"We are going to be colonizing Mars soon. Don't cheer up yet!" By Shravan B Nair

Tetrigrades, aliens, and NASA. These were the words roaming around the newspapers recently. While we still celebrate the Moon landing of NASA, the real rocket scientists have already begun to think about landing on an entirely different planet: Mars. The Red Planet is the closest neighbour to Mother Earth and the one that resembles it the most, whether it is through its revolutions around the Sun, its seasons, or its flora and fauna. Although we probably might have to wage a war against the Martians to touch base there, our fellow scientists don't think that's a challenging enough problem for them. We'll see about that when the aliens fight us with laser cannons, laser swords, laser guns, laser godzillas... well, you get the point.

But still, going to Mars, is it not a dream come true? No, it's not a dream come true. Far from it actually.

Now, don't think I have any prejudice against those innocent rocket scientists. I might be a bit envious of their brilliance, but I am not the type to criticise over personal biases. Wink!

Anyway, the problem does not lie on how we are going to Mars, but why we are going to Mars. 

Try to follow my thought process. I am terribly sorry if it is a bit too cluttered and messy. 

Millions of children are born in to this small world of ours every second. We might see only cute faces, but what the environmentalists see is a bane to society, the most mightiest bane, the most terrible bane of all time, the bane of (drumroll)...OVERPOPULATION. The word itself is just 14 letters long, but the implications of it are tremendously big. Our Green Planet is too small to host so many people. With necessities like water and food going into a state of paucity, environmentalists and the WHO (though they just won't admit it) are going crazy with the pressure to do something. Finally, they saw the so-called "perfect" solution with the help of NASA. All they want to do now is to somehow get as much people as possible onto the red soil of Mars, with the orisons and prayers that they can survive there and flourish. I am sorry, but I just do not feel like acting like a lab rat for these folks to test their crazy ideas on! Do you?

Secondly, governments are also in on this, secretly hoping that we will be able to go to Mars as soon as possible. The Earth for them is turning into a huge burden that they themselves put onto their shoulders. The world leaders are all now sitting in their comfortable, 24-carat gold chairs, putting their heads in their hands, and regretting all the times that they hurt our land so cruelly. Deforestation, the Industrial Revolution, petroleum engines, fossil fuels...I feel revolted just thinking about it, so how much revolt would they feel, I wonder. Anyways, what I was trying to say was that they want a clean slate to work on, maybe you know, something like Mars! 

The former reason is absolutely cowardly! Instead of us focusing on solving the problem of overpopulation, we are trying to facilitate it. Can you believe it? What good will going to Mars have on overpopulation? You could argue that we are going to get some extra space, but for how long? With population growing exponentially, it won't take long for Mars to be overpopulated itself. Then where do we head off to? Do we head off to the Sun, only to burn our lives away in agony? How could you think of such a thing, NASA? I pity you and the WHO. Really, I do.

And don't even get me started on the second reason. As soon as we set foot, no, as soon as we even breathe there, bad luck starts. I am so sorry to break it to you, Mr. Mars, but we will definitely have to kill you. Sorry! Wherever we go, death and destruction follow. Soon, Mars will have to face the same fate of Earth; just an used tissue that we humans are going to throw into the bin. Sad destiny to have, don't you think, even if it is just a planet? Millions of years hereafter, the entire multiverse will be filled with used tissues/planets and we will not even have another tissue to wipe our tears on! 

To defeat the enemy that is overpopulation, humans need to learn better moves than inhabiting other planets. What about the one-child uppercut? Or the knock-out of IVF? These combos might sound extremely cruel and cold-hearted, but overpopulation is an adversary that we ourselves have called to the ring. Even I once used to think that these are acts only a lunatic could do. However, these are necessary if our future generations are to live peacefully.

We have the option to bring up 200 kids who are to live without subsistence, or we could bring up 10 kids who could live like millionaires. "You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice"

We could die like brave and audacious soldiers that are proud to say they have protected the soil that we were given, or we could die in a cold chamber in an UFO, somewhere far away in the galaxy, locked up and tortured by Martians. Now you choose.