There But Not Back Again: An Unexpected Journey to Mars

And there I was, in limbo. It was god awful, I tell you. Suffice it to say, it was a teacher's meeting like any other (indeed, your hero Citizen Tex is a high school professor at the moment). There I was, looking at the blank ceiling in teacher's limbo, pondering escape a million different ways over. Boy, that would be nice. And to never have to sit through another meeting again. My, oh my. "I could go to Mars", I thought. I didn't really mean it though, it was one of those empty promises you make to yourself when confronted with levels of boredom that no honest man should ever have to face. To go to Mars and not come back, the one-way ticket to outer space, that one adventure not even Bilbo Baggins has taken.

I will elaborate further in case you're wondering why this peculiar thought happened to cross my mind. Indeed, the future is among us, the colonization of Mars to be precise. It's the latest craze. A number of initiatives to begin settlement on Mars have emerged in Western Europe and North America . What's more is that these proposed settlements are coming from big spenders who are already looking to complete the necessary investment from a wide array of sources, from engineering companies to software producers to reality TV. The catch, of course, is that there's no turning back. You join the settlement for good.This is why the recent wave of mars settlement proposals have been collectively labeled "Mars to Stay" missions.

More recently, a Dutch entrepreneur of the name Bas Lansdorp has started "Mars One", a private spaceflight mission to Mars that calls for volunteers from around the world to apply online and hopefully join the ranks of 24-40 lucky global citizens to land on the red planet by 2023. If you don't believe me take a look yourself:   http://applicants.mars-one.com/. Up to now there have been around 80,000 applicants and initial screenings will take place in late 2013. This very year! I could be one of them! You could be one of them. But would you?

Who are these people, these brave, peculiar souls who have decided to leave their lives behind and fly away to the big empty? Forever is a long time. Forever without ever touching grass again, or gazing upon a bright blue, cloudless Sunday sky, or dipping your feet into the Pacific Ocean at the coast of Puerto Escondido. I don't know, maybe I tend to romanticize Earth, it is my hometown after all. Maybe I wouldn't leave all that much behind after all: my modest-paying job as a high school professor, my urban hipster/geek thrills, my casual LGBT dating, my pet goldfish. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to give it all up for something beautiful, something important.

Ten years from now I'll be 34, Jesus was 33 when he was hung on a cross. Okay, maybe it's not the best example, but what if ten years from now I haven't really accomplished anything? I don't know, maybe these 80,000 applicants aren't so crazy after all. Maybe leaving the Earth forever is the only sane thing a person could do. To escape the monthly, rabid North Korean threats and the one-hour traffic on the way to work and the incompetent service by your cell phone provider and the grim newspapers detailing the mass beheadings in the less-traveled corners of northern Mexico, the list goes on. I don't know.

All I know is that I want this teachers meeting to end so I can get back to work and go back home to watch Stanely Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" on blu-ray. Maybe for the sake of blu-ray I should stay. I definitely shouldn't leave without watching the entire extended version of Lord of the Rings on Blu-Ray. Or without seeing the Great Wall of China or The Pyramids of Giza. Maybe I should stick around for a while. You know, give Earth a chance. Fall in love, travel Asia, work in New York City for a couple of years. Yeah, that sounds all right. I guess Mars will have to wait.