Mars Ahoy
By Christabelle Coutinho |Have you been following Elon Musk’s SpaceX mission to Mars? By 2026 their Starship rocket may be able to transport 100 humans at a time to the red planet. It’s no secret that they are looking to colonize Mars. In fact, when the living situation on Earth gets tough, the luckier amongst us will have an option to move there.
It’s not going to be an easy move though. Mars is a frigid planet with too much carbon dioxide, too little oxygen and barely any nitrogen for plants to survive. No water, no atmosphere. There’s harmful radiation. It’s freezing cold and the low pressure can result in the water in your body boiling or your eardrums exploding. In short, it has every possible condition that is inhospitable to life. From where I stand, i can literally see this huge neon ‘Keep Out’ signage on Mars.
Yet, no one else seems discouraged by any of this. Blame it on explorers like Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama who demonstrated that if you can brave the high seas, pirates, angry gods and so on, huge rewards await on the other side. That’s what attracted the Portuguese and British to India, isn’t it? They landed on our shores, ostensibly to conduct trade. They came with rancid butter, and took back spices, our freedom and the Koh-i-noor.
So, what do we have to offer Martians when we land on their planet? Cricket, chole-puri and Covaxin?
(Pretend to speak to the Martians)
“Namaste … we come in peace bearing these gifts.”
I know a lot of people are counting on life on Mars to be better than here on Earth. That’s the thing with us humans - the grass is always greener on the other side. Except in this case, it’s most likely red.
The above monologue may not be reproduced commercially without the permission of Christabelle Coutinho.
