Author: Ray Tuttle

Everything makes a difference – sometimes imperceptively on the sub atomic level, sometimes with broad global ramifications.  The decision to take anti-oxidants last year may have stopped a tiny cancer process in one cell in your stomach. The decision to appoint Hitler as Chancellor by von Hindenberg in 1933 caused worldwide suffering.

Language has many purposes. It is used to communicate facts and opinions, compliments and insults. Virtuallly all languages have built-in
structures to express respect. Titles.  Mr. Smith, Dr. Brown, professor
Jones, general Black, reverend Bush, father Furgusson, officer Blake, your honor, your highness.    If your child is in the hospital, you address the doctor as Dr. Jones.  If you were to say, “Hey Jones, what is your prognosis? How long will Billy have to stay here?”, you may  convey a lack of respect for his station.  Dr Jones may be slightly less likely to give the same deference to your son, Billy.

Another structure present in virtually all languages is what anthropology calls forbidden words. In the vernacular:  profanity, curse words, obsenities, expletives, swearing or foul language. Forbidden words have a multitude of uses.

They are used by an in-group among themselves where they wouldn’t use them publicly to define an identifiction. On my dormitory floor in college, we all used profanities fluidly. it was sort of a bonding mechanism.  ”My goddam prof gave us 30 fucking pages of reading.”

Secondly they are used to convey respect by not using them in many situations. The same college student goes to a History discussion class and refrains from using the forbidden words that are de riguer back in the dorm. They would be out of place, and convey disrespect. If  a pastor gave a sermon and said,  “Theres’s too much fucking sin in the world”  it would likely be deemed inapproprite and disrespectful- breaking the taboo of forbidden words. And thus the respect for the pastor may diminish.

In 1972  Comedian George Carlin had a comedy routine where he identified the 7 words you cannot say on TV:  shit, piss, fuck, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, and tits. He was arrested for breaking obscenity laws. The case was dismissed but  later the case went to the Supreme Court when a radio station broadcast the Carlin sketch. SCOTUS ruled that the Federal Communications commision could sanction broadcasters for airing inappropriate material. But the decision was accompanied by subjective definitions that attempted to define speech that was indecent, but not obscene,  protected by the first ammendment, or “patently obscene,” which is not protectected. It asserted that speech that was merely indecent, (and, in turn, indecent defined as inappropriate for minors) could be broadcast only at certain times of the day. And that “patently obscene” could not be broadcast at all.  Of course all this meant not only that  all these terms were debatable, but the passage of time changed the words that fell into each catagory.  Since Carlin, the word piss, one of his 7 forbidden words, as in pissed off, is a regular staple of even buttoned-down news shows.

The hard sciences are concerned with hard concepts:  light, heat, energy, gravity, wave, particle, distance, speed, time, and others.  There are other real concepts which effect daily life that are only considered scientifically by the social sciences.  Fear, hate, motivation, gratification, structural violence, love, learn, and respect. In testing rat labs the international standard for motivation of the rat to find food is a reduction in the animals weight by 15%.  And a recent one, structural fear, which means fear propagated by demagoguery to compel a target audience to support a certain cause or leader.  Typically a population is made to be fearful that if a leader is not elected or a law is not adopted the country will be thrown into war or inundated by rising crime.  Many people speak casually about what they think of these concepts but it is left to the social sciences to  speak of them with operational definitions and  determine the the interaction and impact of these concepts on the society.

Once a student of mine said, scornfully, that just because he saw a murder on TV doesn’t mean he would go out and commit  murder.
For most people this is true, but the social sciences have massive amounts of scientifically attained research showing that, indeed, mass media has enormous influence on human behavior. The Bandura experiments showed how groups of young children reacted more violently across several measures, including hitting a plastic punching bag, than the control group after watchining a more violent video than the control group. And, rarely, the effects have an immediate, striking impact.  The film”The Boys Next Door” showed teens, trying to impress, made the stunt of lying down on the line in the middle of the road, letting cars pass by on both sides.  Within a week, in 2 different incidences, two youth were killed after trying the stunt in real life, on a real highway, and the film was shelved.

