SALAD
DAYS
UK SCIENTISTS PLAN TO GROW LETTUCE ON MARS
Daily
Telegraph
Well,
Mars has become quite the planet lately, hasn't it? Only a few weeks
ago we learnt that the fabulously eccentric Beagle – launched
almost literally on a wing and a prayer - really did get there and
landed successfully on Christmas Day 2003. That this Christmas
present to Mars – and presumably to any over-excited young Martians
clustered round whatever passes for a tree out there – didn't
actually work will come as no surprise to generations of Dads who
were told – and reminded, and then told again – to check whether
the Junior Eternity Cruncher, Lego's latest Build Your Own Time
Machine kit, came with the requisite number of AA batteries. And who
remember the subsequent frantic and hungover search round the house
on Christmas morning seeking out bits of electrical gubbins to
plunder for their batteries, so that a small but supremely confident
time traveller could fast forward through the millennia to a mythical
era where even the Daily
Express had
stopped banging on about Princess Diana and forecasting apocalyptic
weather conditions that weren't going to materialise.
Although,
who knows? Maybe they were. Perhaps they will have materialised in
the unimaginably distant future where our tiny adventurers hoped to
fetch up. Had they ever done so, they may well have found a world so
profoundly 'weatherbombed' – whatever that is - that the assorted
and already dodgy AAs purloined from disused Walkmen and ancient
torches consigned illogically to the loft – where you need a torch
to find them – would have proved unequal to the admittedly tricky
task of firing the Lego up for the journey back across the aeons.
Oddly
enough, I always thought that if it was me I'd go the other way. Not
all that far though, just back to the 60s where I could misspend my
youth again, hoping to make rather a better job of it next time. If
you can say 'next time' about some future event that will take place
– if it ever does – in the past. Tricky. The first casualties
of time travel are clearly going to be grammar and syntax. In any
case, there would of course be this nagging fear that any minuscule
intervention the Rejuvenated Me might make in the 60s would
fundamentally alter the entire course of subsequent history, although
looking on the bright side this could mean we'd now enjoy a world
without Jeremy Clarkson. (But this is a Balanced Blog – feel free
to resurrect Jeremy and insert your own candidate for oblivion. If
you must.)
But as
for Beagle, what a phenomenal achievement to get it there! And so
sad that a comparatively minor glitch stopped it from digging and
delving and analysing and then ringing up Mission Control for a bit
of a natter while it basked contentedly in the Martian sun.
Or so the
official narrative goes. They won't tell you this at the National
Space Centre, but I now know that Beagle did manage to send out a few
brief signals before silence fell, and cramming my investigative
journalist's hat on my head I have done some ferreting around, a bit
like, well, a bit like a beagle, I suppose.
But
we're getting ahead of ourselves. Before we get on to what Beagle
had to say, what about this cracking headline in the Telegraph
about
UK scientists wanting to grow lettuce on Mars? The mind really
doesn't know which direction to boggle in first. You'll think I'm
mad but I even had to check that we were talking about the planet
here, not the confectionery which is alleged to help you work, rest
and play. Had these 'UK scientists' somehow hit on the idea that the
gooey interior of a Mars bar might be just the job for growing salad
crops? If so, who had been brave enough to pitch the idea to a bevy
of illustrious colleagues on the research team, not one of them with
anything less than a couple of Ph.Ds to their name?
'Tell you
what, Lady Elspeth, I'm flying a bit of a kite here, but what about
seeing if they'll grow on Mars bars?'
If, like
me, Lady Elspeth hankered after the 60s she would doubtless narrow
her eyes for a bit at this point, then nod slowly and significantly
before announcing in near sepulchral tones that it was crazy but it
might just work. Were you a SMERSH agent bent on horticultural
espionage might you then perhaps have crept into some venerable
laboratory in order to spy on lettuce seedlings growing in serried
ranks of chocolate bars, all with the paper and chocolate coating
carefully cut off the top like miniature grobags, while brilliant
young lab assistants fussed around with all manner of dials, gauges
and – for all I know – thermometers and stethoscopes?
