Space Race
Even Damon ’ s character ’ s attempt to “ live off the land ” is no different , really , from Lewis and Clarke , who knew that they couldn ’ t take everything with them on their trip to explore the West after Thomas Jefferson hired them to go on their journey after the Louisiana Purchase had been finalized , and so had to learn ( with radical individualism , can-do spirit , and plucky inventiveness ) to live off the ( Native Americans ’) land . If anything , thinking that “ working with the environment ” is not still somehow on the same spectrum as “ trampling the environment ” is just wishful naïveté . The key is that we are still separating ourselves from the rest of our surroundings , reifying it into “ the environment ,” noting how it is harsh and out to get us unless we prove smarter than it , appreciating the “ environment ” merely for its utility ( its usefulness ), and always putting our own survival first . From Thomas Hobbes ’ state of nature , to Lewis and Clarke , to the Dakota Access Pipeline , to Matt Damon and Elon Musk�from a tragic past to an imagined future�there is a continuous line .
And so , what if we envision , dream , and project ourselves onto Mars , but attempt to do so with a new attitude ? Seeing it not as an environment , but a world , the world , a place of its own integrity and being ? A place that surely doesn ’ t need us and might not even be an appropriate place for us to visit ?
Humans have singled out the Red Planet for nearly four millennia of recorded history .
Senenmut , the great ancient Egyptian architect , included Mars on the first map of the sky drawn more than 3,500 years ago . By the time of the pharaoh Seti ’ s death in 1279 BCE , Mars was so important that it was being painted on the ceiling of his tomb . Plato mentions the planet in both The Republic and Timaeus , noting the order of the celestial bodies and
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