click here for mood music (Holst, "The Planets- Mars") (it does add to the suspenseful, tense, nail-biting, and cosmic ambiance here a bit...!)
Recently Bush laid out his grand vision for NASA
a manned mission to our neighbor, the fourth planet Mars.
The space agency protested, arguing that funds should be spent
on unmanned missions and studying the stars.
I say to both, "Why be so timid?"
Let's send out the first space colony of ours...
Currently there are many various, interesting groups
researching the colonizing of the rust-covered Mars.
But such plans are flawed and will be derailed
by focusing on only the technical details-
It is my observation that they are overlooking a fact-
something as obvious and large as life-
which involves the frailties of human nature-
such as ignorance, jealousy, greed, hate, and strife-the same defects overlooked by utopian-man Marx
(who, if he had one, could have simply observed in his wife...)
Now, there are many ways such a space colony could fail,
here are a few sliced with my observational knife:
The first group of colonists had lift-off, and sailed;
then pushed the wrong button, blew up, and failed.
The second group of colonists made it almost halfway,
then created a critical systems failure- due to boredom and horseplay.
The third group of colonists flew 50 million kilometers
then were destroyed by a severe micro-meteor shower...
The fourth group of colonists consisted of die-hard liberals
and die-hard conservatives bandying their opposing politico-drivel,
They argued and fought with discord and retortand did not hear the alarm from the ship's life support...
The fifth group of colonists had two ships well made-
They both made it to Mars, and in orbit they stayed;
They began to descend, but were a little shorthanded-
one burned in the atmosphere, the other crash landed...
The sixth colonists landed safely, set up camp, planted corn
on what appeared to be a sound geological form;but with no Channel 6 weatherman to issue a bulletin
they were lost in a huge once-in-a-millennium dust storm.
The seventh group of colonists successfully landed
and began to develop a colony of wonders;in a race to have the first child born on Mars,
they all jealously schemed, and killed one other!
The eighth group of colonists progressed quite rapidly,
built up their structures and had a fine colony;
then sickness took hold and everyone perished
along with the buildings, which mysteriously vanished!
The ninth group of colonists had a nice colony fashioned
as other colonists arrived from other nations;
then colonies began to compete, and were unfortunately fated
to have a World War where all were annihilated...
The tenth wave of colonists saw their colony get going,
and other colonists arrived. They all finally got along-
Finally, success!
But the Martians had had enough, and came out of the ground
and with their heat-ray guns killed everyone around.
The Martians then made a preemptive strike against Earth,
and were winning, having destroyed most of mankind's civilization;
it looked like victory, then in their hysteria
the Martians succumbed to Earth’s bacteria...
The eleventh brave colonists built cities on Mars,
had subways, superhighways, hovercraft cars;they finally tamed and terraformed the planet;
Mars was ready for Man to go man it!
Then the rusted, overworked planet exploded,
the solar system became unhinged, the orbits eroded,
and all the planets flew off into the void.
That was the end of the doomed missions to Mars,
with all of man's dreams scattered like asteroids...
and the only thing left circling the sun
was Tim the android and a cinnamon bun.
So you see,
when we embark on our first ‘Colony to Mars’,
we should add that it will be a Doomed Mission-
because it is very unlikely the first colonies will succeed,
unless extraordinary luck accompanies the expedition.
For me, most interesting to note is how nature allows
mankind to progress in small steps as he falls...
during man's reign the end is not certain-
he speaks, he dances, then down falls the curtain...
Calling all volunteers for the first colony to Mars...
click here for short mars mission video (quicktime)
Author notes
....................This piece is for either category #1 or category #5.
Which one for sure? Nobody knows. It's a mystery!
Written March 20th, 2005
In a list
- Science Fiction- Most • next in list
- -=Bookmarks=- • next in list
- Picture Book • next in list
- Guy Poems • next in list
- Science- Most • next in list
- Astronomy & Space Mix- Actual and Fiction- Most • next in list
A contest entry
- Postmarked: the end of the world by gone bye-bye.
400 points, ended March 23, 2005, 12 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 23 of 23
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Excellent brava!!!
Awesome magnificently orchestrated a narration and the effects are omnipresent... brava
How about if I volunteer as a gas station attendent at the half way mark 
... Magnificent job... I'm still waiting for the music to load... doh... Wishing you and yours much success in all of your endeavors Two thumbs up!!
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Very good special effects!!! Rave reviews!!! Let's all bid for the movie rights, the copyrights, and the Krytonites, er, I mean...well, we'd better just leave it alone. Good job - and good points. We can't even keep order and make sense of things in this world, and we want to go WHERE? and do WHAT?
Best wishes,
Hoosier -
You make a good point, but personally I think you've done much better poems.
I didn't play the music nor the movie, probobly like everyone else, and my pathetic excuse is that I'm on 56k. The real reason behind this is my unvforgiving laziness.
You had some great pictures though. Did you make the "yankee go home" one? -
I'm not really into science fiction and space but your poem did say alot. You really know about true human nature and you showed it by writing about it in your poem. All the pictures went along with your story and it just made the poem complete.But now for the harsh stuff. This poem was rather long and repetitve. You did us ethe same words alot and the word coloring was difficult to read. Try not to use yellow...try using a much lighter color like white.
Edited on Mar 27, 6:21 p.m. because ''. -
LOL -- Wbiro, when you get in one of your moods, you produce some very wild thinking. Actually, though, the poem appealed to me both professionally, and from a literary perspective. There were a lot of what I am imagining are not accidental bows to works of science fiction. Indeed, the varying stories of success/failure in colonization of Mars appears to be an homage to Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" -- which isn't just great science fiction, it's one of the most beautiful compilations of connected short stories from the 50s in any form. I also saw hints of "War of the Worlds" (i.e. attack on Earth/death from bacteria), and even "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (i.e., the obliteration of the planet).
