Tagged: Travel
So You’re Dying To Hear What It’s Like, Eh?
Well, I’ll tell ya. Working at a car wash–for me–is like listening to a broken record on which is recorded Mr. Miagi’s “Wax on, Wax off,” Improved-George McFly’s “Now, Biff, I want make sure that we get two coats of wax this time, not just one,” and Chris Rock’s “Scrape, scrape, scrape…surely two hours have passed…WHAT?! Only 15 minutes!! AHHHHHH!!!!!”
In other words, it’s kinda fun. Thanks for asking.
Thank The Doctor
For Paul.
Like any pilot, he feared hospitals. Any fool knew the buildings themselves were stable and not prone to injure their inhabitants, so he knew his fear must have been generated by something inside the buildings. It was. For this pilot, the doctor was the root of the fear. The doctor was the one person who could take away, without him having any say, what he worked so hard to achieve–the wonder of flight.
He couldn’t help but notice that his fear was never lonely. The other pilots feared the doctor too. More than that, he noticed that even some civilians feared entering those sterile buildings and visiting this flesh expert. “But what would give the civilians pause?” he wondered, now distracted by the thought. Quick as lightening, the horrible truth revealed itself: doctors were omnipotent.
He wondered if they knew. Perhaps they did, then again perhaps they didn’t. Prior experience told him that this wasn’t exactly the kind of information that should be shared lightly. Who could he tell? If doctors didn’t know their power, upon being told, they might begin to abuse it. But if they did know? Wow. What a benevolent group of individuals they were!
More than soldiers, more than policemen, more than politicians, more than clergy, it is doctors that hold this life ransom.
“Take this,” they say, knowing full well its a crap-shoot.
“Do that,” they command, never feeling resistance.
“You’ll live,” they pronounce so matter-of-factly that the recipient of even the worst boo-boo’s spirit is lifted.
“You’re going to die,” they deliver, never betraying whether this is good news or bad.
Truly more powerful than the caped crusader himself, these lab-coated demigods hold all of life’s keys. With a sure-grip they hold humanity’s heart in their stable hands. And yet they choose not to squeeze too tightly.
He realized, then, that it’s okay to be afraid. But he knew he should also be grateful. He should be grateful that these quiet professionals choose to meekly implement their duties with reserve. He wouldn’t allow himself to consider the other option; it was too terrible.
So go on being afraid, it’s justified. Just the same, never forget to thank the doctor.
Overrun The Runway
He hadn’t flown in a couple of years now, but it was time to renew his flight instructor certificate. The process involved reviewing a series of lessons and special interest items before taking quizzes to demonstrate mastery of the material.
As he didn’t really plan on flying again, he was doing this strictly to “be prepared.” He had worked hard to get the certification, and didn’t want to lose it if he didn’t have to. Who knew? Maybe he’d change his mind in the future. Regardless, the point is that he reviewed the data with curiosity, rather than practical application. The thing about aviation, the thing which he loved–and missed–the most, was the dedication of all involved to “doing it right.”
The noteworthy finding this time was the conclusion that overrunning the end of the runway on a botched takeoff is safer than trying to force an aircraft to fly. He loved it. What a metaphor! You see, he knew that a major reason pilots would choose to force an aircraft to fly was to save face. That’s it. Overrunning the runway on takeoff will inevitably lead to embarrassment–though likely not much else. And if there has ever been a group of individuals who would rather die than suffer embarrassment, it is pilots.
As he knew, as the reader knows, forcing the metaphorical aircraft to fly in grounded-life won’t cause death. But it does cause drama. And who among us doesn’t know someone who would rather create drama, than suffer embarrassment? He tallied how many times in recent memory he tried to “force the aircraft to fly.” How many times had he crashed and burned in life because he didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment that would have followed if he would’ve just put on the brakes and let his momentum peter out?
He’s asking us, “How many relationships could be deepened–or healed–if we made the decision to “overrun the runway” every once in a while?”
The Reason Angels Have Hands In Addition To Wings
It happened back in the early 2000s. He couldn’t remember the year exactly, but for some reason he remembered seeing a PT Cruiser drive by when she said it. They were eating at a restaurant, him and his woman. She had just spilled some food on her favorite pair of pants. He was not surprised. Hell–by this time detergent companies had specifically developed pen-size on-the-go cleaner in an effort to save relationships. And on this occasion his girlfriend said, “What’s the point of trying to not spill if I have a Tide-stick in my purse? They work wonders!” Unintended consequences as they are, the invention of Tide-sticks resulted in women, his girlfriend included, becoming more daring while eating.
