Human Beans In Space

Suited and booted, zipped, strapped, mapped and routed. A bean in the can. A human bean. Yes, sir, a human being, named and trained, and sharp as pencil ready to write, ready to go. Read-steady-go all the way to Mars.

There’s hope. There’s a dream. Dreams by the bucket load. How many packed in the space tin and hurled through the wide black? For how long and how long and how long will they glide through the emptiness of space? Will there be a window from which they can look back and wonder if they made the right decision; a window to peer ahead to their future?

And their future is a dark-red thumb print on the star map.

The Red Planet.

How will they live? What will they do? Make a house, a home, a hut or a cave burrowed into Martian stone? A shelter from the storm… if there are storms on Mars. It held water once. Maybe life. I don’t think they will be packing umbrellas for the trip.

Mission to Mars. A colony on the Red Planet. Not in a thousand years but round the corner, only a step or two down the road. 2025. And I heard you on the radio, Hannah Earnshaw, 23, one of the hopefuls. Here’s to you and your hopefuls, we hope for you too.

May the flame from your rocket burn new writing across the sky.

Why do I think of you as we say goodbye to the real Mr Spock.

Live long and prosper.