Dawson Times

Year 2500 –

“What do you suppose it means, Cantseft?”

“I don’t know, Levneed.  Are you sure we landed on Mars?”

“Absolutely.  This is the Red Planet; fourth planet from the Sun.  The same planet we’ve been trying to get back to explore for five hundred years.”

“It’s unfortunate that our planet has had so many other things to worry about that we haven’t sent a space team here in all that time.”

“But I thought there was no life on Mars.”

“As far as we know, there wasn’t.  But this…this could change everything.”

Year 2008 –

My eleven year old son has become obsessed with the idea of life on planet Mars.  He has decided that when the Earth is destroyed by its inhabitants, there should be another place to go.  Certainly, we’ve probably got some time to find a place, but he’s decided that nobody is trying hard enough and that by the time we need an alternative living space, it may be too late.

My son has designated himself as the go-to person for this project and Mars is the planet he has chosen for our safe haven.

The first thing on his agenda is to grow some plants on Mars to make the oxygen that we need to breathe.

After reading that Mars soil has no nutrients for plants to grow, he experimented with several different additives and seeds.  Of course, an eleven-year old would choose, first, the additives that he would like to eat if he were a plant, which, of course, he’s not.

In various egg cartons placed around his room he combined sunflower seeds in marshmallow Fluff, green beans in peanut butter, and an apple seed in chicken noodle soup.  After the soup began to turn and the Fluff attracted ants, he concluded that maybe he should not start with seeds.

He read that nitrogen was needed to grow plants and wondered where he could get that on Mars.  His older brother told him that nitrogen was found in animal waste.

“So all we need to do is put some animals on Mars that poop a lot!”, he enthused.

Gently, so as not to burst his nitrogen bubble, I said, “Yeah, but…animals need oxygen.”

“Oh yeah… And plants make oxygen; and you can’t have plants without nitrogen; and you get nitrogen from poop.  Oh poop!”

Later that week, he came to me and asked for a light bulb.

“Why?  Is your light out?”

No, my little scientist told me.  He figured that he needed to build a small-scale model of a Martian landscape complete with the correct composition of Martian atmosphere.

“What’s that got to do with light bulbs?”  I asked, thinking he was intending to imitate the Sun.

Apparently, Mar’s atmosphere has argon in it and he has learned that light bulbs have argon in them.  So he intended to break some light bulbs into a mayonnaise jar filled with dirt dyed with red Easter egg coloring and a popcorn kernel.  I refused to ask what he would use for the nitrogen.  All I could imagine was my son following my cat around with that mayonnaise jar.

Instead, I asked him if he was aware that the freezing temperatures on Mars would probably prevent any plant growth.

Later that day, I found the mayonnaise jar in my freezer.  It stayed there for four months, at which time he decided that simply sticking a tulip from my silk flower arrangement into the dirt in the mayonnaise jar was the easiest way to get plants on Mars.

Year 2500 –

“So Levneed, do you think we were wrong all along?  This clearly shows that there is life on Mars after all.”

But, Cantseft… a tulip?”

You can reach Laura at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit her website www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her books.