I'm a little slow to post this, but here are some very nice pictures of Claritas Fossae. On Mars, you know. Where apparently the presence of methane in the atmosphere has been confirmed. Here's why that's so cool:

Methane, unless it is continuously produced by a source, only survives in the Martian atmosphere for a few hundreds of years because it quickly oxidises to form water and carbon dioxide, both present in the Martian atmosphere. So, there must be a mechanism that refills the atmosphere with methane.

"The first thing to understand is how exactly the methane is distributed in the Martian atmosphere," says Vittorio Formisano, Principal Investigator for the PFS instrument. "Since the methane presence is so small, we need to take more measurements. Only then will we have enough data to make a statistical analysis and understand whether there are regions of the atmosphere where methane is more concentrated."

Once this is done, scientists will try to establish a link between the planet-wide distribution of methane and possible atmospheric or surface processes that may produce it. "Based on our experience on Earth, the methane production could be linked to volcanic or hydro-thermal activity on Mars. The High Resolution Stereo camera (HRSC) on Mars Express could help us identify visible activity, if it exists, on the surface of the planet", continues Formisano. Clearly, if it was the case, this would imply a very important consequence, as present volcanic activity had never been detected so far on Mars.

The possibility they're keeping sotto voce, is, of course, that of a biological source (as Dave Barry once put it, 'one-celled acts of flatulence'). It's in the 'snowball in hell' category, but then, so is, say, life on earth. Or even, say, a snowball in hell (registration required, the buffle-headed nodcocks!). Not that one improbable occurence means anything about another. But frankly, it's looking more and more like we need to go there.

It can't just be robots that explore space. It has to be people.

I know the case for robots: cheap, safe, we can learn all the essential information we need from them. All possible benefits to science, medicine, etc. are available this way; we need only gather, sort, and utilize it from the safety of our Earth-bound couches. I think that this argument is absurd.

The essence of travel is not the labelled souvenirs we bring home. It is the irreducible experience of the place itself. And what could be more unimaginable than to leave our own planet, to cross nothing! miles of nothing! and arrive on a new globe to explore.

We seem to think that the essence of a thing is what we need it to be. We reduce it to mass, chemical content, velocity--numbers that we claim define it. We've lost the experience of the Other.

Think of the first man to ride a horse. How can we? It's a feat beyond anything we can comprehend. The first man to look at this great Other thing, and think, I can be one with that. I can work together with it. And we will be stronger that way. This is a horse:

'Do you give the horse his might?
Do you clothe his neck with thunder?
Do you make him leap like the locust?
His majestic snorting is terrible.
He paws in the valley, and exults in his strength;
He goes out to meet the weapons.
He laughs at fear, and is not dismayed....
With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground;
He cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
(Job 39:19-24)

Or the first man to look at an eagle, and think, I can hunt alongside this. I can fly with her. We can circle and stoop together. The most exciting thing about Eagle Dreams is that it conveys that sense of astonishment.

The magnitude of these dreams and of this presumption is astounding.

Nowadays, we drive cars, which remain, even at their most recalcitrant, our own creation. They are not Other to us the way those beasts must have seemed, far out of our reach in their speed and ferocity. If we need to fly, it is not a cause of rejoicing, but the knowledge that we are in for long waits, in one place and then another, and that the ground below will look very much as it always does.

I don't mean to belittle our accomplishments. But they are often for our convenience, and seldom for our growth. We are surrounded by things (I am typing on one now!) which do what we tell them to. We have lost the sense of an Other, an Essence that will not be shaped by us without shaping us as well, and with it we have lost our sense of self. Without something beyond ourselves, we cannot know our boundaries.

And we begin to think that nothing has an Essence, beyond that which we choose to give it. We reduce it, as above. And the eventual result is that we reduce ourselves, and turn inwards. We desire nothing more than remaining as we are, comfortable, and life becomes the only thing we value. The virtues which preserve it are the only ones which interest us. We forget that we possess our comforts because of men who chose to be uncomfortable. They were not content to remain in the little fire-lit circle of known things.

All of which is to say, it is time for us to step outside again. Out into the deepest darkness, to cross it, and to step onto another world. And those who go there will say, "It's indescribable." And they will be right. Because it will be something outside of us, and, because it is outside us, it will enlarge us when we meet it.