Well, no
you wouldn't. But the truth is scarcely less surreal, because yes we
do want to colonise the red planet one day and the putative
colonists' advance guard is apparently to be lettuce. Think about
it. How do you suppose we're going to get those little seed packets
up there, create little drills in the soil – soil? - carefully
sprinkle the contents of the packet into the drills – damn, they've
gone everywhere – and water them in – water? - before observing
through the best telescopes that money can buy that squadrons of
ecstatic little green Martian slugs are whooping and yelling and
high-fiving each other as they gorge on what to them will almost
literally be manna from heaven?
And what
if we somehow manage to despatch a relief ship full of slugivores
such as hedgehogs and toads; what if we can even manage to get a few
beer traps up there for the slugs to fall in; what then? After all,
the very first settlers will doubtless be a bit apprehensive when
they get there, what with the absence of pizza deliveries, Sky Sports
and a breathable atmosphere, not to mention the impossibility of ever
getting back home again. Wouldn't you think they're going to want a
bit more than lettuce to greet them? They'll probably have a group
bonding huddle to start with, rather like footballers before a big
match; it's not going to help it go with a swing when the leader
presents each of them with their own lettuce, is it?
'What's
this, boss?'
'It's a
lettuce.'
'Haven't
we got anything better?'
'Well,
we've got a few old jam jars full of stale beer with dead slugs in.'
Of
course, this won't go unnoticed at NASA and all the other space
agencies around the world. None of their intrepid spacemen and women
are going to fancy it if all that awaits them is slug and lettuce,
and not even the pub chain at that.
But just
a moment. Have we hit on something here? Is that in fact the whole
point? Is this just a ruse on the part of 'UK scientists' to show
what might be possible in food production given a healthy dose of UK
scientific ingenuity and lots of money, while at the same time
deterring adventurous young men and women from squandering that money
on strictly vegan one way trips to Mars? Is this, in short, an
attempt to shift cash away from space exploration to provide seed
funding for salad growers?
Well, no.
No, it isn't. To understand why not, we need to go back to Beagle,
stuck for ever in its Martian crevice, and, we now know, feeling
pretty miserable about it. It was already clear that Beagle was
fabulously eccentric; we just didn't know exactly how eccentric.
Beagle, it turns out, was more than an interplanetary probe; it was
part of the development work preceding manned Martian exploration. I
can now reveal that it had built into it a degree of artificial
intelligence. It was designed to feel and communicate emotion in
much the way that it was thought that early human explorers would,
and it certainly wanted no truck with lettuce.
And it
was hugely successful. Owing to a damaged antenna its communications
were somewhat garbled and distorted, but the messages I saw from this
little craft are heart-rending in that they perfectly convey the
desolate, despairing feeling that comes from knowing it will be
achingly small, lost and alone in the universe, stranded beyond hope
for all eternity.
Its
earthbound controllers were distraught. How could they ease Beagle's
anguish? Let it know it was not forgotten? That it was still loved
and cherished? And even as Beagle's messages started to break up
they deduced that what it really wanted was reminders of home.
'Anything!'
they cried, 'anything at all!'
'Photographs,
films, music, books!' pleaded Beagle.
'Yes,
yes, of course! Anything else?'
But by
now the signal was almost lost and they had to puzzle long and hard
over Beagle's final reply.
'Yes,
there is one more thing – letters! Letters from home!'
But they
had trouble making the word out. It seemed an odd request, but they
knew plenty of UK scientists who were big in botanical and
horticultural circles and if that's what Beagle wanted........
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ANAGRAM CORNER......
.........has been on holiday, so there is no anagram this month. Instead, I wondered if you might like to contribute a caption to this picture. If I get any good - repeatable! - ones I'll publish them next time. Send any contributions to me at autolycus14@gmail.com or just click on the 'comments' section at the bottom of the blog.........
