Why a one-way ticket to Mars?
Recently, I wondered why I was fascinated about getting a one-way ticket to Mars? A one-way ticket to Mars, via untested technology, is a wish for certain death and at best a foolish plan. But I have not been able to stop thinking about it – ever since I read the first article about this endeavor in the BBC World News.
About 78,000 people applied to receive a one-way ticket to Mars and it’s expected that there will be 500,000 applications soon. I am fascinated with this ‘opportunity,’ despite having a beautiful family of three boys, a wonderful wife, a successful business, and personal talent. My mind keeps racing and racing for answers: why?
Why do I want a one-way ticket to Mars?
In my recent dreams I stumbled on the only logical conclusion: a crazy idea. Another out-of-the-box idea. What if before the Dinosaurs came to an end from an asteroid hitting the earth, there was another dominant species of creatures living on the earth? What if that previous species also saw a sudden end from an earlier asteroid? What if this idea of an asteroid colliding with the Earth and killing all the then-existing creatures – say, every hundred of thousand years or so – was a repeating cycle? No matter how large or small each dominant species of animal on earth is, that species also will be subject to the same inevitable fate when the terminal asteroid fate repeats itself.
Some believe nature allowed a different species of animal to dominate the earth this time around. A species that may be physically weaker, smaller and slower than you might imagine for an animal that dominates all others, but this time a species with purpose and an ability to create an exit. And a plan to return after the next time a catastrophic asteroid event arrives on Earth.
Note:
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA scientists at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., effectively have ruled out the possibility the asteroid Apophis will impact Earth during a close flyby in 2036. The scientists used updated information obtained by NASA-supported telescopes in 2011 and 2012, as well as new data from the time leading up to Apophis’ distant Earth flyby yesterday (Jan. 9).
Discovered in 2004, the asteroid, which is the size of three-and-a-half football fields, gathered the immediate attention of space scientists and the media when initial calculations of its orbit indicated a 2.7 percent possibility of an Earth impact during a close flyby in 2029. Data discovered during a search of old astronomical images provided the additional information required to rule out the 2029 impact scenario, but a remote possibility of one in 2036 remained – until yesterday.
“With the new data provided by the Magdalena Ridge [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology] and the Pan-STARRS [Univ. of Hawaii] optical observatories, along with very recent data provided by the Goldstone Solar System Radar, we have effectively ruled out the possibility of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. “The impact odds as they stand now are less than one in a million, which makes us comfortable saying we can effectively rule out an Earth impact in 2036. Our interest in asteroid Apophis will essentially be for its scientific interest for the foreseeable future.”