At a professional level, I am a huge fan of planetary exploration -- hell, in my own poetic collection I have a Sestina (yes, a Sestina) written to the Huygens probe, and a rondolet about the Planet Pluto and its moon Charon However, more to the point, I eat up virtually everything about the Mars Rovers and the various probes to that planet. So, I would volunteer for that colonization project, notwithstanding the sentiments. The poem also was personal, and kind of funny, because I have had friends who worked with JPL on some of our more recent embarassing missions to Mars -- like the one that crashed in 1999 when they forgot to convert kilometers into miles....
Anyway, the poem was fun, and I got to vent about something near-and-dear to my heart. -
Nice. However, my only concern was that having so many pictures took away from the poem, which was very interesting to say the least. Maybe it was the lack of mood music that did this poem in for me. My computer is rather old and can't take that much activity. It took enough for it to get all of the pictures! Hah. Again, very nice work.
~Mary Beth~ -
ok no offense to you but this is a good write but in a way seriously tooo long...good luck in the contest
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I'm glad you all enjoyed 'Doomed Missions to Mars'! But as of this post I've completely overhauled the words- the story is the same, but it's a poem now... and I'm not sure if it's better or worse! but it's worth a re-read if you have the inclination!
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Reply to Lotus- thanks for your critical eye- as critical as mine which hasn't been trained on this one yet! So far I agree with most of your points, and am still debating the others!
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Currently there are many groups researching the colonizing of Mars.---Instead of having two -ing words follow each other, why not use the noun "colonization"? I think it's a better fit both grammatically and aurally.
Another technicality is the use of "scenerio" along with "group"; these don't mean the same thing. You said you would list "scenerios" when instead you list what happens to each "group."
You also repeat "and everyone died" & "and they all died" (the same thing) quite often, so it's rather boring especially when used in a poem.
Why do you go from "group" to "wave"? Unless you mean colonies from more than one country. Then you should change "colony" to "colonies."
Okay, now that all of the "other" is out of the way. This doesn't really read or feel like a poem, but more like a "what if" fantasy/sci-fi article. I kind of found the pictures distracting, and the repetition was tiresome.
But what I did like was the actual story/plot. You had quite a few good points, and mixed humor, politics, and scarasm well. I think with some more development (wider range of vocabulary) this piece would have a better flow and not sound so technical and terse. With this wide expanse of vision and ideas, I could see this large and extravagant. Right now this seems like a first draft or an outline (for a story).
-K
Edited on Mar 21, 3:00 p.m. because '... I have my reasons'. -
Excellent Excellent Excellent!!!
"The sixth group of colonists made it,
landed safely, and set up a camp.
They were all destroyed by a huge
once-in-a-millennium dust storm." bahahahahaha!!!! This was an awesome poem! And I loved how you had the 'mood music.' It was all great! I'm amazed at how good this was! Great job and good luck in the contest!!!
P.S. Thanks for the warning. -
This was...wow...I am ...speechless my god! The music really added to it and this is headed straight for bookmarks..I can't say enough how much I enjoyed the write..the background..the images..everything..I love how it was all related to something in our reality so I could relate myself into it in a way..absolutely breath taking!
-Lis
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Very creative and interesting. The pictures were enjioyable and the music quite suitable. The words and the whole deal was very good. Thank you so much for entering in my contest. I just loved reading throughthis
Good luck,
FallenLeaves
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This was wonderful. What pictures! I couldn't have the mood music because no speakers at moment, so also didn't watch movie. But I make arrangemenets for speakers and come back again. This was really amazing. You must have spent a lot of time putting this together. And worth it. Look at comments above. When reached Yangee Go Home stanza couldn't stop laughing. Also loved Uncle Sam poster. Well done. Thank yoy.
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not bad
This is a hoot. That's about all I have to say. Your cheering section has fairly well covered all the bases. -
I will only say....nice job. AND I'lll keep my "but" to myself.
~~~POO~~~ -
Wow
Wow-all of this was very amazingly well put together, the pictures, the movie, the words, it combined politics, strategy-nameless other things, and was just, well, plain insane! I'm not sure how to respond, I liked it-I think? -
Wow, what a good write. I loved the back ground and all the pictures. Goes well with what your trying to say. God Bless You!!
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Wow, this was a such a creative idea. It gave all the possible scenarios of a mission-gone-wrong that I could think of, even more! The pictures also added a lot to it, as did the links. I think this is really something everyone involved in Mars missions needs to see, no matter what their view on it! Best of luck in the contest you are in.
Becky
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This is great! I am a big sci-fi fan!
The seventh group of colonists set up camp,
and began to develop.
In a jealous race to have the first child born on Mars,
everyone killed each other... for some reason I wanted the baby to be born with super-human powers and end up killing eveyone in a temper tantrum or something... LOL... but this was a fun read. Great graphics.
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Bravo
Oddly, I was thinking Halo 2, but that's not important. This was a very unique piece that didn't make much sense for me until the end. It was also a very good piece, and bravo to you. -
I love how it was really out there, (quite literally). The whole pessimistic thing really sounded like something me and my friends would write. Awesome pictures, and the ideas are mind-blowing. Keep up the good work!
~dani~ -
O.O Hmm. Very cool. Got me thinking.
Interesting write; made me think of the Alien movies. 
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