The First Woman On Mars

I remember trying to stand in the back seat of the family car and lick an ice-cream cone as we bounced down the street one evening in the early 1970’s. The radio voice talked about an American man walking on the moon. I wanted to be that man.

I remember hurrying home early in the morning from my paper route to watch the space shuttle take off or land back when it was new, thrilling, and inspirational. I wanted to be strapped to those rockets and blasted into orbit. I wanted to conduct experiments in space. I wanted to pretend to swim weightlessly through space and eat floating M&M’s.

I remember standing in the hall outside the office of my high school newspaper and hearing how the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on takeoff moments before. I was distraught and broken. My dream to visit space had mostly evaporated a few years before, but still yearned to live vicariously through the lucky men and women who were able to make the journey. Truth be told, if I had an extra $30 million dollars lying around right now I would gladly try to buy space on flight to the International Space Station.

The truth is, unless there is an urgent need for family child care providers in space in the next 10 years I doubt I will get to float weightless while eating chocolate candies. I won’t mug for the camera with my eyes wide, my lips forming a large O, my hands at my checks imitating goldfish gills.

It’s a trip I won’t make, but deep inside I dream that maybe someday in the next three or four decades one of the little girls in our family child care program will make the incredible journey beyond low Earth orbit, beyond the moon, to Mars. I imagine Siddha, Annie, Lilly, or Emma standing on the seemingly barren Martian surface looking back toward Earth, the first human to set foot on the surface of another planet. I imagine her six month trip in cramped quarters with five or six other Earthlings. I imagine her barely contained curiosity, her desire to know the unknown, her drive to explore, her need for hands on interaction with the universe. I imagine her floating along imitating a goldfish and eating candies she smuggled aboard the spaceship for just such and opportunity because I also imagine that she has retained her love of play and silliness and fun and whimsy.

I’m not a rocket scientist and no one from NASA has asked for my opinions on such matters, but I’ve thought a lot about what these lovely little girls busy on the floor in my playroom need in case the opportunity to be the first women on Mars pops up in their future. I think they will need to know how to:

Play nice. The trip from Earth to Mars will take six months or so. Before that comes years of training. After getting there and being there comes a long trip home. The first woman to visit Mars must be a master at navigating social situations. She will need to be empathetic and good at tuning in to the personal needs and drives of her companions. She will need to be good at sharing, taking turns, and standing up for herself without demeaning or belittling her peers. She is also going to need to be good at regulating her emotions and understanding her own need, drives, and desires.
Use their words. Language skills are not only going to play a big part in managing her relationships with her travel companions, they are going to be essential for relating details and thoughts to those of use unable to make such a journey. The technology accompanying her will record photos, video, and other data, but part of her job will be to put things in human terms. She will need to relate the fullness of the experience to those of us bound by Earth’s gravity.
Think creatively. You don’t just get to go to Mars. The first woman to make the trip will need to be creative, an innovator, an out of the box thinker. She will need to look at the world with fresh and curious eyes.
Solve problems. There are bound to be problems to solve. This is another opportunity for creative thinking to prove valuable. The first woman on Mars will need to be a master at solving problems of all kinds, with people and technology. I suggest she travel with a role of duct tape.
Focus. Such a journey will require immense mental focus. She will need to direct much of her mental energy at a given task and keep it there until the task is complete. Too little focus could prove disastrous.
Explore. The first woman on Mars will need an unquenchable desire to know. She will be driven to explore, test theories, discover, and understand the unknown. Her curiosity will drive the science of the mission.

Looking back and forth between this list and the busy little girls on my playroom floor I am confident they are all off to a good start. They are all in the process of developing skills that may one day bring one of them to the surface of Mars.

If, for whatever reason, one of them does not get to make that trip, I am also assured that they are laying the groundwork for whatever marvelous journey awaits. The playroom floor is where we develop the skills that initially drive our journeys in life. I am sure Annie, Emma, Siddha, and Lilly will all have wonderful journeys. If one of them happens to make it to Mars, I hope she thinks of me, and maybe brings me back a red M&M that floated weightless with her on the Martian surface as she looked back toward home.