A society, at any given time, has its own tacit rules of what speech is acceptable and when. In 1940 the classic film Gone with the Wind was
made.  A minor scandal was caused when the producers decided to include the later famous line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Such a word had never been spoken in a public medium. The producer David Selznick, was fined $5000, but the line was subsequently allowed in the film.  But why?  Why are there forbidden words?  Again it is a device arising out of culture, a device to maintain a level of respect in the society – respect that reaches across differences.  And this is a quintessential element of forbidden words, as well as titles – to generate respect across barriers, personalities, ethnicities, ages, religions. We use titles for people who are opposite politically, ethnically, regionally. Societal respect. A reflection that we all benefit from the sacrafices, accomplishments, and diligence of the many who came before us and helped build our society.

So why do the forbidden words become no longer forbidden and what are the effects of the process?  The most overwhelming driver of  the process is, of course, the media, and its go-to phenomenon that substitutes for great writing – voyeurism.  Violence, along with sex, loathsome behavior, betrayal, etc is the required voyeuristic  formula for modern TV dramas.  And violent, abusive, language is, of course, mandatory.

screenply…???   eloquent, forceful, dramatic, convincing, and entertaining without erroding the purpose of the taboo on forbidden words.

Media shows a US president who is patently, and unabashedly dishonest in House of Cards, a vice president of the US who is cynical and disingenuous (as all of her co-workers are) in the show VP,  a former teacher who is in the glamorous, exciting business of  drug smuggling in Breaking Bad and the Sopranos, the also-glamorous mafia family.  And we shouldn’t omit the glamorous violence of every episode of Game of Thrones.

What is  role model?

Sparta was the superpower, Athens was the rising star.  In May, 431 BC, Sparta pre-emptively attacked Athens. The Peloponnesian war lasted 28 years.  Harvard scholar Graham Allison identified what he called Thucydides’ Trap, a tendency toward war when the top dog among countries percieves  another country catching up to them, and threatening their predominnce. He cites several other times in history where this phenomena is visible.

Allison says his studies show that the leaders of the most powerful countries use structural fear to generate popular support for opposing the encroaching challengers. Structural fear is fear that is organized, generated, perpetuated  by social  and political institutions to manipulate individuals and maintain control.  So leaders who wish to reduce a the capabilities of a rising power can generate support for war
by inducing fear of the new power and describing  it as an existential threat to their nation.  Allison relates this to the position of the US, and its relation to its economic challengers, mainly China.

In 1990 I was pretty sure that China was going to become our next prime enemy, biggest threat, worst fear, replacing Russia.  Does it worry you that China will soon overcome the US as having the largest economy in the world?  They will be number one. Some Americans have been convinced by demagoguery that they should fear this. Whether there is anything to worry about or not, politicians cannot resist the use of structural fear, describing China’s overcoming the US economically as an existential threat. Rally round me. I am strong and I will save us all.  Its like free money. Press the fear button and, voila, out pops support like a gumball machine.

Not all Americans fear China’s economic climb, hopefully, but guess what. Nobody, zero, in Poland or Paraguay or Thailand or Spain fears another country’s surpassing their GDP.  Everyone wants their country to thrive, but only #1 gets caught in Thucydides trap.

Which countries in the middle East have nuclear weapons? Israel only.
Israel has, experts say, between 90 and 300 nuclear weapons.  They are deployed in a triad, in the same manner as the US nuclear weapons. They have 5 Dolphin-class submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missles. They have 40 to 50 F-151 and F-16 fighter bombers, with nuclear capability.  They have 25-50 land based Jerico 2 (medium rnge) and Jerico 3  (intercontinental range) missles armed with nuclear weapons. Sources debate over exact numbers but no one disputes that Israel has nuclear capabilities deployed and ready to strike.

Israel has kept info about their nuclear program top secret. It was unknown until Israeli nuclear engineer Mordechai Vanunu divulged it in 1986, sending documents to the British press. As a result, he was kidnapped and drugged in Rome by Mossad and returned to Israel where he served an 18-year sentence, 11 in solitary confinement.

