You know we’re screwed as a species when the wealthy ones start talking about packing up and moving to Mars with increasing fervor while failing to mention that, oh yeah – the poor people aren’t getting up there at all with their crime and diseases and lack of money and such. While it’s a wonderful idea to pick up and leave an old house and hoof it over to a new one if you can afford it, the truth of the matter is it’s not quite that simple. EVERYTHING on any planet that’s not Earth-like will need to be paid for and shipped from air to water to food to people to get things up and running so all of those things required for living can be manufactured on that new old planet. Relying on shipments from Earth once one is on Mars is pretty much the worst idea ever (well, next to thinking a trip to Mars isn’t going to cost a lot more money, time and lives than anyone can imagine should a single thing go wrong in transit), but I don’t expect to change the minds of those committed to this expensive errand.

Instead, I’d highly recommend those people determined to go (and those of us headed for the history books) to watch Rudolph Maté’s When Worlds Collide, the classic 1951 sci-fi drama produced by George Pal and based on the book by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer that’s somewhat dated on many fronts, but still packs quite a wallop in terms of its visual effects that probably sent plenty of paranoid theater-goers home to cower under the covers for a while despite the somewhat hopeful ending (well, for SOME lucky space travelers)… Continue reading →