Mind Games

Today, I was told that the anti-mission movement had finally won in the courts, and they mission was being called off. The technology was going to be repurposed into a future two-way mission with multiple crew members, and I was to be given a new identity and live out a normal life. I was shocked to say the least. I was left alone in my room, apparently to give mission command time to [REDACTED]. I sat motionless, just thinking about how I really felt. Soon, it dawned on me that what I was feeling was crushing disappointment about not being able to finish a task I had set out to accomplish. For the first time in many, many years I cried. Soon, misson command personell arrived at my room and informed me that the whole thing had been an exercise to test my true commitment to the mission. I guess I'm truly committed.

10 days to go.

m.

Afterwards

An obvious question to ask someone who is being sent on a journey to their ultimate death is whether they believe that the end of their life is the end of their existence. In this post I am going to attempt to outline my views on that.

Concerning gods, I'm a rationalist. There is no evidence for any god, so I don't think any exist. Obviously, if someone else wants to believe that they do exist is free to, but that's nothing to do with me and I won't accept any religious intrusion into our society, nor special status for religious institutions. None at all. I rejected the offer of a Christian priest as a counsellor during my training. I have had offers of prayer from people associated with the mission, to which I say anyone who wants to pray for me is very welcome to do so, if that makes them feel better.

Now for the afterlife. This is sometimes phrased as an idea that a human is somehow "more than the sum of his parts" or "the soul has to go somewhere when you die". A good analogy is that of a house. If the house is knocked down, all is constituent bricks still exist, but the house is just gone. When I die, all the atoms that make up my body still exist, but my "aliveness" has just gone.


With that in mind, I am convinced I'm not going to experience anything at all after I die, so the only reasons I can see to not want to die are the following:

• Wanting to do things with the rest of your life. What's better than doing this?
• Having others that depend on you. I have no one

That, in short, is that.

11 days to go.

m.

Loose ends

Seeing as there are now only a short 11 days to go until launch, I've been tying up a few loose ends in my life. I had the final video chat with my parents yesterday. It's really tough on them but I have to fulfil my responsibilities as an explorer, a pioneer and as a human. I hope that they'll be ok.

Not many humans in history have experienced this feeling; being in perfect health, having no wars to fight in, no cause for martyrdom, but still knowing pretty much exactly on what date one is going to die. It brings out the 'tool for the furthering of the greater good' part of me, as it would with anyone. It makes me look at my life from the outside, like I'm an actor playing myself. It feels as if this physical body is somehow not 'mine' and is expendable for this cause.

Here's to humanity.

11 days to go.

m.

Twitter account now open

They've given me a Twitter account at:

http://twitter.com/OnePersonOneWay

Same rules apply, I can only post and will not be able to read any replies to my tweets.

m.

Bad day, my fault

Today was mostly revision of technical information, which didn't go too well. The instructor and I were going over the emergency manual burn procedures in the simulator, and I let off 1.5 seconds too early, meaning that I would have missed the landing site by a large distance, probably coming to rest on an extremely steep hill. Imagine that, billions of dollars worth of equipment, smashed and broken on the side of a Martian mountain. What a waste. In the unlikely event I need to use the emergency burn controls, there's no possibility of help from mission command, since their commands wouldn't reach me until after a potential mission jeopardising event. I don't want to be the guy that messes this up.

13 days to go.

m.

Psych done!

This morning was the last psych session until launch day. Consisted of being left in a cold room for what they told me would be thirty minutes, but after twenty-five some fire alarms went off, I heard screaming and then silence. An hour and a half I was in there, alone, nearing hypothermia. When they came back they told me they were very sorry and were not trying to trick me. Who knows what actually happened. I have no way of checking current events since they restricted my internet access to this blog only, plus a daily digest of news pages that I can't navigate away from.

Today's edition of that digest contained, amongst other things, the discovery of a new type of exotic ore in the impact craters on Mars may have wide ranging applications in energy production and materials science. That, combined with the recently increased terror threat to our allies in Europe means that energy independence for the USA is more important than ever - this mission may help accomplish that.

14 days to go.

m.

Psych Training

This morning is my 52nd and final session of psych training. An hour of induced hallucinations, trickery and tough questions awaits me. It's a vital part of the mission, but I look forward to the end of this. Heard from my parents yesterday, they seem to be holding up ok, but not even I'm allowed to know where they are!

14 days to go. 

m.