Mars Too Cool

CW FISHER I'm no scientist, but when an apple hits my head, who knows? It could be gravity. I've got it in my head that we're all headed to Mars. I'm seeing underground everythings, and everything's the same as everywhere now, Wal-Marts and McDonald's, Jennifer Lopez movies at Multiplex theatres, all of it so vast you'd never even know you were underground. We're headed to Mars. I'm thinking about Mars these days, feisty little planet, always in the news. I often get the feeling it's just waiting for a Bugsy Siegel to see it for what it is: paradise, of some sort. If we could just get enough toys up there and enough cameras we could have a helluva robot war, take bets, big business, help pay for it and then some. Bush is so excited he wants to go there. We want him to go there too. But by the time the bus is ready, he'll be long gone anyway. I want to know where the water went. Last week we found a rock that proved the existence of water on Mars, not just snow, ice or vapor of some sort, but chemical evidence of what we know as water. So where is it? Come on! We know, man, I mean, we know that Mars was swirling with something and lots of it and we've known it for years. If it was water, which it probably was, then where in the name of Pete did it go? Nobody knows, yet, but the short version of current plausible theories combined is: 1) much of it may have been lost to the atmosphere and then to space because of low gravitational pull after some catastrophic event, and/or 2) much of the water is underground in a seasonal cycle of freezing and boiling. Maybe the seas come when the water boils. Maybe the season takes centuries to turn. It's enough to give any realtor the shivers. Still, there is the promise of water. And the boiling and freezing part sounds like energy to me, and a little Robert Frost. Water, doesn't that mean life? Oxygen? Hydrogen? Am I nuts or did Total Recall nail it? Except for that boiling part. And probably the eye-bugging part. And the three-breasted mutant part. The Johnny Cabs we'll see in Singapore this spring. I demand answers. I'm tired of these questions hanging right in front of us like a bigass moon. Even the origin of the moon is still in dispute. Let's not quibble over Mars. We know what it is. Mars is condemned by all known literature to be nothing but trouble. They don't call it the "red planet" for nothing. This essential "badness" is the very thing that will draw humans to it like a drug. We are going to Mars, people. Get used to the idea. I got in trouble recently for saying money would never be a problem for space exploration. Historically, money has always been the problem, but until recently the economic base of the space program was not quite capitalism as we know it. We're out of the Lewis & Clark phase and into the pioneer stage. As earthly boundaries are transcended, a new economy will be needed, with emoney issued by borderless banks. Cash stations without cash. Credits, in other words. Oh, my God, what's happening? And Arnold Scwartzenegger is governor! And all I can think of is Mars! Johnny Cab!