Over the years Israel has conducted these operations to impair Iran’s ability to enrich nuclear fuel.
* Stuxnet cyberattack. (2012)  Computer worm damaged 1000 centrifuges
* Nantanz explosion.  (2020) Destroyed centrifuge assembly plant.
* Karaj centrifuge attack  (2021) Drone attack on centrifuge components production unit.

*  Nuclear scientists assassinated in Iran by Mossad
Masoud Alimohmmadi- (2010)  remote control bomb.
Majid Shahriari (2010) car bomb
Darioush Rezainjad  (2010) shot by gunmen on motorcycles.
Mostafa Roshan (2012) magnetic bomb under car
Mohsen  Fakrizadeh (2020)  remote control bomb

sources:  Rand Corporation,  US Istitute of peace, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, U of Virginia National Data and Policy Institute

Hypothetical :  China develops an intercontinent missle and propulsion  that will travel 4 times the speed of previous missles.  The US starts to replicate the science.  China attacks the new US installations, and assassinates 5 American scientists working on the program.

I included zero opinion in this article. I invite you to add your opinion.

Justice Louis Brandeis, 80 years ago, said, ” We must make our choice. We can have democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.  We cannot have both.”  Brandeis probably couldn’t have imagined that the disparity in wealth could ever grow to what it is today in the US.

The Trump administration has conveyed their belief that the way to stop crime in our cities is to send in the military.  Before he was assassinated, Charlie Kirk supported the idea, saying that we couldn’t afford to have such crime in our great cities, so “send in the tanks,” he said.  I have heard many opposing sending the military to fight crime on the basis  that the crime rates in the cities are going down.  I have heard few say that, whatever the crime rates, this isn’t the way to fight it.

The crime in our cities is not a problem of a lack of interdiction. It is a structural problem.  People commit crimes because of poverty, drug addiction and the accessibility of guns. Virtually all street criminals would rather have a comfortable monthly income than to have to break the law. I moved to Poland from the US more than 20 years ago ( I remain an American citizen) and the added perspective I gained is instructive in many ways.  There is virtually no crime problem in Polish and other EU cities.  I may not be able to speak for every city in Europe but one experience was edifying.  A few years ago I found myself in Paris waiting in a subway station alone after midnight.  I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and found it to be a woman, also alone, and nicely dressed. I asked her about how safe she felt and she said, yes, she felt perfectly safe.

During the current government shutdown  there was much reporting on the privations of those with federal government  jobs and those recieving SNAP benefits. Many people have little more than enough money to pay their immediate living expenses.  You often hear that the US is the richest country in the world.  This must be qualified: the top half of the US is the richest country in the world.  The bottom half not at all.

In the US, the top 1% hold 30 – 32% of the wealth, (about $51 trillion)  a number that has constantly grown for decades.  The bottom 50% holds 2.5 %!!! This disparity is unheard of in most other countries.  Here is a quick comparison of other countries where data is available.
………………………….top 1%                     bottom 50%
US                       30-32%                         2-3%                              Britain                  10                                 9
France                 20-26                           4-6
Italy                     20-30                           6-10
Japan                   12-18                           8-12

The crime in cities caused by the impoverishment of the bottom half of society cannot be overcome by National Guards, federal troops, more police or more arrests.  The most obvious path is to reverse the redistribution of wealth from the lower classes to the richest classes that has been going on for decades.  How to do this of course is the problem.  It will entail many steps and  hard working public servants who want to curtail our system of legalized bribes to congressmen,  changing the tax schedule so it looks more like it did under Eisenhower and earlier administrations, stopping off-shore tax havens and all the rest of the ways the rich are permitted to rip us off legally.  And also will entail changing climate of public opinion to embrace the belief that maintaining a billionaire class is antithetical to freedom and democracy. And fighting the Fox News mentality which is constantly demonizing the welfare state and the slackers and cheaters who get “handouts” from the state.  The Trump administration recently announced that there would be work requirements to get SNAP benefits.  I can imagine the cheering from the MAGA crowd how this would spite the freeloaders.  Turns out the vast majority of recipients who are not children nor handicapped already  work – the working poor.

