Life on Mars

Friday 16. May 2008 — 13:40

This sci-fi is fortified with extra “fi” and low in “sci”

I read this article on Slashdot and started thinking.

Never good.

The idea is that climate changes on Mars happened more recently than we previously thought. Maybe our Sun used to really kick out the jams and Mars was warmer. As the Sun lost some steam over 3 or 4 billion years, Mars cooled, glaciers form, then recede. Canals and trenches, etc are created in the process. Atmosphere changes. Suddenly, nothing more than a frozen little rock floating around the Sun.

In the mean time, the very, very hot Earth next door has also started to cool and settle down. Volcanic activity is down, rainfall is up. It is becoming more habitable.

In the mean time, Venus next door is still rocking and rolling with the greenhouse gases. Hot and smoky: no fun for a vacation.

Let us introduce a race of intelligent beings into the mix. They are hanging out on the homeland, doing their thing. Then there occurs what is called an Extinction Level Event. This may have been caused by a weapon of some kind which the folks decided to test or use against one another some sunny afternoon, or an meteor. Who can say? It kicks up the dust. The planet cools, the Sun is cooling anyway, freezing, glaciers, we’ve heard it all before.

These guys have very little time to get out of Dodge, but they have the technology. They gather together a group, lie to the rest—who are, by all accounts, totally screwed—by telling them that they will come back for them, and blast off.

They head for the nearest safe-looking haven and land on, that’s right, Earth.

Perhaps that is where we are now. We’re the Martians. Our new digs aren’t so new anymore. We’re approaching critical population mass, Earth is warming up.

Do we need to think about calling up Two-Men-and-a-Spaceship and heading for Venus? If so, be sure to make your reservations early.