What happened next was unbelievable. Women everywhere just gave up on trying to not spill while eating. At first this was all silly. He would even find himself laughing at all the funny ways women would splink. Splinking–that’s what they called it. Women would intentionally miss their mouth in the most nonsensical situation possible and capture the result on camera. Like planking and duckface before it, the photrend caught on quickly. In the first month, the major social media players actually shutdown for an entire day because of the unexpected traffic. People weren’t laughing for very long though. What no one seemed to notice was that women weren’t eating as much food anymore. Weren’t-eating-as-much-food, quickly became weren’t-eating-enough-food. Sadly, unable to resist the Western-trend, the third world suffered the initial blow. Never had the planet seen such merciless loss of life. Inevitably, all eyes turned upward.
Make no mistake, God was aware of the situation. He just hadn’t exactly prepared for this. Finally, Michael spoke up.
“I have an idea.”
“I’m listening.”
“All these eons, I’ve trusted in your infinite wisdom. Specifically, I tried to never complain that you gave the humans hands, while we only got wings. But with the situation they’ve got themselves into down there, I can’t stand idly by anymore. It’s time God. Give us–your messengers of mercy–hands. With hands we’ll be able to answer their prayers.”
“I don’t think I follow.”
“Here’s how it’ll work. We’ll be waiting and watching for the female humans to take a bite. Then, as the food falls we’ll fly in and reach out, with our new additional appendages, to save the falling food. In that same instant, we’ll return it to the plate and they’ll never know we intervened. After a couple miraculous interventions, they’re sure to catch on. It’s the only way.”
In the next moment Michael and the other heralds were happily dashing around the planet using their new hands to ensure women reached satiation.
It worked.
He thought enough time had passed, so he finally delivered his joke, “You know hon…I always said it would take an act of God for a woman to eat a meal without spilling.”
“Not funny.”
He was wrong.
Living Three Days Out
This was it. His last day on the job. He’d waited, mostly patiently, for years to be able to quit as he pleased, and now he’d done it twice in one year. How does it feel? Remember Owen Wilson’s description of the ratio between excitement and scared in Armageddon? Nothing like that.
His life had been so planned up until this year that he still couldn’t believe how relieved this all felt. He just wanted to drink it up.
The great joy of the journey. What was going to happen next? He had some inklings, but no real vision. Honestly, while he had narrowed down his professional joys, he knew just one thing above all. He knew he was tired of trying to convince people of his value with his voice. Experience as his mentor, he was learning that the great thing about self-respect and dignity is that they are heavy enough to squash self-doubt.
How would it all turn out? That is what he longed to know. Emerson wrote about what it must have been like three days before Columbus and his crew discovered America. That day embodied the peak of excitement. That day exemplified the joy of living. Intuition caused him to identify with the sentiment as he read those words years ago. Now, experience was teaching him the full truth of it.
Do Your Dentures Fit Like…
Up until this very moment, he had only heard about what he recently experienced on a road trip. Some called it heaven, others nirvana, others ecstasy. If he had to put a name on it, he would call it “Primal Joy.” But as he spoke those words, they sounded wrong, sounded too weak. Suffice it to say, the feeling was unmatched, and incredibly difficult to name properly.
What caused this feeling you ask? The great unknown. Not just any unknown, but one that follows an especially compelling preamble. We all have had lesser experiences of this happen in our lives. We’re just listening to someone speak, and next thing you know they say something like, “So then I said…” And as the “de” in “said” is made audible the anticipation builds. Sometimes it is only mild. Other times it is frighteningly exciting. These instances are characterized by the listener asking themselves within these varied levels of excitement, “I wonder what he/she is going to say next?” That is where he was at. The billboard began, “Do your dentures fit like…”
Analyzing this for a moment, we can deduce at least three facts. First, this is likely an ad for a dentist or orthodontist. Second, the size and quality of the sign tell us that this denture-pusher is small time. Third, given the small/local nature of the shop, we can expect the metaphor describing poor-denture-fit to be colloquial and meant for a very specific target audience–being the denture wearing residents of that small town; itself a group who presumably have a lot in common with each other even before counting teeth.
Surely by now, you have developed some metaphors of your own to complete the ad. Perhaps you have the upper hand and know some denture wearing folks and have heard them lament about poor fitting dentures with witty metaphors. Perhaps you even wear dentures. You’ll still never guess the rest of the sign.
The metaphor proved itself worthy as he nearly shed tears while merrily explaining the sign to his fellow road warriors.
Savor this moment. Remember that a fellow human, made of the same parts as the rest of us, decided that this was the best way to relay his services to potential customers.
Our characters own tendencies to become over-excited signaled that this creative tooth-peddler probably couldn’t live up to the fantasy he had imagined him/her to be, but that didn’t stop him from desiring to meet the individual who came up with this billboard. If only the phone number was as memorable as this:
“Do your dentures fit like socks on a rooster?”
