Why did I write about Mars?
As I write small articles for a local newspaper and a fanzine I tend to stumble across things. Consider the book written by Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies called 'A One Way Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet' (available on Amazon.) Originally titled 'To boldy go...' but that was probably going to run into copyright issues. They propose that is would be more cost effective to make a one way trip to Mars rather than go there and come back. The answer to all the other questions that come to mind is 'Yes. It's possible.' And so I started to write. This was at the end of 2010.
As time went by and I learned the art of writing, a simple story turned into a small novel, and then into a series of small novels. It just happened. Still the question remained: Am I writing rubbish? Is it possible that today people are actually thinking about going to Mars? Well, Elun Musk is counting on it.
The PayPal billionaire founded SpaceX, a company building and supplying rockets and capsules on a commercial basis. The company is leaping ahead of all it's rivals in terms of advancement. It even has a capsule certified for re-entry, the first certification of it's kind for a private company. His claims that the Dragon capsule could carry people to Mars have found their way to the BBC. This is no weird freak making outlandish claims. If you had said five years ago that a private company would be taking Americans into space you might think of Branson's sub orbital flights. Elon's SpaceX is within a hair's breath of doing what only the Space Shuttle did a few years back. The only people carrying astronauts to the ISS today are the Russians and that system is having its own problems.
But Elon is just one person following his dream. What about the rest of us? Well George W Bush sent NASA back to the moon. They started on this project in the days before budgets nose-dived. His successor, Barak Obama, cancelled this plan. Instead, he gave NASA a new goal: Get to Mars by the mid-2030s and then come back home. Obviously he had not read up on Dirk and Paul's writings on the matter. So actually the leading power in the Western World things that Mars is a possibility and has its people working on the plan as you read.
And so technically the stage is set. Progress is being made. Mars beckons. The only think to ask now is: Who will go? What will life be like for those first few?
Read about some of my thoughts on that in the fictional book Mars Exile: Second Chances and let your imagination go to Mars.
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