And there are other ways in which the bottom 50% in other countries are better off than in the US.  The minimum wage is a living wage and the working classes make much closer to the professionsl classes.  Also the universal health care systems are far superior in serving the bottom half  than in the US.  Universal health care is not free health care. It means that the costs are shared more equally iu the society.    It also means that the costs are less because they are not paying middle men – the health insurance robber barons.  Of the billions of dollars we pay health insurance companies in the US, much of it goes to pay CEO’s, board members, staff and stock holder’s dividends. This is money that goes to medical services in the EU.

“We must make our choice. We may have democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.”
The “we” in Justice Brandeis’s quote is an abstract construct. But the “we” that are choosing wealth in the hands of a few are also choosing power in the hands of a few.  And power in the hands of a few and not the American people is a good working definition of the absence of democracy. Ray Tut   <mintchippolitics.com>

A RAT IN a laboratory Skinner box inadvertantly steps on  lever and a food pellet drops out of nowhere. He quickly learns to depress the lever for the reward.  A religious group from Holland came to America and found they could practice their religion without persecution. They sent word back.  Young men from some of the German states came to America and found they didn’t have to spend 20 years in the king’s army. They sent word back.  Some farmers from Ireland came to America and found they could acquire land after only a year’s saving.  And they sent word back.  And many quickly learn there is opportunity for land, and freedom of religion and from military bondage. And they came to America.

All of this is explained quite adequately by BF Sinner – the father of the branch of psychology known as Behaviorism,  or Learning Theory. There are millions of undocumented migrant workers in the US because of the attractions they have learned from their cousin or uncle or brother who came to the US and got jobs and made a better life.  Either by staying in the US or sending money back to their home country or both. Like the rat in the Skinner box, they learned that coming to the US leads to reward. So come they do.

And unlike the immigrants from previous centuries, today’s immigrants are needed and wanted as well as rewarded for coming. They are wanted by big business and small business.  They are gladly hired for agricultural work, planting and harvesting;  construction trades, laborers, painters, roofers,  equipment drivers, and cement form scrapers, (like I did once, ugh) ; hospitality,  maids, servers, cooks, desk clerks, janitors; and other trades.  They are all wanted. And like the rat in the Skinner box, the illegals get rewarded for their endeavors.

I was surprised to find how many undocumented immigrants live and work in NYC. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute’s study, illegal aliens are working as cooks (21,000), janitors and cleaners (19,000),  construction laborers (17,000), taxi drivers and chauffers, (11,000), automotive service (5000), stock clerks (7000) and many other lines of work. When he was mayor,  Michael Bloomberg noted, “Although [illegal aliens] broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported.”

The “labor force participation rate” is a measure of what percentage of a certain group has paid employment.  The Fiscal Policy Institute study found that illegal aliens had  a 70% participation rate whereas native born workers had a 60% participation rate and all foreign born workers 64%. These figures go far to dispell the myth that illegal aliens come for wellfare payments – which they cannot get.

It is incorrect that undocumented immigrants are needed because “Americans won’t do the work (that the immigrants do”).  America’s labor force has always been hardworking and willing to do anything they need to do to earn a living, no matter how difficult.  But- why should a young American choose to pick vegetables in the hot sun all day for 10 dollars an hour when they could work at McDonalds and earn 16  dollars an hour.  The agricultural jobs and factory and cleaning jobs are simply the ones that immigrants can do that may not require the social  skills or English language skills but are sufficient and needed for many employers.

So, the illegal labor is needed and wanted in the US.  The migrants are attracted here like the rat in the Skinner box is attracted to the food producing lever,  and like the early seekers of land and freedom were attracted to our shores.  But now Trump’s henchman Miller is excoriating the ICE commanders for falling short of the administration’s goal of removing 3000 people suspected of being illegals per day.  What is wrong with this picture? Is undocumented labor truly working against the needs of the national economy?  Of course if Donald Trump truly wanted to illiminate illegal migrants, he could do it simply by cracking down hard, jailing and fining employers who hire the illegals, which is illegal. The rat in the Skinner box stops pressing the lever when he stops getting the food pellet. The illegals would stop coming if there were no jobs open to them.