For reasons beyond his control, he could only assume this situation would be miserable.
The Easiest Call To Answer
Breakfast at 7:00 am with his woman, a quick shower at 7:45, and they’d be out the door by 8:30 on their way to the home store. After picking up a few essentials it would be time to head to the hardware store. He desperately needed a new tool for weeding, and also a bit of potting soil. Oh, and winter fertilizer. If things went perfect, they’d be driving away from the hardware store at 11:00 on their way to meet friends for lunch at 11:30.
It wasn’t quite a sit-down restaurant, but the couples hadn’t seen each other in what seemed like forever, so he budgeted an hour and a half for the lunch. Farewell handshakes and hugs would conclude at 1:00 pm, so he figured they could be pulling out of the parking lot at 1:05, which would leave plenty of time to drive to the ‘burbs for their nephews game. The kid was only 6, so it wasn’t exactly organized. From his perspective it was more like a bunch of adults forming a fleshy boundary which attempted to keep sacred childhood. Either way, he was excited to see his sister and brother-in-law.
From there, the plan was to split-up for an hour or so to clean up. Then everyone would meet back up at 6:00 for some Colorado-style pizza. He figured they’d be out of the restaurant by 8:00–8:30 at the latest. Afterwards everyone would return to their respective homes, and have a nice quiet night on couches.
Yep, he was pretty proud of himself for having such a thought out plan, but now it was time for bed.
Pulling the covers up–awkwardly as usual–to warm the back of his neck, he shut his eyes, smiling.
He awoke. Widening his eyes as if that helped him regain consciousness faster, he reached for his phone. Seeing the time before noting who was calling, he read “5:30” with some confusion. “Who would be calling so early on a Saturday?” he wondered to himself. The screen informed him who it was, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Honey,” he said. “Honey, wake up, wake up,” he said shaking her.
“What time is it?” she mumbled.
“Huh? Why? That doesn’t matter. We’ve got to cancel our plans for the day. The mountains called. They’re open!”
Part 5 (Conclusion) – I’m Moving to Mars in 2022
Next, I turned my attention to probably the greatest source I stumbled upon during my relatively light research for this paper. I discovered an article entitled, “Revised Scenario for Human Missions to Mars” written by Jean Marc Salotti. As mentioned in this paper, Mars Direct advocates the idea of sending the recovery vehicle to Mars first, and then everything else. Salotti addresses this notion in depth, and also provides what he (and his team) think is a better scenario. The specifics are rather boring and not easily summarized here, but suffice it to say that his team believes they have a better plan, which also minimizes risks by providing redundancies every step of the way (286). What was so moving about this paper is that it was written with a tone that doesn’t hide that he fully expects a successful manned journey to Mars—and soon.
The journey nearing an end, I found an article which seemed a fitting punctuation mark with which to conclude the paper, “Can Humans Live on Mars?” by Ken Kremer. The short answer is “Yes”. Kremer focuses his question and subsequent answer specifically on radiation levels. For the lay reader, the article reveals that astronauts today already operate within preset radiation exposure limits (Kremer). He goes on to conclude that all the data argues that Mars’ thin atmosphere actually reduces the radiation exposure an astronaut would encounter when compared to current trips to the International Space Station (Kremer). This is encouraging news. There are, of course, still many uncertainties, but the overall point is that settling Planet Mars, as Mars One intends on doing, seems to be more than a joke. While the details are being fine-tuned, it is clear that prominent members of the larger space exploration community argue that humanity possesses the ability to fly to and land on Mars. Furthermore it seems that humans should be able to live for at least a short time without ill effect.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This goal to inhabit Mars in 2023 is achievable and realistic. More than the research this paper reviews, I know this to be true because I am a member of the human race. I know this to be true because I possess the innately human quality intuition. I know this to be true because when backed by the history of human experience and achievement, intuition proves itself accurate. The human race is a super-organism that does not give-up. When we direct our attention towards manifesting an idea, the rest is history.
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Kremer, Ken. “Can Humans Live on Mars?” Universe Today RSS. N.p., 19 Nov. 2012. Web. 17 Sept. 2013. <http://www.universetoday.com/98509/can-humans-live-on-mars/>.
Salotti, Jean Marc. “Revised Scenario For Human Missions To Mars.” Acta Astronautica 81.1 (2012): 273-287. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.
