The Race to Mars or Plan B

 The Race to Mars

                                       Or

                                   Plan B

We are told there are three reasons why we should explore Mars. The first, like Mount Everest is because it is there. The second reason is we have visited our nearest neighbour the Moon a number of times so it follows as space people we should now explore Mars; we having already made a number of tentative, unmanned exploratory visits to Mars and to the outer edge of our solar system but this where it starts to get really interesting.

I predict our species is not going to reach maturity and I do not mean our 21st birthday. The sheer numbers of planets and galaxies tell me a number of other civilizations the number I have read has been four populated this planet before us and did not reach maturity either. 

So as a species of Primate that colonized an inconsequential blue/green piece of flotsam, floating without any apparent purpose against an ebon cyclorama and trapped in the outer whorl of a galaxy of which there are trillions there is nothing special about us trust me, naturally we like to think we are.

I heard on the Internet a man of God say in front of a large audience the world is not overpopulated and that the entire world’s population can fit into Jacksonville, Florida. He omitted to say they would all be standing up. So where would all the houses be built, where would all the petrol stations located, and space for schools, offices, hospitals, roads, where would land be reserved to grow crops to feed the billions of people etc. etc. etc.? Fool of a man!

Mars is certainly not beyond our space-faring capabilities to send a team on a manned exploratory trip to Mars but returning our space persons home initially might be a little difficult. This will all be explained to them on signing up. Once we perfected the return trip it will be all plain sailing and the real reason will be revealed why this not just for sight-seeing purposes or because we can, but its critical importance to the people on earth.

We might learn Mars has been colonised once before ……but like us they also made big mistakes.

Mars could be our lifeboat but not all the people of earth will be invited.

So why is the third reason to reach Mars of critical importance to the people of earth you ask? Well simply we have to colonise it before our species dies, we do not have a great deal of time to commence the colonization of another home, it takes a while to even build a basic infrastructure.

The population of this Planet in say 1950 was 2.55B approx. In the year 2000 is was 6.02B and in 2020 7.5B. By the year 2050 the figure is estimated to exceed 9B. Each year these figures are rising exponentially. The resources of this planet cannot continue to sustain these population increases forever. We are already on the way to destroying it, our technology will not save us. We can try and stay one step ahead, that’s all.

THERE ARE TOO MANY OF US.

The search for a new home will be imperative if we continue to defile our stellar life raft, who knows if we are already past the point of no return and whatever we do now to rectify our mistakes of the past would be fruitless. Finding new worlds would ensure that our civilization would continue and that we learned some very important lessons from past mistakes. Maybe some sort of pandemic will speed things up a bit.

By the time this gets fully under way our lifeboat will not be able to make many trips before our Planet becomes inhabitable. I suspect the people responsible for the structure of the Georgia Guidestones are also aware of this coming nightmare. The seats for the lifeboats will be reserved for very special people, not first come first served. It will by invitation only. 

Simply; THERE ARE FAR, FAR TOO MANY OF US.