the rocks on Mars.” 

How would you describe your sense of humor?  Mike from the United States says his sense of humor is “essentially goofy.”  That could be because Mike, sitting shirtless in the dark, seems essentially high.  

Rajkamal, leaning too close to the camera in Bangladesh, says he employs “situational humor including sarcasm and puns.”  Key characteristics for space travel and interplanetary colonization.  

OK, we must know the selection criteria!  I’ll just have a look at the application.   

Oh.  Another form.  Hey!  They’ve already filled in my name, gender and birthdate in that weird Netherland-ic format: date/month/year.  That’s odd. 

It looks like I’ll have to fill in more blanks before I can see the rest of the questions.   

Before I could say “Carl Sagan” I was telling someone in Amsterdam that I’m a curious and engaging person who gets along well with all kinds of people.  As though under a spell I explained my long-standing interest in the cosmos and our place in it.   

I couldn’t stop.  Zombie-like, I was drawn to the Private Questionnaire.  Now we begin to see the kinds of situations they anticipate on Jersey Shore, er, Mars.  

They want me to “describe an event that increased your stress levels dramatically” and “an incident that frightened you.”  Well!  I was a high school principal!  I don’t know how Mars can top that for fear and stress.  I mean, I could tell you stories! 

That’s when I began to realize that I am an ideal candidate.  I’ve come this far.  My conscience won’t let me turn back now.   

Yes!  With your help, I can make the cut.  Look for my video this summer.

To Mars ~ Kicking and Screaming

I would have moved to TEXAS.  That should give you an idea of my sweet, loving, altruistic nature.  I was willing to forsake my Okie sensibilities and relocate to TEXAS if my husband’s job required it. 

OK.  I’ve quit gritting my teeth.  My fingers have unclenched and I can type again.  I can go on.

My point is I can embrace change if I must.  I’ll drink lemonade all day and carry a sow’s ear purse.  TEXAS is one thing.  But I don’t know if I could move to Mars.

Oh, don’t kid yourself.  Ever since they navigated the rover Curiosity onto the surface of the red planet, NASA scientists have been talking right out loud about Mars being the next home for civilization.

As you know, Curiosity is the Hummer-sized robot now snooping around near the Gale Crater, at least 36 million miles away, on Mars.  Curiosity’s stated mission: not only to see if Mars could ever have supported small life forms called microbes, but also to determine if human beings could survive there someday!
In fairness, the last time I encountered a new colony of any significance, it was in my son’s bedroom. 

He was thirteen at the time, a critical age for glandular development and unintentional science projects.  A good kid, but he was unencumbered by attention to detail or – to his way of thinking – superfluous habits of hygiene.  Suffice it to say that contraband snack food, wet towels and gym socks produced a simulated Petri dish next to his laundry basket, complete with a thriving culture of unknown bacteria.  

So, objectivity requires effort.

But in spite of this, in the spirit of adventure and anticipating the inevitable, just as I did when it looked like we might have to move to TEXAS, I’ve done some advance reconnaissance.  The NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s website provides an animated interactive geek, “Dr. C., Your Personal Mars Expert,” to answer questions for those of us bold enough to ask.
Dr. C.'s social skills however, mandate a safe distance from actual living beings.  When I asked if it’s true that we will someday colonize Mars, he took an uppity attitude right out of the gate, prefacing his comments with “If you mean will humans ever colonize Mars…”  Who did he think was asking the question, Wall-E?

Totally uncalled for.  But I held back.  I took the higher ground.  If a cartoon needs to make itself feel important by talking down to me, well!  Where would that argument go anyway? 

He went on to say, “On this site, we prefer the idea of ‘establishing communities’ on Mars as opposed to ‘colonization.’”  So, even self-important line drawings have to be politically correct.

But establish communities we will.  In fact, Dr. C. spends the next few lines telling me what a lot of work it will be to accomplish such a task.  We’ll need liquid water, he says, and oxygen at the appropriate pressure for humans to breathe. 

Duh.  I could have been a nerdy interactive animated cartoon scientist stating the obvious.  That’s always been one of my strong suits.  But when he went on to say that in order to live on Mars, we’ll need 'comfortable' temperatures and protection from Martian dust, an idea began to form in this Tulsa girl’s mind.

There’s liquid water and oxygen in Oklahoma.  In fact, from April to October, they come packaged as a two-fer in the form of mold-inducing humidity.  That’s thanks to the ‘uncomfortable’ temperatures - read 'blazing heat' - that Okies have endured since God made goat cheese.
And as for protection from dust, Martians should take a lesson from Dust Bowl Okies!  We know dust.  Our dust is red too!  Just like Martian dust. 

And you’ve seen those pictures; there’s not a lick of shade on Mars. 

Just like Oklahoma…Hmmm…

This whole community-building concept is starting to smell like a sham, a cover-up, a pretense to relocate Okies from earth to another flat, dusty, humid, twangy colony of fried food and mosquitoes!  Not me buster!

My momma didn’t raise any fools in Oklahoma!  No!  You’ll have to roast a lot of roosters to find me sleepin’ at dawn. 

I ain’t goin’ to TEXAS; and I sure as shootin’ ain’t goin’ to MARS!