But that wouldn’t help the economy dependent on this labor.

Now, despite all this, here is something I don’t think many Americans know. There is such a thing as a guest worker visa in the US.  In other words the Government DOES recognize the need for foreign workers.
But hows that working out?   Acknowledged: There’s a need for guest workers.  Remedy: Guest worker program. Evaluation of efficacy of that program: It does not significantly reduce the immigration of many illegals to the US to find work.

The reasons for this are obvious.  1  The bureaucratic hoops employers must navigate. They must apply to two different agencies and give evidence they cannot find domestic workers. 2  The employer must provide free housing, which is a regulation considerate to the guest workers. But without enforcement of laws banning the hiring of undocumented workers, the employers can hire the illegals and forego the expense of housing.  3 There are a limited number of visas granted.  The non-farming visas are limited to 68,000 yearly. There are fifty times that number of illegals working in non-farming positions. 4  The visa applicants must apply at the American embassy in their home country. The average wait time for the  response of possible sponsors is 7 months.   5 The visas are temporary, usually 3-10 months, and the workers must return home to renew the visas.

So here are the factors.  First, there are 6 million undocumented migrants in the US illegally and an essential art of the labor force.
The employers who hire them are not prosecuted for  illegally hiring, therefore an inducement for migrants to come and seek jobs. Many illegals are quite willing to work under the conditions experienced working illegally, even though the conditions are inferior to those of legitimate guest workers – so they keep coming.
The trump administration has vilified illegal aliens, calling them rapists and murderers.  Because of this demonization, undocumented workers are harrassed and discriminated against. And by one author, have been cheated out of 1 billion dollars in the NYC building trades alone. The illegals actually have a lower rate of criminality than the general public.

So here are possible actions that may mitigate the situation where the country’s industry is dependent on people doing illegal things.

1 Allow for the registration of all undocumented migrants as guest workers who, with their employers verification, can prove they are gainfully employed.  This would require an administration that would utilize local employment agencies, county and municipal.

2  Employers would be required to report any change in the status of the guest workers he hires, and report any changes in the need for workers in his company.  They would be held liable for hiring migrants without papers and fraudulent reporting.

3  Commisions would have to work out what minimum wage, and what benefits, such as free housing, would not give preference to guest workers over native workers that would want the jobs.

4   These are simply suggestions and possibly viable ideas.  I do not pretend to have all the answers.  But any change woud probably be an improvement.  The situation that, as ex-mayor Michel Bloomburg said, “the (New Yok) city’s economy would collapse if they were all deported” seems non-viable.  The fact that  undocumented workers are both necessary to the economy and a political scapegoat for the Trump administration is a conundrum that can and should be solved.

What are your ideas on the subject?

\

Think Tanks!!!  Oooh, look at them all.  There’s the Hoover Institute, the Constitution Project, The Brookings Institute, the Center for Public Integrity, Concord Coalition and…  and… about 200 more.  A place where people are paid to think, and ostensibly produce useful thoughts.  And better, each one has a mission statement telling us how good and important their work is. For example The American Enterprise Institute says it exists for “expanding liberty, increasing individul opportunity,  and strenghthening free enterprise”.  A heady committment.

We have had tons of think tanks for many decades.  And thank God.  Just think, if we hadn’t had all these stables of great brains, our country might be in a big mess right now.  How lucky we are.

And here is one great idea the geniuses will probably come up with soon because they are so smart – a solution  to the  day care problem: do like they do in Europe!  In Poland, where I have lived for the past several years, day care has been the business of public elementary schools for 50 years. Virtually every public preschool and elementary school has a “szwetlice” or day care room, open from 7am to 5 pm every day.  The caregivers are certified elementary school teachers.  The children have games and materials to use, and when weather permits can play on the school playground.  They also have an area where they can do their homework or read. Working in elementary schools, I have seen daycare teachers reading to groups of kids on occassion.  It would have to be paid for in US elementary schools as it is here, but it could certainly be the cheapest and most easily managed, serving families at their children’s school.  If Poland can do it, I have faith that the US could manage.

