Let's Be Honest About Mars

Never underestimate the power of a Sharpie.

 

NASA is spread all over the MAP because LBJ knew giving everyone a piece of the pie would make it more popular politically than putting everything in one place.

 

I wonder about Mars from a psychological perspective. The days are nearly the same length, so that is good. The tilt of the axis is 25 degrees, nearly the same as Earth's, but the year is nearly twice as long with uneven lengths of seasons and therefore of day and night and the sun angle/amount of sunlight received over a given period of time. The summer is longer in the northern hemisphere and the winter is longer in the southern, so where people are living on the planet will have a profound psychological effect. To top it all off, Mars only receives 43% of the light that Earth receives at the same Sun angle. It's already becoming established that particular interest is going to lie in settling areas near the South pole because of the vast supplies of water ice available there in the large ice cap. The South polar region is the darkest place on Mars on average.

What effect is seeing a harsh red landscape and sky all the time instead of blue and green going to have on the mood and emotional state of people on Mars? How about no Moon? No telling how primal our connection to its reliable monthly waxing and waning through our night sky might be.

 

Hopefully Elon takes Trump with him. Win, win.