The
First Colonist on Mars: Courtesy of the Mars Historical Society
Introduction
The fanfare
when the Mars Colonist Project was originally announced nearly
drowned out the dissenting voices. People from across Earth and
from a wide range of social backgrounds praised the program, and
if the thousands who applied to be the first colonist on Mars
were any indication, it had the unflagging support of many who
were willing to put their lives on the line in order to advance
the worthy cause of human achievement.
Those who
spoke against the project were a diverse group. They included
psychologists and parents, scientists who questioned the wisdom
of the venture, and celebrities using the project as a platform
for poorly thought-out grandstanding. Children and state leaders,
as well as many people in the public, invented stories of overwhelming
loneliness. Internet soldiers dreamed of what they could do if
they were but transported to the planet, although their gaming
background did little to prepare them for a life of physical activity.
Adventurers doubted a human's ability to survive the privation
and grueling labour, and their applications and interviews for
the trip, that are now preserved in the Errores Archive in the
capitol, show equal parts envy and awe.
Somehow, out
of the thousands, the selection committee picked one applicant
who they claimed had the physical and mental stamina, the diverse
set of skills, the flexibility, and the self-reliance that would
be needed if he were to survive alone on a planet millions of
kilometres from everyone he knew.
As the NASA
files were declassified after the twenty-five year mark, our researchers
on Earth discovered that Errores was chosen as much for his flaws
as his strengths. His reclusiveness, which has been remarked upon
in many other studies--especially James Merron's landmark biography,
Jack Errores, a Retrospective--was apparently seen as his
main strength.
The many space
agencies involved in the Mars Colonist Project had their own agendas,
probes to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn just to name a notorious
few, and they viewed the Mars initiative as a result of short-lived
media frenzy. They denied that any real data might derive from
the project, and as a result, it was chronically underfunded.
We know now that there was scarcely enough money to send Errores
to Mars let alone another, so they chose a fatalistically inclined
man who was resigned to his lot, and whose scientific background
was that of a generalist rather than a specialist.
They encouraged
the public to believe that if Errores could survive alone for
the years it would take to raise enough interest in the project
to send more people, then funding would be forthcoming. The following
year various world leaders made financing for three colonists
a key element of their campaign promises, and one can't help but
wonder if they would have kept those promises if economic circumstances
had been different. Few could have foreseen the fallow world economy
which meant cuts were made to the entire program.
The initial
budget called for a yearly supply ship, and the publically-supported
World Builder Corp had earmarked money for that purpose. The insider
trading which plagued their stock dealings meant the death of
the company, but the final blow was the growing public awareness,
with the return of the Derian habitat, that World Builder was
sending recruits to their death.
In short,
bad faith on the behalf of the space agencies who were already
jockeying for funding for their pet projects, the public's loss
of interest in the mission, politicians making short-term bargains,
and the deterioration of World Builder's leadership, meant Errores
did not even receive his supply ship the following year. The supplies,
according to the original manifests from World Builder, were enough
to last a Martian year, or two Earth years, but no one remains
of the leadership of the corporation who can prove they were written
in good faith or that the cargo was actually placed aboard the
ship.
In effect,
Errores' food would have run out in just under two years, and
so that no one would be privy to his abandonment, NASA and JAXA
claimed to have lost his signal. How they came to that agreement,
and encouraged the Russian agency Roscosmos, and ESA to join them
in their devilish pact, could easily be a study of its own. Although
historians interested in the Brave Fifteen have investigated some
of their background, there is no full-length study at this time
of the earlier attempt at colonization. Those who withdrew support
from the Mars Colonist Project were eager enough to declaim the
entire business when Errores was abandoned, and they cheered when
the signal from the satellite was cut. Others, however, strove
to build a ground-based receiver or released cube sats in low-Earth
orbit in an effort to hack his radio waves from the background
noise.
