What condiment do astronauts like the best? Rocketchup!
Oh come on, no don’t leave – who doesn’t relish a dad joke. Then again, you mustard that one before…
OK, OK, I’ll stop. Let me start again.
Captain’s Log, Stardate 4261.5: A Klingon warship was spotted near Lagrange-3 during this morning’s coffee with Station Manager Reg Mennell, before it hyperspeeded away. Their intentions remain unknown.
OK fine, you win – you want to know the real reason why I, Capt. Kevin Swan, wanted to get a one-way ticket to Mars? Two words: stub born. I always wanted to go! Really, how cool would that be? Living on the red planet. The 55th state of the United States of America. All thanks to – and paid for by – President Elon Musk.
Sure, Mars is inhospitable… for now! But get this: there’s water there! Plans are to melt it, turn some into oxygen, some into fuel.
And when President Musk said he needed people – Martian settlers! – to join the red rush, why, I signed up instantly.
No, I’m not really a Captain. And, no, Reg isn’t a station manager hunting Klingons. But we are on a rocket ship heading towards Mars. Part of a fleet of them, actually. Why, I’m looking out the window right now at one of our neighbours. In total, I think there’s about 80 or so ships – all connected, like drones, in a swarm; kind of like giant wasps’ nests flung through the void space. And now that we’re getting pretty close, the buzzing is really starting to get loud.
We’ve been traveling for about nine months, and so any day now – although it’s hard to say what a day actually means these days – we’ll make the final circle around the planet and touch down for good. Then it’ll be time to stretch out these old legs of mine.
One by one, our hives will be thrown at the red rocks of Mars.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not going to be easy – it’s going to take a lot of grit and perseverance if we’re going to survive.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
