8a Professor Edwardes got a letter from Guy, Eddie's natural son by Miss Ali, written from Winnipeg and after reading it he scheduled a Sunday Seminar on Colonization of Mars at which Guy flying from Winnipeg would attend.
The Sunday came and the gang's all here around the familiar brown oval mahogany table, as John Edwardes stands clinking his small right-handheld liberty bell. and says "Sunday Seminar."
The room quietens and Edwardes continues "Today the subject is colonization of Mars. Just interrupt as we go. He introduces Guy, simply saying, "visiting from Winnipeg."
Harumi, the local communist interrupts "Why colonization of Mars? Is it not simply science fiction? I read HG Wells War of the Worlds as a child but now my childhood is over and I want to know adult things."
Guy takes the answer. "Listen everyone. If you have not already heard, our Earth is in the midst of a crisis of overpopulation." At this point, Edwardes wife, Yuko, flashes the famous slide of the Earth's human population growth.
Guy indicates the upward-shooting line. "See it here and now with Earth's population tipping the 7-billion balance and the shit has hit the fan.".
Kimura interrupts. "Sir, you claim, overpopulation while others say healthy increase in human numbers, a sign of affluent industrialization. And the modern nations like Japan, USA, in western Europe, even post Soviet Russia under the victorious capitalism are enjoying what has been called Economy of Scale; the great increase in numbers has led to a lucrative increase in all the markets. So why the emphasis on the Over in your population discussion?"
Guy: "It has been a boon to crazy capitalist Americans especially the top one-percent because of the economy-of-scale's increase in markets. But at what expense? A huge increase in fossil fuel users and in the intensity of use by each American, Japanese, Western European and soon every Chinese and Indian and Russian, and after that all the Africans. And as you see, because of it we are not only having a heat wave, we are having the start of hot house Earth ---"
He returns the discussion to Guy, who continues: "And we are in it now - we have maybe less than a century of functional civilization during which if humans are to continue there has to be an escape, and the only one possible - even though the possibility is rapidly vanishing - is Mars.
Eddie takes over. "Allow me to give technical data. Mars is about one tenth the mass of Earth; you can figure the good and bad points of that. Good is that building and moving and getting around for humans will be much easier than on earth with much less use of energy for works. Bad: the planet has not been able to hold a dense enough atmosphere long enough for us humans to usefully breathe it and even liquid water does not stay for long as it does on Earth. So it will dictate a civilization that depends long-range on pressurized hermetic underground or plastic bubble top communities. But the ease of work on Mars should make the construction within the grasp of our present technology. Also there is more than enough water and oxygen on Mars to sustain a reasonable size human population - 10,000 persons. It is locked in oxides and hydrides which will be easy to release. And it could be maintained on the surface of Mars for thousands of years.
"The major effort is going to be transporting a human population to Mars. It will make most sense to transport only the core or less than 1,000 men and women and then make up the rest by their fertility."
"But how is this going to happen, given the state of Earth today and the short time left before chaos descends on a hothouse world?" Asks Kimura.
Guy only shrugs.
Edwardes wraps it up: "Only a cabal of scientists, homo superiori I call them, secretly working, breaking all national laws, could break through to put a small colony on Mars. If I were part of it, I would say good luck Cabal.
A general silence of agreement follows and then Yuko enters from the kitchen with delicious sushi and sashimi and spaghetti with various sauces on a large tray, and tete-a-tetes ensue.
End of Chapter. To read next now, click 17.9 The Ideal Death
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