[Culturechat] An Untour that is an UNTOUR

[Vance Roy]

While reading a Dave Barry column this week, the thought occurred to 
me, "Why not an Untour to Mars"? They seem to go everywhere else.

OK, OK, I can hear the Idyll naysayers right now. "Trip takes too 
long." Well, yes it does take six months or so even if you get a direct 
flight and don't have to change at the Moon's crappy airport, but a lot 
of retired folks wouldn't mind taking a six month trip. Some school 
kids could take a year abroad, as they do now for the round trip. "No 
local support." Well, as far as we know, no locals there, but who 
knows? Maybe some Martian named *&#$)*& will show up from under one of 
those rocks. "It" might even wind up coming to the Earth some day to 
visit with human Idyllers. "No apartments." That's easily solved with 
space trailer, or as they are now known at the mobile home shows in 
Alabama, "manufactured homes". "No mass transport or rental cars." 
Right, but one can easily remedy that with some extra Mars Rovers, and 
I can put Idyll onto a hot source for these, since some of the parts 
come from here in Sachseln. "Where would we have orientation?" No 
sweat, out among all those great looking rocks. If a hydrogen shower 
comes along, it wouldn't matter, most folks have quit smoking. "What is 
there to do on Mars?" Good grief! Think of the hikes. What about the 
canals? As Dave says, "Canals mean boats, and if there are boats, then 
there are boatyards with organisms to work on boats." Piloting your own 
Martian barge down a canal could be fun. The Mars Pass could cover 
that. "No food or water." Solved with a weekly shuttle until local 
cheese can be made and ripened. With less gravity than earth, those 
Martian cows must put out lots of milk with the cream rising to the top 
quickly. "Not a good value because the days are shorter." Two 
solutions: one, calculate the astronomical variations and give an 
adjustment for each term, and two, make the terms three weeks instead 
of two. "No available medical care." I could be prevailed upon to get 
my Merck Manual and Mayo Home Healthcare books out of storage and go 
too. There are probably more objections, since someone at Idyll is 
always a pessimist fearful of treading new ground.

Hal or some of his cohorts would need to get a jump on this by an 
early, ground laying trip. I know some who think he might be a Mars 
native anyway. Wouldn't you like to be the first on your block to have 
your own Idyll spacesuit?


Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch

Americans always get it right, after they've exhausted all the other 
possibilities--Winston Churchill