The Terranauts

but outside, in the desert, where the air was thin and light pollution unheard of, you could see right up into the back molars of the universe.

And it was clear that the fundamental problem facing our species, the root cause of all the worlds woes, the very reason we need a place like E2 to begin with was over population.

and while it’s not right and it’s not fair, the fact is that everybody, from bottom to top, is competing for space and resources through every O2-laden breath they draw.

crossed the room and lit a cigarette, though smoking was discouraged on campus and about as stupid and self-destructive an activity as anything our species has devised.

HIV, AIDS and maybe even Ebola pulsing through the circulatory pathways of our criminally expanding species, pandemic, everything a pandemic, apocalypse festering in the blood.

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and the failure memorable.

The earth was running out of resources, global warming was beginning to be recognized as science fact and not science fiction, and if man was to evolve to play a part in things instead of being just another doomed organism on a doomed planet, if the technosphere was going to replace pure biological processes, then sooner or later we’d have to seed life elsewhere—on Mars, to begin with.