In hindsight,
Errores' daily postings are all the more poignant as we realize
that those who knew of his abandonment could never have foreseen
how versatile he would prove to be once he was left to his own
devices. He records how he waited for a ship which would never
arrive, how he received no word from Earth despite his increasingly
frantic requests, and perhaps inadvertently, his prose exposes
his growing mental instability. Despite those pressures, he kept
writing about his adventures, and even as they became increasingly
fantastical, his personality continued to shine through. Because
of his dedication, we have a record of survival that humanity
has rarely witnessed. From one hundred million kilometres away,
more isolated than any human being has ever been, even though
unheard, Errores kept his connection to human thought and concerns.
Even those who spoke against the project must admit, that for
all his flaws, he was the correct choice after all.
In the interest
of a belatedly full disclosure, now, on the eve of learning the
history of the Fifteen Colonists in the second attempt to establish
a human presence on Mars, we release for the first time the remainder
of Jack Errores' journal entries-if that's what they are-the direct
words of the first person to live on Mars. In the past various
bowdlerized versions have been produced, and his story has been
subjected to an entertaining if scientifically unreliable film,
although that is perhaps in keeping with his devotion to the imaginings
of early literature which painted Mars as a planet of fantasy.
Although now
Mars boasts over fifty thousand colonists, at least half of whom
were born here, Errores was the first to endure such adversity,
such grueling hardship, and did so with the grace we had learned
to expect from him. That he may have ultimately failed in his
attempt to survive on the Martian surface is not a comment on
his abilities or determination, but rather is a lesson to us all,
most especially, perhaps, the agencies that sent him so far away
with so few provisions and expected so much.
Jack Errores'
Official Profile, courtesy of NASA Digital Records
I feel lucky
to be selected for this one-way mission of a lifetime. Every day
of the six months in my tiny tin can trying to keep up my bone
density, I will be grateful to be the one chosen to represent
all humanity on another planet. I am Irish, Cree, French, Ukrainian,
Spanish and Moroccan. I am you all. I will update this blog as
long as I can, as long as I have food or can produce my own. Thank-you
for your trust.
Errores'
real profile was much more detailed, and is shown here for the
first time. Courtesy of NASA Digital Records.
I was forced
to sign my public NASA profile into being, but it doesn't really
represent me, other than my genetic background. Even that was
based more on DNA analysis when I was selected for the mission
than anything I knew about my family tree. Now that I am underway,
and the moon shines off the starboard bow, I feel like I can tell
the truth about my background and reasons for being here. The
program doesn't have the funding to abort, even if it weren't
too late, so I can say what I want--short of trade secrets and
insults, I guess. Likely my reports will be censored anyway, in
the event that I go off the rails and say something I shouldn't.
I was born
late to relatively ineffectual parents. I remember my father as
a smell of weekend cigars while my mother cycled through selves
she would like to be, each one of them easily located in publications
meant for unemployed women. I grew up somewhere between the smell
of burning tobacco and panty advertisements in the glossy back
pages of ephemeral women's magazines.
As an only
child, I should have had an excruciating amount of attention focused
on me. I should have been overwhelmed by the throbbing of helicopter
parents, and benefited from educational opportunities that others
could not afford. Instead, I was largely left to my own devices.
Our house abounded with books that I avidly read, especially the
science fiction of the masters who could not imagine a future
where men did not smoke in spacesuits and women were doing something
beyond assisting in a kitchen.
Soon I was
setting off gunpowder in the back yard, using the passing trains
to press coins into wafer-thin washers, and collecting lost feathers
from wild birds to make my own pillows. I discovered how a parachute
worked by learning that my homemade version made from sheets didn't,
and when I was forced to dissect a frog, I made a robotic version
draped in cast-off frog skin that terrified the biology teacher
into nervous collapse and early retirement.
I never imagined
humans settling on another planet in my lifetime, probably because
I grew up watching the space shuttle go back and forth to the
international space station carrying people and garbage. Rather
than the most complex machine ever made by human beings, the shuttle
was a clumsy bus whose slight dim driver had only memorized one
route. I was born too late to recall when the race to the moon
was accomplished in under ten years, although like many I pored
over the footage from the historic occasion when Buzz Aldrin and
Neil Armstrong bounced around on the lunar surface. Their buoyancy
was ours, I was convinced through my childhood, and I knew that
shortly we'd be settling the moons of Jupiter and living comfortably
in huge habitats on Mars.
