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Red Ink Planet Is NASA's Latest Mars Discovery A Ploy To Blow Taxpayer Bucks On A Bureaucratic Adventure? By Jeff Smith
Forgive me. Anyway, I knew there was life elsewhere in the universe...if not on Mars 4.5 billion years ago, then somewhere else, then or now. Y'see, as I've grown older I have learned a few things, among which is the reason why Lyndon Johnson had such big ears. Bear with me here a minute: this actually pertains to the Martian thing. See our ears and noses keep growing our entire lives. Not only that, but in some of us, our abstract minds keep growing, too. Mine has. The reality part of it may have ossified decades ago, but the imagination requires a larger hat size every couple of summers. The Lynne Russell thing is a manifestation of this phenomenon. At any rate I have a pretty good handle on the concept of infinity and eternity now, much better than in my youth, when I couldn't see beyond the end of my como se llama or think beyond the last day of summer vacation. When your mind expands to fill the universe and time stretches in all directions without beginning or end, you realize it's the height of egocentric folly to believe life here on Earth is unique in the universe. In the aspect of infinity and of eternity there are infinite permutations on the theme of life. There simply cannot be otherwise. So. So I listened to what Lynne had to report, and I heard Carl Sagan say I told you so, and I absorbed the details of the NASA press conference describing how this chunk of rock which was formed on Mars four and a half billion years ago, was blown into space 15 million years ago and lit on Antarctica 13 thousand years ago and was picked up by explorers 12 years ago and reported to contain remains of primitive life-forms last Wednesday... ...and I says to myself, "Marvy. So what's the big deal?" And as if in answer, the next man up on the tube is saying something to the effect that this is the biggest scientific discovery of the 20th century and it will change forever the way Man regards himself and his universe. And I'm like, Duh. You call yourself a scientist, and you didn't already know there's more life in this universe than you can count, even with your shoes off? If you'll pardon the pun: Get a life. Not only are there other life-forms in the universe, they've got cable. Hell, I'm smart enough to know this, and I'm not even a scientist. My degree is in English Lit. So I wasn't even going to waste a week's space in the paper over the discovery of Martians, until I went to the poker game last Thursday night and got to jawing with Jonathan between hands. Jonathan knows a little something about life away from home. He's got more frequent-flier miles than anybody else I know. From trips to Russia and Pasadena and Washington, D.C., and all over. But when I say away from home--in Jonathan's case--I'm talking off-site in the cosmic context. Jonathan Lunine is a planetary scientist. He knows more about Pluto, for instance, than all the rest of the guys I play poker with on Thursday nights, combined. Including Henry Dojaquez. Time magazine picked Jonathan as one of the 30 hottest dogs in America. He's a piss-poor poker player, but if you wanted, for instance, to know if there's life beyond this big blue marble we live on, Jonathan Lunine would be a good guy to ask. So I asked. "What do you think about the Martian bugs, John-boy?" "Not much," says he. "You mean you don't believe these cells they found in that rock were actual life and actually from Mars?" To which Jonathan responded, half-abstractedly on account of he was holding the better part of a straight-flush, "I mean I don't think the scientists are all that convinced of it, but that when it leaked, NASA decided they might as well go ahead with their press conference, because it would be very difficult to disprove that this was a life-form....I'll see your dime and raise you a quarter." It was Henry's dime Jonathan raised, and I folded. But the more I thought about what Jonathan had said, the more the cosmic implications of it became clear to me: This chunk of rock from Mars--or wherever--by way of Antarctica and Houston and Washington, D.C., means dick, in terms of pure science. But tons in terms of politics and policy and dough-re-mi. Right now, with Bob Dole and Bill Clinton trying to out-tax-cut the other and still trim the budget deficit, you're not going to be hearing a lot from NASA nor much from the White House about spending big bucks for space exploration. But next year is another matter entirely. A second Clinton Administration, unfettered by concerns of re-election, or a first Dole Administration, out to establish its place in history. Whichever way the mop flops, NASA wants as big a piece of the pie as it can slice. And there's no surer way of getting more than your just desserts than suddenly discovering life on Mars, and getting the nation all horny over going there and getting on a first-name basis with it. "This could amount to a trillion-dollar swing between feeding and educating our children, or sending hardware to Mars," I thought. And I said so to Jonathan as we left the poker game. "Maybe a billion," he said. "Billion my butt," I said. "After he gets re-elected, Clinton's going to want to do the Kennedy thing, and pledge to put a man on Mars before the end of the millennium." "Half a trillion, then," said Jonathan.
Do you have any idea how many groceries you could buy with half
a trillion dollars?
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© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth |
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I KNEW THAT. I mean when I thumbed the button
on the remote and Lynne Russell's laser eyes and sensuous, ruby
red, round, ripe, seductive lips came into focus on 