[Colored pencil drawings dot the page. Floating red balloons. A yellow space satellite. A space rocket popping its top as it fires up to space. One rough Mars surface.]

December 1, 20111

More Birthdays:
Happy birthday, Michaila
Happy Birthday, Opal
Happy Birthday, Shylnn and Jaime

I'd send cards but...

The names of those above are those of my youngest daughters and two ex-wives. All their birthdays are bunched up together. If only I weren't in here...

I love the new Mars rover that went up over the Thanksgiving holidays. Of course, it won't arrive there till, like, next August. But still.

I don't think that was part of the three-stage NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission that was scheduled to run from 2018 to 2027. A set-up of rovers, a launcher, and an orbiter with an Earth Entry Vehicle (EEV) to carry Mars rocks to Earth.

Maybe it'll put an end to the debate over Richard Hoover's Microbes on a Meteorite (2011). In the paper published on March 4th this year, it claimed to have found fossilized life dating back more than four billion years. The debate is that it could possibly be the type of source that brought life to Earth and finding similar fossilized microorganisms on Mars would help confirm Hoover's theory.

Or at least put some more gas on its fire.

I'm convinced the evidence of life, at least in the family of microorganisms, is there. Question is, at what depth of the surface are they.

Imagine a future dig by robots and people on Mars uncovering an actual fossil—one that you won't need an electron microscope to see. Plant or animal, it would blow open a lot of faith systems as they tried to explain its existence in a way that their faith would accept.

It would be the biggest things since Christians had to admit the world was round, very old, and went around the sun. The human ego needs to find life elsewhere and in an undeniable and easily recognizable form. It's the only thing I think that will set us on a better path. We'll be forced to admit Earth was not and is not the only one, and we'll stop killing each other over myths and beliefs. Instead, we could focus on where we're headed as humans—not a certain type or group.