But, of course there will be kneejerk criticism. What about children who don’t go to public schools?  What about kids whose parents work late?  It seems to me that if this system could work for even  half of the 25 million elementary school children in the US it would be a huge gift to many American families.

Here’s another concern that may soon be brought up by a think tank (because they are so wise).  In the EU, the independence of the judicial branches of the federal governments is thought to be sacrosanct. Judges and prosecutors are selected by the judiciary.  A few years ago when the PIS party was in power in Poland, they moved, Trump-like, to get the power to select judges moved to the parliament.  Of course this gave the dominant party more authority over the judiciary, was seen as politicizing the process, and was penalized by Brussels. Over 100 billion Euros in funds allocated to Poland was frozen, and was not released until the new government, elected in 2024, started to reverse the process and return the power to the judiciary.  As previously, the Judicial Council selects the personnel, and the president confirms.  The president has the nominal power to reject the nominee, but rarely has the political power to do so, and as a rule confirms.  Poland has a separate head of state (president) and  head of government (prime minister). And the president does not have the power to nominate someone to replace a nominee he may reject.

But here is the thingy.  When I tell Poles that in the US, the president has the sole power to nominate all federal judges and prosecuters, they don’t believe me.  They don’t believe how the selection of supreme court judges could be so blatantly politicized as to allow the president to choose them – and FOR LIFE!!

So I’m SURE that some of the wonderful think tanks that grace our capital city and many august institutions of higher learning will soon come up with a brilliant new plan.  A fabulous plan, perhaps even better than the governments and judiciaries of Europe, (or at least concepts of a plan) to de-politicize the selection of all the federal district judges, circuit courts of appeals judges, and the justices of the Supreme Court.  I’m sure.  Where would we be without them?

11111Often children have dreams of glorious success in their near adulthood. Some dream of winning Olympic gold, becoming president, climbing a mountain, or playing for the Yankees or Real Madrid. Elon Musk says his passion as a child was space travel, sci fi and Mars. Now a few decades later, he controls the most influential space agency in the world.  SpaceX has 4 US launch sites, shuttling  personel and equipment to the International Space Station and  6000 Starlink satellites bring internet to remote locations. But his signature mission is to colonize Mars. His plans propose the first manned launches in the early 2030’s and a million people living on Mars by the year 2050. 

But Mars is not a welcoming host. The surface pressure is less than one percent of that on Earth and there is precious little oxygen gas. So without a pressurized suit and oxygen source a human would be dead in minutes of suffocation and embolism, the expansion of bodily fluids into gas. The pressure is low because there is so little  atmosphere – molecules held by the planet’s gravity. No atmosphere because there is no magnetic field flowing from the poles. And no magnetic field because the core of Mars has cooled, unlike Earth’s core of molten nickel. The magnetic field on Earth serves to defray the solar winds, charged particles which emanate in all directions from the sun.  Without this barrier, the solar winds sweep away most molecules which may consider forming an atmosphere on Mars.

Also, the matter of temperature. The surface  of Mars averages minus 63 centegrade (-83F). Wherever night falls on the planet, the temperature goes below -100 centigrade or -140 F. Then there is the cosmic radiation, which causes cancer and neurological damage and which the planet is constantly bathed in, 40 times the intensity of that on Earth.  And finally there are the Martian dust storms, not regional but enveloping most of the planet every 3 years.

