1: “You know how the travel industry has been negatively affected by the pandemic?”
2: “Yes, I don’t want to go on vacation…I mean, I do want to go on vacation this year, but I’m afraid I’ll die in some virus-infected hotel. You know, now they’re scaring me that the coronavirus spreads like Legionnaires’ disease. Right through the air conditioning.”
1: Well, there’s an alternative to cruise ships and crowded air planes, big theme parks, packed beaches, and dirty hotels.”
2: “What’s that?”
1: “How about a virtual trip to Mars?”
2: “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘SARS’?”
1: “No, Mars. Mars. The Red Planet.”
2: “How do I take this trip?”
1: “NASA. Its Eyes on the Solar System gives everyone the chance to follow Perseverance on its journey. Can do it right on your computer.* Sure, it’s an animation, but life during the pandemic is becoming so ‘virtual’ that we don’t seem to notice the line between reality and ‘virtuality’? Not sure if that’s a word. Anyway, when I turned to the website today, I saw the spacecraft is 178 days away from landing. You can zoom in and out on the animation, click to more info, and just sit and watch. There’s no accompanying music, no talking. But if you want to know virtually what a trip to Mars would be like with your own headphones, just find a long YouTube video of ‘space music,’ and keep both videos going till the February, 2021, landing. And then, after you’ve received the donor antibodies or some vaccine, go find an Earth-bound vacation site.”
2: “Just a sec. Let me pull it up. Okay, seen enough. Boring.”
1: “Actually, I agree, and I think an actual—a ‘real’—trip to Mars would be boring. Imagine being locked up in a rather confining spaceship for months. Is there a window? It’s like an extreme quarantine. And then think of going to Mars six months there and six months back and returning after a stay of, say, six months. Think of the unexpected changes on Earth over the year and a half of Mars vacation.”
2: “Right. I look back over the last six months and ask if I could be projected from then to now without knowing the intervening worldwide turmoil, whether or not I wouldn’t be like a character in a come-back-from-the-past movie. Six months ago, I thought differently. Strange what a little virus can do to a planet. Strange what economic, psychological, and social turmoil humans imposed upon themselves. It’s been a trip to Mars for all of us. All sorts of dangers along the way, some of them simply self-imposed because we chose to take the trip. Hey, come to think of it, I guess six months ago, under hazardous circumstances and unknowns like a trip to Mars, we made those decisions that add up to our life today. And like spacemen under NASA’s command, we let people in the control rooms determine which way the Earth-bound spacecraft of our lives has been going.”
1: “Someone returning from a two-year trip to Mars really would be astounded by the changes. Happy to emerge from a capsule, the traveler would enter a world that is largely closed like that capsule. Given the cancel culture of the times, the return of Mars travelers, unlike the return of the first astronauts, would be celebrated on Zoom with a virtual parade, canned music and applause and all and then promptly condemned. Riots would follow. Couldn’t have a parade through downtown neighborhoods because of the rioters. Storefronts boarded up. Graffiti everywhere. No doubt some group would be out and about today protesting the exploitation of Mars, the new colonialism. Poor Martian organisms, maybe little critters like microbes that have survived for billions of years, being trampled by people in spacesuits digging in the red soil. The Red Planet, they would contend, has now become a newly formed landfill for space travelers’ garbage. Would there be a Martian outhouse? Because…well don’t tell me that the astronauts are going to return with human waste. Why spend energy on the weight? Anyway, I’m sure there would be some protestors and looters riled because of the Mars travelers. Can’t do much of anything without running into some offended group.”
2: “If I recall, there was a lot of turmoil in the sixties and seventies when the astronauts were traveling to the moon. But then, maybe there’s always a lot of turmoil and unrest, maybe always a lot of dissatisfaction. But I also remember some considerable earthly joy that humans had traveled to the moon and returned. Were those simpler times? Hard to say. Just as there are now, there were wars all over the planet then, but there was also a growing ease of living in the affluent countries, especially in the United States. The fifties, sixties, and seventies were the beginnings of the coddled young rebelling against…Not sure. I remember the James Dean movie Rebel without a Cause. Don’t get me wrong. I know children have always rebelled against their parents often without knowing a cause. But now, there are causes galore. Everything is a cause. So, I’m guessing that there’s a group ready to rail against Martian colonialism. Anyone’s a social warrior for the cause du jour.”
1: “Sure, the more people have, the easier it is for them to become dissatisfied. And when a people have a lot, they expect a lot. When they don’t get their way, they look to blame. The Buddha was right. Desire fed by satiated previous desires is pretty much the problem, and he didn’t have the exacerbating pervasive affluence of the present and an invasive media intent on sowing discontent.”
2: “So, what’s there to do but watch a virtual trip to Mars over the next 178 days and hope that when Perseverance gets there, we will have persevered enough to survive the turmoil, the pandemic, and the spacecraft-like confinement?”
