Mars: let's go

As great as the Mars rover is, it's the prospect of a manned mission to Mars that's got me really excited. And a little worried.

Here's why: The earliest likely date for a manned mission to Mars is 2030. I'll be 61. To put it in perspective, Apollo 11 landed three weeks before I was born.

Sure, getting to Mars and back is much more complicated than visiting the moon. But sixty years seems like an awfully long time to develop the technology (and find the money) for a Martian mission. I guess I've been living with the assumption that space exploration would happen much more quickly. Was getting to the moon just a tentative first step into, um, the final frontier?

Based on current statistics, I have a 14% chance of dying of cancer by age 60. I'm in relatively good health and I'm not a risk-taker, so I'm going to say that overall my chance of dying before 60 is about 20%.

So in the best case scenario (Mars mission in 2030) I have a four-in-five chance of witnessing one of mankind's greatest achievements, an event without parallel in the history of scientific exploration. If the mission date slips ten years, my odds drop to three in five, and decline sharply thereafter.

I don't want to seem selfish about this, but let's go to Mars already. Time's running out--my time. This is one event I don't want to miss.

I am confident that Canada will commit several robotic arms if the US will just launch a human mission to Mars by 2020.