3 There is no general consensus, but many scientists believe that a base could be established on Mars with the right protection from all the forbidding elements, albeit at enormous expense.  This would  entail transporting many tons ( Musk: “about a million”)  of equipment and constructing living and working accommodations in a micro environment providing oxygen, pressure, food and water, waste removal, radiation protection. If Spacex doesn’t succeed, it won’t be for not trying. The technologies being developed jar the imagination…………… 

4 But the delicate balance of forces, waves and particles, pressure, and temperature  that make up Earth’s biosphere not only ensures our physical integrity but also helps to maintain our mental wellness. Some people are more depressed on dark, rainy days and more peppy on sunny days. Natural sunlight helps to stimulate serotonin, a neurotransmitter that aids in mood stability; artificial light cannot. Novelty and new experiences help regulate neurotransmitters which foster social bonding, effect calmness, and reduce stress-inducing rumination over regretful experiences. Thus the universal appeal of art, music and dramatic performance. And the institution of vacation, practiced even in primitive societies,  gives relief from the routine.  Over the millions of years, life has developed a symbiosis with earthly conditions in countless ways, many of which we surely don’t yet understand.

5 Inmates in prisons serving long sentences have a much higher rate of mental illness than the general public.  This is due, certainly in part, to the isolation and relative stimulus deprivation of their lives in prison.  The privations of life confined to a Martian habitat, possibly without the hope of returning to Earth, would likely cause mental challenges and should be a cause for concern for all Mars missions. 

6   Five countries have landed vehicles on the surface of Mars with varying degrees of success. The Soviet Union was the first in 1971, but lost contact with the craft minutes after it landed.  The  US had a successful landing in 1975 and since then NASA has landed 9 more times, deploying 4 rovers and a helicopter .  Besides these NASA has put various satellites in orbit around Mars. Britain and ESA landed on Mars in 2003 but lost contact before the landing, which was only confirmed in 2013. China landed on Martian soil in 2021 deploying its own data-gathering rover.  

7 But why, exactly?   Why go to Mars and expend such vast resources in time, effort, money, and mineral wealth?  One reason is certainly the one that has motivated mankind over the centuries and continents – the challenge.  The challenge to find India by sailing west, to conquer Constantinople,  to swim the English Channel, to break  a world record, to finish a marathon at the age of 50, to discover a cure for brain cancer.   Technological challenges are no less motivated by this human spirit. On initiating the moon mission in 1962, JFK said, “We choose to go to the moon this decade and  do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”  We feel gratified when we meet a challenge. The disciplined Houston Control room dissolved into joyful, raucous celebration when Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle landed on July 20,1969.  

8 Second is the prestige factor, which was not far from the surface of Kennedy’s moon mission speech. The Soviet’s had delivered a one-two punch in Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth in 1957  and Yuri Gargarin’s  single orbit around the Earth in April 1961. The advantage the Soviets demonstrated had some Americans in near panic. . The space race was indeed  a race for prestige and a flexing of geopolitical muscles. 

 9 The space race has cooled now and no one has gone to the moon in 50 years.  It was an interesting time, and there were some useful spin off technologies. But moon rocks on display in the Smithsonian did not radically change our society.   

But Elon Musk’s intentions go far beyond landing a human on Mars. 

Most sucessful life long scientists – researchers and  engineers derive there gratification from their work

Insert Neil De Grasse Tyson – skepticism.   vanity project

9With so many hurdles to overcome why does Musk persist? For one thing, he is no ordinary scientist. Most get their gratification over a lifetime by  immersion into their work – into the gratification of receiving a grant for research, for seeing their work published, for seeing their work applied to improve the world. If their research reveals a dead end, they back off and try another path. But Musk has fallen into another realme: The limelight. Celebrity. He has found another source of gratification – a worshipping fandom, as The Richest Man in the World and he has fallen hard. Jumping, jumping high in the air on stage with Donald Trump in front of teeming applause. Now on stage with a buzzing chain saw dramatizing what he plans to do with government spending. Now hosting Saturday Night Live. Now on the Tonight Show. Now publicly challenging Mark Zuckerburg to a cage match.  After developing such a craving for celebrity, how could he abandon the source of his fame no matter how unlikely it is to succeed or be of value to mankind.  

He has justified his Mars plan in ways that often defy reason or at least conventional wisdon, the scientific kind.

But Elon Musk’s envisioned plans are far grander. Central to his scheme is to make Mars not just a lab for scientists, but a place fun for the whole family.

“If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if the Martians are only microbes.” Carl S Planetary Scientist, Cornell University.

strikingly said he believed  that “