School for
me was largely a solitary enterprise, where I read and spent my
time in the library being protected by a wonderful librarian named
Karen. She made sure the bullies were kept from the door, even
the teachers who had little patience for a student who was interested
in learning. I had few friends, although when I became interested
in the effect of catnip on humans I cultivated some of my classmates
who were regular marijuana smokers. The experiments proved to
be fruitless. I had forgotten the most important aspect of human
psychology, that even if people are able to discern their own
thoughts and feelings, they are liable to lie about it. My subjects
began to sway in a drug or ego-induced stupor and complain of
the light-headedness I had read to look for, but I had no way
of confirming whether the cat's treat had affected their nervous
system or they were exaggerating their reports for dramatic effect.
Soon I was alone with my experiments again, and although I never
mentioned what I'd done to my peers, now that I am writing it
out I harbour a secret fantasy that some of them will remember
the dry dusty plant I said would get them stoned. It was wicked,
I suppose, to experiment on my fellow classmates as if I were
following the path of the Nazi Mengele, the James Bay Survey,
and Tuskegee, but I was a child and knew not what I did, to paraphrase
another great tinkerer.
When I graduated
from high school I was the only child whose name the principal
couldn't pronounce when he handed me my diploma, but that mattered
little at university where I met foreign students and others with
whom I had a natural affinity. Some of my fellows went immediately
into the workforce, and they crowed about their success when I
saw them over summer vacations, their backs bowed already under
their boss' profit and their hands and temperament roughened.
Studying astrophysics
and chemistry, at first avidly and then later merely dabbling,
I continued my reclusive habits. While parties raged around me,
I sat in the labs and libraries with foreign students, like them
believing the fever of youth would all too soon turn to the speedy
expenditure of middle age and then the dotage which meant that
I would not have time to answer all my questions. We would leave
the university late at night on the final bus, our noses buried
in books to the last, and while the drunken revelers reeled home
we were setting aside a textbook and falling into the well-earned
sleep of the mentally exhausted.
Although ultimately
I managed to do very well through my degrees, when I started I
was not assured of success. I learned of the existence of the
university library and that was almost my undoing. I took out
hundreds of books, until I had a revolving collection of two hundred--the
most they would lend at a time to one student--and even if none
of them were on my stated topics, I read around the clock about
what humans had thought and pondered. If anyone had asked me,
I could have told them that I imagined the rest of my life in
a lab investigating a small aspect of some huge question in a
field of study that likely I would not have been able to command.
Instead, a call went out for Mars colonists, and my colleagues'
idea of a joke--I can admit this now that I am already on my way--verged
on the cruel.
I would not
have applied to the venture myself. I thought the odds resembled
those of lottery tickets and true love. I wasn't even sure, in
those early days of hype and scatter-plot excitement, that I would
go even if I were offered a seat. I could name several astrobiologists
whose names I was sure would top the list, and there were astronomers,
planetary geologists, and specialists in one field or another
who had studied Mars for years. I should have been the last one
on the list, rather like choosing players for sports teams in
school.
When I was
selected, however, I experienced a change of heart. To the chagrin
of those who had clandestinely signed the application forms, I
began to study what information I needed for the interview. Some
two thousand candidates were made to sit examinations, and although
we were told that the psychological evaluations would come later,
I was attentive enough in my psychology classes to realize the
so-called intelligence tests were really designed to evaluate
attitude. Now that I am outside the Van Allen belt, and subject
to the first hard radiation in my life other than X-rays, I can
admit that school taught me to game intelligence tests. I've always
had a knack for guessing what the examiner wished to know, and
that stood me in good stead for the initial rounds of tests.
The next sessions
were labeled as training, but it didn't take a genius to realize
that forty people training for one position meant that we were
still under scrutiny. I could have faked social ability and been
the life of the party, especially amongst such a group of academics
and colonist wannabes, but I thought continuing to be a recluse
was a better strategy. In fact, it was refreshing to withdraw
into my real self, and I spent my time studying geology and the
conjectural science of astrobiology. Even on the basis of nothing,
those in the field of astrobiology publish hundreds of articles
a year; I found such optimism refreshing and I was behind on my
reading.
