Ray Bradbury's stories in "The Martian Chronicles", published in 1950, was perfectly timed to capture the imaginations of young readers in the Fifties and Sixties, reflecting fascination with space travel and concerns of nuclear war. The televised 1980 mini-series portrayed with the Red Planet with a thin, but breathable atmosphere, a desert landscape, and watery canals. In reality, as confirmed by NASA's Mars probes, the Red Planet has an atmosphere unbreathable by humans, toxic soil, and an absence of a magnetic field, with resulting radiation hazards. But Elon Musk suggested that it would be worth spending 7 trillion dollars on founding a colony there, perhaps in hopes SpaceX would land the contract. Long before the recent Starlink (operated by SpaceX) scandal reduced satellite access to Ukraine (a gift to Putin's Russia), one wondered if that 7 trillion dollars would be better spent here on planet Earth. After all, our home planet harbors the only life we've found anywhere. Because of concerns about the kind of planet we might leave to future generations of humans as well the ecosystem upon which they will depend, friends and neighbors got involved writing postcards to swing state voters. Our local effort concluded when we mailed the cards on October 21...
But there is work still be done, and several organizations are volunteering to provide information to potential voters...
Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to increasing involvement & power of young people: rockthevote.org.
Indivisible works to protect elections: indivisible.org
The American Civil Liberties Union protects civil liberties and works to empower voters: www.aclu.org
The League of Women Voters helps register voters and prepare for voting: www.lwv.org
Democracy Works aims to strengthen democracy by expanding and facilitating voter participation in all elections: www.democracy.works.
In thousands of towns and cities across this country, voters will be exercising their right to choose their representatives. One hopes they will keep in mind that making informed choices in the midterm elections concluding Tuesday November 3 may insure that future generations will still have that right.
Photo Credits:
Top: NBC TV
2nd: votingmatters.org
Bottom: Boulder County Courthouse, by the author.