Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today writes about a good idea by a man called Jim McLane – send one man or woman to Mars, just to stir things up a little and get some science done. I like the idea. Read the story.
However, there's one disturbing detail in the article, namely McLane's idea for a slightly different mission: a one-man and one-woman crew, "possibly creating an Adam and Eve-type situation". Is it just I who immediately think "what good would that do" and "why not a gay couple"? I think it's rather bizarre and tasteless to suggest that the incestuous Christian creation myth would be a positive template upon which to design a mission – sure, it'd be good for the astronaut to have a sexual partner, but what's the point of it being a man and a woman? One can imagine that they might be able to raise a couple of children, who could then work the family farm... But that'd be the end of the line, since we now know that it's usually a bad idea for siblings to mate, or for children to mate with their parents – something many authors of the bible didn't consider when throwing together that nasty piece of junk litterature.
Those were just a few of my random thoughts when reading the article. I'm all for sending someone to Mars :).
