“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” -Genesis 1:1
… existence on this planet, a rather beautiful gift. No?
Maybe it’s just that the grass is always greener somewhere else, but before we finished our task of “tilling and tending” this great planet, our roll as partners in creation with God, we’ve started looking around at other planets. What’s wrong with this one? Maybe it’s like an old car, after a while you just want something else. My fear is that we’ve just found taking care of this planet to be too much work: It’s dirty, it’s hot, it’s crowded. So a peek at Mars, the cute little planet next door. Nothing wrong with looking. Right? Besides, SarcasticRover tweets are hilarious: “I thought ASTRO-PHYSICS just meant I had to study THE JETSON’S DOG. Rorry Rorge”.
Why Mars?
I remember when President Bush announced that we would redouble our efforts in space
and go to Mars. It had just become public that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, just like that, Mars… It felt like a distraction then, and to me, it still does. It must have felt like that to comedian Dave Chappelle as well. He captured my sense of it perfectly in his announcement of the “United States of Space” as his character Black Bush.
“The Mars Exploration Program is a science-driven program that seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be, a habitable world. To find out, we need to understand how geologic, climatic, and other processes have worked to shape Mars and its environment over time, as well as how they interact today.” – Official NASA statement.
The official NASA website says that the purpose of the exploration of Mars, which so far looks like Death Valley, is to A) Determine if there was ever life on Mars, B) Study the climate of Mars, C) study the geology of Mars, and D) Prepare for human exploration of Mars.
I’m all for science, but preparing for human visits to Mars while there is so much more to
do on our planet (get a handle on climate change, cure cancer, feed the hungry, correct our over-consumption, create peaceful understanding among its inhabitants, to name a few) seems premature.
Perhaps the goal of Mars exploration is the preface of the Pixar script for Wall-E: We’ve messed up our own planet, so we’ll leave for a while and our robots do the work of cleaning up after us. Like at a fine hotel, instead of cleaning up after ourselves, we simply pick up the phone and call House Cleaning. But unlike a hotel, we live here.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” – Genesis 2:15
This is my hope and prayer: As we check out Mars, we come to appreciate the gift that God has given us, Earth. May we redouble our efforts to “work it and take care for it”.
