Great Purpose

Great purpose. That’s all anyone ever really talked about anymore. That’s what Sarah had spent the last decade of her life working for. A great purpose. At first she was scared – isn’t everyone, with that amount of responsibility? To be one of the first people to live on Mars. It almost didn’t seem real. The world had changed so much and so little in the last ten years. Her sister just had a baby. Sarah would never hold it again, not likely. She would never hug another family member again (unless they decided on this hare-brained scheme to settle Mars as well). It is possible she would never fall in love, as she hadn’t yet. But that didn’t matter. She would be a first.

They were counting down for take-off, and Sarah wished she could turn her head to look at her cohorts – the people she would spend the rest of her life with. There would certainly be others, but for two years it would just be them. Their names would go down in history, every second of their lives would be recorded. In about a year, she would be on Mars, after an immense amount of time spent in transit.

The count of 1 came, and soon they were off. This was it. The worst that could happen is the ship never making it off the ground. It was always her biggest fear.

But time passed, people cheered, and the whole world was rooting them on. Baby steps were over, it was time for humankind’s biggest leap.

 

For information about Mars One, the inspiration for this short, go here: http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/about-mars-one

In ten years, we WILL have settlers on Mars. How cool is that?