A Cry Heard Round The World: Kim Sun-Il died desperate and alone, but he did not die unheard.
Looking At And Longing For Mars: Reflections on a childhood dream.
A Robot May Not Harm a Human Being. Is The Opposite True?: Thoughts on the future rights of artificial intelligence.
Long After The Boys Of Summer Have Gone: What makes a relationship work?
Winter Of Our Feline Discontent: What the cat wants, the cat gets. But what DOES it want?
To Tell The Truth: There may be no honor among thieves, but can't we find it even in a few good men and women?
Should The Human Brain Retire?: We know that we cannot win forever. We know that machines will continue to improve. So why don't we let the human brain retire gracefully now, with honors?
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Published: Sep 16, 2005 01:41 PM
Fri - January 9, 2004
The Grass Isn't Always Greener
To call Mars a dead world or even a hellish one strains our imaginations. In the Christian concept of hell, corpses abound; in the Qur'an, "the roots of the tree zaqqum ... reach[es] to the top of hell with its fruits of demons' heads." Yet on Mars, nothing dies—because nothing has ever lived.
No rains fall. No clouds float in the sky. No color competes with ruddy rouge in the camera's roving eye.
Awed though we feel at seeing a planet now 100 million miles away, more startling still is a world that supports 20 million species, where even Death Valley, one of the hottest, driest places would be a paradise compared to its Martian equivalent.
As we dream about all that we may one day create on Mars, let's not soon forget that the most amazing planet known to us isn't the largest, the hottest, the farthest, or the reddest. It's the one we proudly call home.