Part 4 – I’m Moving to Mars in 2022
So far my research had been exclusively American. I decided I needed to change it up a bit, so I looked to discover what the motherland had to say. My most relevant findings weren’t about the future, but the past. BBC News’ Race to Mars webpage had a nice timeline which emphasized most that humans hit Mars with man-made materials in 1971 and 1972. Educating uninitiated space junkies, the site reveals that starting back in 1965 humans were taking close-up pictures of the surface from orbiting satellites. This was exciting and a good sign for two reasons. First, from taking close-up pictures to landing–albeit crash landing–took less than a decade. Second, Mars One has given itself a decade and there are rovers right now on Mars. Remember Mars One’s claim…they’re only going to use existing technology. That was becoming more and more believable as my research continued. Moreover, 10 years to prepare was beginning to sound more like 10 years to perfect the plan.
Scrolling down to my Works Cited page, I decided to see what James Bell III had to say. In an extremely impressive article called, “The Search for Habitable Worlds: Planetary Exploration in the 21St Century,” Bell plainly and eloquently explains the situation. The situation is that Mars is definitely mankind’s chosen priority at the moment (9). Before going further, I need to clear the air and acknowledge that Bell never does discuss placing humans on any of the once habitable or possibly habitable worlds; instead he emphasizes the current strategy slogan adopted by NASA is “flyby, orbit, land, rove, and return” (9). One particular article highlight is that it sounds like Mars likely had water at one point, but it is difficult or impossible for water to remain stable on the surface today because of the lack of atmosphere (12). So, this article then is a mixed bag for my quest. This writer, Bell, seems to be a very respectable voice in the community, but he doesn’t mention settling people on Mars. However, he does an excellent job of delineating that humankind is in the “third great Age of Exploration” as historian and author Stephen Pyne has labeled it (8). As always, I take this to be a great indicator that we are moving quickly and will soon be living on Mars. I take this to be a great indicator because the first two ages of exploration (the first personified by Columbus; the second, Lewis and Clark) were successful. Among the many things humans, as a group, seem to be skilled at, exploring tops the list–and I see no reason for this skill to have perished simply because we’ve reached the end of the Earth.
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Bell III, James F. “The Search for Habitable Worlds: Planetary Exploration in the 21St Century.” Daedalus 141.3 (2012): 8. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.
BBC News. BBC, 04 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 Sept. 2013. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2003/race_for_mars/default.stm>.
Part 3 – I’m Moving to Mars in 2022
Next, I stumbled upon a more scholarly article written by Mehdi Lali. In “Analysis and Design of a Human Spaceflight to Mars, Europa, and Titan,” Mehdi Lali discusses why these three un-earthly bodies are the best choice for manned exploration and when the best time to do it will be. He also incorporates some graphics which illustrate several gee-whiz techniques which will make the trip quicker and safer. He begins the article by clarifying that, “Among the terrestrial (rocky) planets, only Mars can potentially be host to humans” (557). As space exploration isn’t limited to planets he further discusses options like Europa and Titan which are moons of outer planets. After he presents his ideas and methodology he concludes, “A rare launch-window opportunity is conceived to occur in 2078, in which these sites i.e., Mars, Europa and Titan will be aligned in such a way that they can be visited in one mission taking advantage of the gravity assists from Mars and Jupiter” (563). Sign me up. Obviously, the year 2078 is quite a bit later than 2023; likewise, the specifics that Mr. Lali recommends for Mars exploration are quite a bit different from Mars One’s plans. This second source then really only conveyed to me that the area of manned space exploration is not very stable. It seems that depending on a set of almost unlimited factors, different scientists perceive different capabilities. Overall, my takeaway is that Lali’s article is clearly not about settling Mars, so its conclusions aren’t very relevant to my question. I have to admit that an article like Mr. Lali’s was kind of draining. It had too much specific data (read: numbers), and most of it went way over my head. That’s okay. With every failure comes a learning opportunity. I learned that I needed to focus my research a little narrower—easy enough.
What I found next was an article called, “How To…Land a Human on Mars.” Piers Bizony writes a much more digestible article explaining…how to land a human on Mars. It seems Mars One isn’t the only game in town. Since the early 1990s something called Mars Direct has been floating a six step plan to explore Mars in person. Essentially, the plan is to send the recovery vehicle first (empty), then gear, then people, then recover everyone; after which they would rinse’n’repeat (Bizony 42). While this wasn’t the plan Mars One had, it was still an encouraging bit of information. Making it even more intriguing, was that it claimed that the technology to create fuel and water on Mars already exists (Bizony 41). At this point in the project I decided to close the laptop and pack my “go” bag.
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Bizony, Piers. “How To… …Land A Human On Mars.” Engineering & Technology (17509637) 8.1 (2013): 40-42. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.
Lali, Mehdi. “Analysis And Design Of A Human Spaceflight To Mars, Europa, And Titan.” AIP Conference Proceedings 1208.1 (2010): 557-565. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5
Captain’s Log 