Mars or Bust

In early August 2009, I attended the 12th International Mars Society Convention with my close friend and frequent collaborator Justin Nobel. We went on a whim, knowing almost nothing about the Society and hoping that somewhere at the gathering we'd find a worthwhile story. From the first moment we saw him barking at an old rival about the idiocy of exploring the moon, it became very clear to us that Dr. Robert Zubrin, the Mars Society's president, was the story.

The weekend we spent at the Convention was a hoot. We tried to infiltrate every area of the Convention, covering the rousing keynote speeches and the often bizarre plenary sessions, chatting up Mars Society members and administrators, and dining at the Society's annual benefit gala (an absurdist affair MC'ed by former CNN host Miles O'Brien that featured Robert Zubrin bobble-head dolls and a live infomercial for a massage device). The following week, we wrote the article, passing drafts furiously back-and-forth, convinced that our story was timely and our window for selling it very small. Five months, many rejected pitches, and dozens of subsequent drafts later, Guernica Magazine has published the piece. You can check it out here.

Comments

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Great stuff Eric. I recently re-watched First Contact and was re-seduced by the idea of space travel as a unifying force to rally mankind. Much of my youth was spent thus deluded; reading this article was a welcome retreat to those days of building model rockets and reading about Wernher Von Braun. I have since given up on space exploration, but I'm glad there are still people out there fighting for it.