The Writer’s Block: Standing on Mars

Standing on Mars

by Frederick Swan

I was 8 years old when I first stood on Mars surface in a pressure suit. I bounced around for nearly 20 minutes before my mother was able to calm me down enough to get to work.

At that time only adults could go on a Mars walk. Nobody made suits for children. That changed with the Climate Engineering Initiative. Suddenly whole families were important to the work on Mars. Most of the climate work was done by huge atomic converters, eating inert rock and belching out nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapor into the air. Other machines at the poles created an artificial magnetic field to keep these new gasses on Mars, where they belonged. However, the task of seeding arctic mosses was in part performed by families as a sort of public awareness campaign. Folks were more likely to support climate engineering if they had a hand in it and could see the fruits of their labor covering the globe. Thus the push to get families active in climate engineering.

My job was simple: I was to walk 15 steps and drop a moss nugget on the ground. Repeat. It was simple and low intensity. But I enjoyed every minute of it. Those long days with family, followed by hot cocoa and a movie are some of my fondest memories.

Today I stand in roughly the same spot as where I, along with many other Martian families, planted the seeds of life on a new planet. But today is different. Gone is the pressure suit, replaced with a sweater and a pair of Everjeans. My only concession to the harsh atmosphere of Mars is my oxygen mask, as the air will be too thin for humans to breathe for at least another generation.

It’s been 42 years since that day in the vast Martian desert, and the mosses now cover virtually every inch of Mars. The atomic converters continue to pour nitrogen and oxygen into the atmosphere, as they have done since before I was born and will continue for hundreds of years after I am dead and gone. One day my children may breathe the air on Mars, but it will not be for me. They will see animals on this vast new steppe, carefully selected to recreate the steppes back on Earth. Partridges, musk ox, foxes, mammoths, wolves. All will be transported here in due course to fill this world, newly alive.

But that is many years in the future. It is not for me. Today I feel the cold Martian breeze on my face, dig my hands into the living Martian soil. That is my prize for my efforts all those years ago. I get to walk barefoot upon the world that I brought to life. There is no greater feeling than that.

My wife and my children are nearby. My children are experiencing a special chapter in their own lives as they will be planting evergreen shrubs for their own future. Their joy is quite evident, and I now know exactly how my parents felt so many years ago as they watched my antics. But it is different for me. I see my children cavorting in the world I helped build when I was as young as they are now . I couldn’t have understood at that tender age how my actions would ripple down through the years, but I do now. In this moment I understand completely what it is to create something bigger than yourself. To give it to your children to pass along through the generations. A gift to the future.

I wiggle my toes in the soft, cold moss. I feel the breeze on my skin for the first time in my life.

I built this.

My home.

THE END