Nostalgia is sweet. We generally remember only to good when reflecting on the past. That is not always the case, but more often than not we have positive memories of the past. As a science fiction nut my early memories of my pre-teen years tied strongly to Robert Heinlein and Edgar Rice Burroughs among others. Heinlein did a wonderful job of creating a universe focused on our own Solar System. It was alive with strange characters from Venus and Mars. Venus was a swampy world with non-fire breathing dragons who were much smarter than us, but also less mobile. Mars had strange characters that I always thought of as small garbage cans with extrusions for mobility and handling their ray guns that were more like octopus arms than actual arms and legs.
Edgar Rice Burroughs did write a series of novels about Venus but his greatest science fiction series had to be John Carter of Mars. Mars was a dying world with its water canals drying up and ongoing wars between three factions. The movie John Carter of Mars did not really catch the vision, but movies rarely do.
I was severely disappointed in my teenage years to learn that Venus had an environment that was totally toxic, and Mars had no water at all; dead worlds or rocks with all life limited to creative writers.
Again, things change. Now there is a theory being advocated that there is a form of life on Venus, but alive in the swirling clouds of that world. And Mars? Mars has tremendous oceans of water. Much like Heinlein’s vision, most of the water is trapped underground, although he did have at least one surface river. He might have been wrong on that part. The challenge is accessing the water as it appears to be 7-15 miles under the surface. At a random spot, drilling would be challenging even on Earth, but getting the infrastructure to tap water on Mars might be problematic. But wait. Who says there aren’t some sort of caves and caverns that might bring access to the water much closer, and possible to access. That is an unknown for now.
Just as science dashed my hopes for an adult life exploring the solar system, it now again brings hope of water and life back into the picture. The future for exploration and discovery is again in front of us. Rather than desolation and disappointment, the future can hold optimism and life beyond our own planet’s surface. I’m fascinated to see what science decides about our solar system in another 40 years.
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