Mars Without US

Humankind's Grand Experiment to colonize Mars has taken a small step towards reality today with the "launch" of the Mars500, an Earth-based simulation of the year-and-a-half flight to Mars.  Conspicuously, Americans are absent in this experiment -- 3 Russians, 2 Europeans, and 1 Chinese were chosen -- which begs the question, "what are we doing?"  Did we not qualify, or did we not bother to show up?

Although I feel that, ultimately, Mars colonization with result in the exploitation of natural resources similar to what we're experiencing on Earth, it's honest progress for the human race, and that's something we need to pursue.  Certainly, Star Trek's concept of a Federation -- a united planet, not just nations -- has influenced my opinion, but it bothers me that something as important as expanding humankind's reach in the universe may be divided by petty politics.

Perhaps the failure results of the Biosphere 2, or the experiments done in our strangely Watchmen-esque research base in the Antarctic, has contributed to our country's no-show, but my guess is that our segment of the world has simply said "no thanks, we'll do this ourselves."

As with everything I put in this blog, I could be totally wrong, and the results of this grand experiment will be shared with all humankind...but who am I kidding?

Oh...and to make this game-related, they're reported to have a Wii available for use on the "spacecraft."  I'd die if they have Muscle March on that thing!

Update:  Could our no-show be due to...toilets?