Mars: Who Wants to Go?

Both sets of my grandparents were born in the first decade of the 20th century. The amount of scientific progress that humanity made during their lifetime is simply incredible. The amount of terror, destruction, and despair was also pretty huge, but that's a different story.

I was cleaning up parts of my class website, trying to get ready for the new semester, when I rediscovered this video about Mars. There is a very real possibility that my children will be alive to see humans on Mars. One of the scientists in the video predicts that if you had a call for volunteers for the first trips to Mars, you'd have lines coast to coast.

We'd have monsters to slay again. There would be adventures beyond the imagination again. I think that it's just what we need. Total Recall, here we come. I'd nominate Arnie for the first trip.

If they do begin, imagine how well qualified you'd have to be! One of my biggest peeves about education is that we are long on selling the idea that everyone can be an astronaut or whatever they want, and short on the idea of explaining exactly how much work and talent that it takes. No, everyone cannot be an astronaut. Take a look at the basic qualifications needed and give me a guess about how much of the world's population qualifies.

Here is the original post:
Once again, I'm amazed at the information available to us and the creativity being used to put it all together. Today, I found the Symphony of Science by seeing a reference to it on Twitter. The series of 10 videos (more coming!) is fascinating.

I'm including the video 'The Case for Mars' here. You should definitely check out the rest of the videos on their site: Symphony of Science