Bound for Mars

Wildly optimistic artist's vision of a settlement on Mars
Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space

In the summer of 1952, at the age of 12, I found myself bedridden during a family vacation at Long Beach, Washington.  Not ill, just suffering from badly sunburned legs.  I amused myself during that day of recovery by reading a book my mother had received from Book of the Month Club. 

Not a typical book for her to purchase or read -- The Exploration of Space, by Arthur C. Clarke.  (I still have the book.) Five years before the Soviet Union put a tiny ball named Sputnik into earth orbit, Clarke was describing the planets to the American public, explaining how they could be visited, and assuring us that we would be visiting at least some of them. 

I had been reading children's books about the planets since I was six or seven.  At twelve, I was impatient for the exploration to begin.

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo program resulted in the first lunar landing.  I listened to the news reports while doing shift work in a laboratory.  It had taken 17 years for the first step of Mr. Clarke's exploration to be accomplished, but we were on our way.  NASA's head predicted that we would send men to Mars in 1983.

Nineteen eighty-three came and went.  Between the first flight by the Wright Brothers and America's landing on the moon, 66 years had elapsed.  Since the first Apollo landing to the present, another 50 years have drifted by -- 50 years with only the six Apollo program landings between 1969 and 1972,.   My childhood dreams of seeing interplanetary space travel while still young have been shattered. 

What now?

This month's National Geographic is devoted largely to a discussion of space travel -- past accomplishments and future plans.  As the magazine rightly points out, we have done amazing things in unmanned space travel -- from orbits of the Earth and explorations of all the planets to the two Voyager space probes now traveling in interstellar space and still sending back data.  Impressive. But back in 1952, I had greater dreams.

Private companies are partially replacing NASA in the quest for manned space travel.  One company, Blue Origin, hopes to put the first American since 1972 on the moon in 2024.  How about Mars?  Elon Musk claims his SpaceX craft will travel to Mars in 2024; that claim is generally regarded as absurd.  NASA's studies have determined that the very earliest it could be done under the most optimistic scenarios is 2034.  The early 2040s are considered a more reasonable date for which to aim.

The early 2040s.  I'll be getting up there by then -- under the most optimistic scenarios.  If we do it, and I'm around to follow the news, I'll be as fascinated as I was at the age of 12, reading Arthur C. Clarke, and at the age of 29, following the first Apollo mission. 

Statisticians note a "Christmas effect" on the date when elderly folks tend to die -- they keep themselves alive through the holidays in order to be reunited with family and to join in the celebration one last time.  An analogous "Martian effect" may keep me alive into the 2040s, longer than one might now expect.

Mars or Bust!