* https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/sc_perseverance
2: “Yes, I don’t want to go on vacation…I mean, I do want to go on vacation this year, but I’m afraid I’ll die in some virus-infected hotel. You know, now they’re scaring me that the coronavirus spreads like Legionnaires’ disease. Right through the air conditioning.”
1: Well, there’s an alternative to cruise ships and crowded air planes, big theme parks, packed beaches, and dirty hotels.”
2: “What’s that?”
1: “How about a virtual trip to Mars?”
2: “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘SARS’?”
1: “No, Mars. Mars. The Red Planet.”
2: “How do I take this trip?”
1: “NASA. Its Eyes on the Solar System gives everyone the chance to follow Perseverance on its journey. Can do it right on your computer.* Sure, it’s an animation, but life during the pandemic is becoming so ‘virtual’ that we don’t seem to notice the line between reality and ‘virtuality’? Not sure if that’s a word. Anyway, when I turned to the website today, I saw the spacecraft is 178 days away from landing. You can zoom in and out on the animation, click to more info, and just sit and watch. There’s no accompanying music, no talking. But if you want to know virtually what a trip to Mars would be like with your own headphones, just find a long YouTube video of ‘space music,’ and keep both videos going till the February, 2021, landing. And then, after you’ve received the donor antibodies or some vaccine, go find an Earth-bound vacation site.”
2: “Just a sec. Let me pull it up. Okay, seen enough. Boring.”
1: “Actually, I agree, and I think an actual—a ‘real’—trip to Mars would be boring. Imagine being locked up in a rather confining spaceship for months. Is there a window? It’s like an extreme quarantine. And then think of going to Mars six months there and six months back and returning after a stay of, say, six months. Think of the unexpected changes on Earth over the year and a half of Mars vacation.”
2: “Right. I look back over the last six months and ask if I could be projected from then to now without knowing the intervening worldwide turmoil, whether or not I wouldn’t be like a character in a come-back-from-the-past movie. Six months ago, I thought differently. Strange what a little virus can do to a planet. Strange what economic, psychological, and social turmoil humans imposed upon themselves. It’s been a trip to Mars for all of us. All sorts of dangers along the way, some of them simply self-imposed because we chose to take the trip. Hey, come to think of it, I guess six months ago, under hazardous circumstances and unknowns like a trip to Mars, we made those decisions that add up to our life today. And like spacemen under NASA’s command, we let people in the control rooms determine which way the Earth-bound spacecraft of our lives has been going.”
1: “Someone returning from a two-year trip to Mars really would be astounded by the changes. Happy to emerge from a capsule, the traveler would enter a world that is largely closed like that capsule. Given the cancel culture of the times, the return of Mars travelers, unlike the return of the first astronauts, would be celebrated on Zoom with a virtual parade, canned music and applause and all and then promptly condemned. Riots would follow. Couldn’t have a parade through downtown neighborhoods because of the rioters. Storefronts boarded up. Graffiti everywhere. No doubt some group would be out and about today protesting the exploitation of Mars, the new colonialism. Poor Martian organisms, maybe little critters like microbes that have survived for billions of years, being trampled by people in spacesuits digging in the red soil. The Red Planet, they would contend, has now become a newly formed landfill for space travelers’ garbage. Would there be a Martian outhouse? Because…well don’t tell me that the astronauts are going to return with human waste. Why spend energy on the weight? Anyway, I’m sure there would be some protestors and looters riled because of the Mars travelers. Can’t do much of anything without running into some offended group.”
2: “If I recall, there was a lot of turmoil in the sixties and seventies when the astronauts were traveling to the moon. But then, maybe there’s always a lot of turmoil and unrest, maybe always a lot of dissatisfaction. But I also remember some considerable earthly joy that humans had traveled to the moon and returned. Were those simpler times? Hard to say. Just as there are now, there were wars all over the planet then, but there was also a growing ease of living in the affluent countries, especially in the United States. The fifties, sixties, and seventies were the beginnings of the coddled young rebelling against…Not sure. I remember the James Dean movie Rebel without a Cause. Don’t get me wrong. I know children have always rebelled against their parents often without knowing a cause. But now, there are causes galore. Everything is a cause. So, I’m guessing that there’s a group ready to rail against Martian colonialism. Anyone’s a social warrior for the cause du jour.”
1: “Sure, the more people have, the easier it is for them to become dissatisfied. And when a people have a lot, they expect a lot. When they don’t get their way, they look to blame. The Buddha was right. Desire fed by satiated previous desires is pretty much the problem, and he didn’t have the exacerbating pervasive affluence of the present and an invasive media intent on sowing discontent.”
2: “So, what’s there to do but watch a virtual trip to Mars over the next 178 days and hope that when Perseverance gets there, we will have persevered enough to survive the turmoil, the pandemic, and the spacecraft-like confinement?”
* https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/sc_perseverance
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