The Problem

“I can't think of any,” said Aditya, still thinking. “You are a space scientist. I thought you would guess.” Aira said. “Well, firstly I fail to understand why this whole momentum of going there got built up. I mean, fancy fairy tail as it may sound, for all practical purposes, the habitability on Mars should be quite precarious,” he replied. “Yes, it is tough. Every step needs to be calibrated, living, walking, breathing everything had to be learned again. Earth was surely a free space, we know how things work here. We can walk around, run around, we know the seasons, we know how to prepare for most adversities here. There, problem-solving could turn out to be impossible, simply because of lack of prior experience with anybody else.” she said. “Unless something made it unliveable on earth and the need for survival had to drive people out of here,” he added. “Unliveable...that’s what life looked like on earth,” Aira said and browsed some files on the screen, while Aditya looked at her, puzzled. 

“Let me show you how the entire century of the 2100s had costed earth. Read this,” she said, opening a document. Aditya read it carefully and then looked at the dates, and particularly examined the titles, venues, and members “But...this is our conference, why is the agenda...” he said. “Read all of them,” Aira said. 

 He frowned as he read them back and forth saying “I get it...All the international climate committees...all of them. At least until the forties and fifties, they had some agenda of the earth’s environment. After that, it's all about Mars's environment.” “Yes, Aira said. “How did this happen. There should have been some friction, some criticism, resistance,” he said. “There was. You see the transition happened gradually. The first few years, the Mars environment was only an added agenda to the conferences that essentially discussed the earth’s climate. Adding a point of Mars's environment was welcome and rather a cool and wise thing to do. Gradually of course more and more of it and eventually all of it was about Mars. The critics were received with mixed reactions. The critics came across as old school and orthodox to many. There were many who agreed to critics but there was never enough momentum.” Aira added. “it's got to have got bad here.” Aditya said. “Bad it was, but something made it worse. Unliveable,” she said. 

“What is it,” Aditya said, as his mind was spinning the data about the drowned islands... extinct rabbits, cuckoos...air quality, temperatures, and everything else he just saw. “It is the Mars mission itself,” Aira said. “What do you mean...are you referring to the emissions of the rockets,” Aditya asked. “Exactly,” she said and continued “the Rockets and Shooters they brought a two-fold problem. As people started making those tour trips to Mars, several new launch stations were built, far away from habitation of course. Each launch, before it left the earth’s atmosphere let out emissions equivalent to one city’s daily emission. “What’s the other fold issue,” he asked. “The fuel prices,” she said. “Oh,” he said, bending forward and closing his face onto his palms. 

After minutes of staying still and quiet, he raised his head up saying “I still don't get it. It doesn't make sense.” “It's...true. I'm not making up any” Aira said and he interrupted “I can see that is true. Not that. I said it just doesn't make sense. All this staking of everything that we have to chase a” Aira interrupted “But you are looking at it as an outsider. Now you know what happened. We could feel this way about any history. There are always things that were obviously wrong but nobody realized when they were unfolding.” Aditya retorted “Now we have data systems, scientific projections. How could everybody miss seeing it? What about collective wisdom...” Aira gasped and spoke softly “it is not about wisdom. It's about the relationship.” Aditya looked into her eyes, intently, seeking to hear more. She slowly moved her gaze to the horizon and spoke slowly “Humans, pour all their life energy and wealth into raising their children. The same humans, find it too expensive to serve a meal to their aging parents. The earth has been milked out. It's an old parent that the human arrogance cannot afford to take care of. Mars is our tantrum child, who milks us out, showing us a dream."