Although fascinating to discover if there was ever life on Mars, having watched a BBC Four documentary on NASA’s attempt to send a mobile science lab to the hostile planet, I look at the all the resources being chucked into such a feat and wonder what could be achieved if all these problem-solving skills were channelled into life that already exists on earth and directed towards real problems that have been n existence for hundreds of years – poverty.
If an alien landed on this earth, it would no doubt be perplexed by all NASA’s work to investigate hypothetical questions when all around there is chaos and issues. I like to imagine some long-fingered green stereotypical alien over-sized hand landing atop of the NASA scientist’s head and twisting the head away from the computer screen to stare at many of the insane goings on in the world that are easy to solve. The alien is spoilt for choice in global issues that need tackling. For starters, he could show the scientist a hospital in Africa where babies and children are suffering and dying of Malaria simply because they do not have mosquito nets or anti-malaria tablets. Before working out how to in-filtrate Mars’ hostile atmosphere, how about working out how to free the thousands of prisoners in the North Korean torture camps?
Science is fascinating but, for me, it is a luxury to discover the history of life on Mars when there are still people on this Earth who don’t experience much of life because of problems that could be more easily solved than a NASA mission and with half the resources.
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Thanks for reading.
tommarter 