Mars and Human ambition
This Christmas, I received a book about traveling to Mars. The other night, I started wondering why we would even be interested in going to Mars in the first place. When I briefly looked it up, I found that many people agree that sending robots to Mars would be one of the most efficient and realistic approaches.
An eight-month journey to Mars would likely be a one-way trip for many reasons, with the limited capacity for carrying fuel being one of the main challenges. I haven't researched this topic in depth, and I haven't read the book yet, so I may have some facts wrong but I'm going with my own thoughts before diving deeper into it.
Terraforming Mars is a board game about gathering resources and working toward creating a habitable environment on Mars by increasing water, plant life, and oxygen. I think the goals, or the purpose, in reality are somewhat similar to those in the game.
But why would we want to live on another planet with an environment as adverse as Mars? I don't see a clear answer, except perhaps recognizing a historical human pattern of exploring and conquering “unknown” or “new” territories, reminding me of journeys like Columbus's expedition, among other colonizing events.
I'm not sure we actually want to live there as a human race, beyond extracting resources. We humans are drawn to challenges, and successfully carrying out a Mars expedition is, above all, a technical one. We also tend to continuously develop and compete due to prestige and geopolitical competition, and I don't think that underlying drive will disappear anytime soon.
I'm not placing a value judgment on whether this is good or bad, since technological progress often emerges from these processes. Both positive and negative outcomes are inevitable.
Much of this may fulfill a kind of self-indulgent satisfaction for humanity, but I still lean toward the idea of using robots in space, as I see greater efficiency in that approach for advancing technical development.
Distorted Waves and Black Holes
I imagined I was alone, until I heard my own echoes.
I imagine time is with me.
Distorted waves are, perhaps,
anything but what the human imagination expects.