When I was eleven, in the hot Alabama summers, I would wake up before dawn – around 5 or 6 am – and take my telescope to the driveway. I was always driven by the latest article in my child astronomy magazine, Odyssey, to point to a certain section of the sky
I was searching for Mars.
I would stare at the Viking I and Viking II photographs in my World Book Encyclopedia magazine for hours. I would re-draw them in my sketch pad. I redrew them so much my Crayola Crayon Box would run out of blue and orange crayons before all the others – because I was always coloring the blue sky of the Martian atmosphere and the desolation of the Martian surface.
I read books about Mars and had the Tallapoosa county book mobile stop by my house every week to bring me the latest Mars or space exploration book.
From the nearby Pick-A-Flick, I rented OJ Simpson in the movie “Capricorn One” at least a dozen times about a faked landing on Mars. One time I watched it so much – that my VCR ate the tape.
I just knew that it would be me. I knew I would be the first person from Earth to land on Mars.
I practiced Mars landings outside in my yard – climbing down from my spacecraft (a big oak tree) just beside Sunny Level Cut-Off Road in Alexander City, Alabama. Sometimes cars passing would honk their horn at me to encourage me.
I constantly worked on the words I would say to be televised to the world as Neil Armstrong did when he made his infamous speech upon touching the surface of the moon, “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I remember one of my iterations: “Men dreamed of flying, they did. Men dreamed of space, they explored. Men dreamed of touching the surface of another home, and today this man has.”
The planet regardless of the magnification I placed into the socket of my telescope – it constantly looked like a red dot. Sometimes, depending on how hot and humid those mornings were, it was blurrier. Sometimes it appeared more focused. But regardless it always seemed so far away, but I wanted to be there. That red dot I stared at endlessly represented my future.
I knew it would take nearly two years with a conventional rocket to get me there and three to six months on its surface – and then nearly two years to get back. But it was a journey I was willing to make a sacrifice for.
Then in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blew up while going to “throttle up” during lift off. And my hope of seeing Martian soil seemed to vanish.
Then life moved on.
Sometimes, during my travels around the world, I smell those mornings – I am not sure what it is I smell – something that reminds me of being up before dawn staring into my telescope. But my brain does and it triggers the memory. I smelled it once when I was in Chengdu, China. I smelled it once when I was walking home from an all night party in Bologna, Italy. And when I was walking to catch the train from Trondheim, Norway back to Oslo, Norway – I smelled it.
And always when I get off the plane in Johannesburg, South Africa and arrive at O.R. Tambo International Airport, I smell it.
Maybe it isn’t a smell, it is a realization, a sense of exploration, of finding a place and experiencing something I had never experienced before. And just as quickly as I smell it, the smell and sensation disappears.
So subconsciously, I find myself pushing myself through life searching for that smell or more subliminally searching for the Mars Effect.
I was searching for Mars.
I would stare at the Viking I and Viking II photographs in my World Book Encyclopedia magazine for hours. I would re-draw them in my sketch pad. I redrew them so much my Crayola Crayon Box would run out of blue and orange crayons before all the others – because I was always coloring the blue sky of the Martian atmosphere and the desolation of the Martian surface.
I read books about Mars and had the Tallapoosa county book mobile stop by my house every week to bring me the latest Mars or space exploration book.
From the nearby Pick-A-Flick, I rented OJ Simpson in the movie “Capricorn One” at least a dozen times about a faked landing on Mars. One time I watched it so much – that my VCR ate the tape.
I just knew that it would be me. I knew I would be the first person from Earth to land on Mars.
I practiced Mars landings outside in my yard – climbing down from my spacecraft (a big oak tree) just beside Sunny Level Cut-Off Road in Alexander City, Alabama. Sometimes cars passing would honk their horn at me to encourage me.
I constantly worked on the words I would say to be televised to the world as Neil Armstrong did when he made his infamous speech upon touching the surface of the moon, “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I remember one of my iterations: “Men dreamed of flying, they did. Men dreamed of space, they explored. Men dreamed of touching the surface of another home, and today this man has.”
The planet regardless of the magnification I placed into the socket of my telescope – it constantly looked like a red dot. Sometimes, depending on how hot and humid those mornings were, it was blurrier. Sometimes it appeared more focused. But regardless it always seemed so far away, but I wanted to be there. That red dot I stared at endlessly represented my future.
I knew it would take nearly two years with a conventional rocket to get me there and three to six months on its surface – and then nearly two years to get back. But it was a journey I was willing to make a sacrifice for.
Then in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blew up while going to “throttle up” during lift off. And my hope of seeing Martian soil seemed to vanish.
Then life moved on.
Sometimes, during my travels around the world, I smell those mornings – I am not sure what it is I smell – something that reminds me of being up before dawn staring into my telescope. But my brain does and it triggers the memory. I smelled it once when I was in Chengdu, China. I smelled it once when I was walking home from an all night party in Bologna, Italy. And when I was walking to catch the train from Trondheim, Norway back to Oslo, Norway – I smelled it.
And always when I get off the plane in Johannesburg, South Africa and arrive at O.R. Tambo International Airport, I smell it.
Maybe it isn’t a smell, it is a realization, a sense of exploration, of finding a place and experiencing something I had never experienced before. And just as quickly as I smell it, the smell and sensation disappears.
So subconsciously, I find myself pushing myself through life searching for that smell or more subliminally searching for the Mars Effect.
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