Although some
of the other candidates sneered when I begged off ice-breaking
exercises to read and work on the weight machines and treadmill,
I knew I would have the last laugh. They mistook the intention
of what was called training. They didn't realize that their social
skills disqualified them for Mars. They had risen to the top of
every other profession they had tried and had trotted out the
same tired false exuberance that meant success in the past, but
that would boot little when they were trapped for six months in
the confines of a spacecraft.
I wasn't surprised
when I was amongst the last dozen. The man who said he'd never
had sex seemed like a bad risk, the woman who wanted to bring
god to Mars, unstable, and the old man who wanted to show the
world his importance was no better than the woman who had tired
of Earth society and wanted to start a new world. My competitors
had been sincere and intelligent people, but they didn't realize
that their very proficiency was a risk to their ability to survive.
The survivor is one who approaches problems holistically, whose
ideas are not confined by a specific field of study.
Before long
we were down to ten people, and the media was interviewing us
individually. I made no attempt to win people over, since they
would not be the ones making the decision. Instead, I spent my
time building muscle mass that I was sure to lose on the six-month
passage, and perfecting the training and safety exercises which
increased in frequency until they were thrice daily. I joked with
my fellow candidates, but I could see the fear in their eyes at
my nonchalance. I did what I wanted instead of what was expected,
and although when that was claimed as a clever strategy I accepted
the compliment, I had no more choice than a dog next to a fire
hydrant.
Once we were
down to eight candidates, the media went into a feeding frenzy.
International attention circled us, coming in close for the occasional
bite and then drifting out to circle some more. They followed
everything we did, our diet, the amount of time spent bulking
up, and what we read. Our casual statements about the weather
or our feelings became quoted thousands of times online, and Shelly,
who likely knew she would not be chosen, made good use of the
platform. She's an anchor of space news now, and I see her face
more than I did when we were housed together in the test habitat
in Antarctica.
Once we were
five, major gaming establishments laid odds on who would win.
Ironically, Win was the first to drop out, after a death in the
family forced her to assume their financial burden. When Olaf
slipped in a hiking accident and was hobbling from a minor sprain,
the narrow window we had for departure meant he was excluded as
well.
I was called
to be interviewed constantly, and I only relented when I had bargained
the networks into a one-time payment of twenty-seven million dollars,
with an option of two percent royalties. I had them deliver the
twenty-seven million to three nano-technology labs located in
three different countries. That caused quite a stir, especially
amongst my relatives, many of whom I'd never met and some of whom
I'd never heard of. One of the labs was run by a former fellow
student, and I was happy to send some funding her way. I planned
to do the same with the salary they had promised, and thus ensure
that I made some contribution to humanity having a future even
if I didn't.
The interview
itself was like the candidacy test. I knew what they wanted to
hear so I told them:
I like my
own company. My dream is to have a quiet place to work in the
lab. I only contact others through a digital connection now,
so that won't change. I stay inside most of the time, so I am
used to living in enclosed spaces. I like having time to read.
I've had sex but I didn't like it. I look forward to showing
the next colonists how to live on Mars. I plan to work hard
to set up facilities for them.
I kept my
doubts to myself. I had been tracking the project's funding and
it didn't seem sufficient for another ship for at least a decade.
The public didn't want to hear that any more than those who were
judging our fitness for the project, however, and I said nothing
about the slim chance that my supply ship would come at all, let
alone within the stated year.
Once I was
chosen for the mission and was the envy of literally millions
of people, I think I absorbed a bit of their fervour. I was the
first human colonist, the one chosen to take the initial leap
that would lead to the stars. Abandoning their multibillion and
decades-long plan to build a base on the moon as a stepping stone,
NASA, JAXA and ESA sent me directly to Mars, where I would be
a scout for human occupation on other planets.
I don't disparage
this high calling, and I don't intend to scoff at those who would
have gladly traded their fortune with mine on that crowded Earth,
but I can also admit now that I never realized what it meant to
step into that capsule and be fired toward the surface of another
world.
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