# What will the first person on Mars say? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 14, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938 "2018-10-14T15:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/21 "2018-10-14T19:43:21Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Really? But it makes no sense the way he flubbed it. It’s supposed to be contrasting the small physical step that a man takes, and that it’s not important who that particular man happens to be or the small size of the physical step; but that it symbolizes a metaphorical great leap for the human race as a whole. It makes no sense without the indefinite article, seems obvious that it should be there, and it _was_ there in what was rehearsed. The claim that what was said made no sense is not evidence that it wasn’t said in the first place, and I’ve got a century’s worth of Presidential speeches to cite if the need arises. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/22 "2018-10-14T19:46:05Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The claim that what was said made no sense is not evidence that it wasn’t said in the first place, and I’ve got a century’s worth of Presidential speeches to cite if the need arises. Huh? I wasn’t claiming he didn’t say it that way. I’m saying he flubbed the line. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/23 "2018-10-14T19:57:28Z")
Something prepared that won’t be “Up yours, Marvin”. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/24 "2018-10-14T20:00:58Z")
Something’s obstructing my view of Venus. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/25 "2018-10-14T20:36:02Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Something’s obstructing my view of Venus. There was supposed to be an enormous KA-BOOM! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/26 "2018-10-14T20:38:04Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > “Holy fuck! I’m on Mars!” Bonus points if it’s “[Holy living fuck!](https://i.imgur.com/Jgz720h.jpg)” ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/27 "2018-10-14T20:42:52Z")
I almost typed it as “That’s one small step for [a] man…” because I knew someone would bring up his grammar mistake 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/28 "2018-10-14T21:03:16Z")
Where is the 7-11? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/29 "2018-10-14T21:11:28Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I almost typed it as “That’s one small step for [a] man…” because I knew someone would bring up his grammar mistake 🙂 It’s odd to me that people would ever quote it without inserting the [a], but of course they do. What do people think it’s supposed to mean without it? It makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/30 "2018-10-14T21:16:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > _All_ trips anywhere lead to death. While that is true, most trips do not cost half a trillion dollars or more. Sending a small crew to Mars to plant a flag and do some minimal amout of science among the effort to stay alive and in function condition at massive expense is a poor choice compared to sending increasingly capable probes and rovers while progressively improving the space infrastructure to support indefinite human habitation in solar orbiting space. When we can go to Mars as a matter of course of extending human presence rather than some desperate, grotesquely expensive effort justified only as an exhibition of national pride, then it will make sense to do so. I would like to think this would happen within my lifetime but I am becoming increasing convinced it will not. We are making no significant efforts to develop even the necessary communication infrastructure much less the technologies necessary to sustain humans in the interplanetary space environment or on a world with conditions hostile to even the most hardy Earthlife. Everytime the issue of a space-based communications relay comes up in the NASA Decadal Survey—which is crucial not only for a crewed Mars mission but expansion of planetary exploration whoch is currently reliant on the obsolescent ground-based Deep Space Network—it is dismissed as not being of immediate necessity and outside of budget limitations. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/31 "2018-10-14T21:27:45Z")
_Hey, look at that, it’s coming this wa…AIEEEEEE!_ ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/32 "2018-10-14T21:47:40Z")
They should have sent a poet. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/33 "2018-10-14T21:50:57Z")
“I claim this planet in the name of the Earth!” ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/34 "2018-10-14T22:05:11Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > “I claim this planet in the name of the Earth!” Screw _that:_ “I’m the King of Mars! WOO-HOO! Mine! All mine!” "My precious desolate nearly airless uninhabitable wasteland! Yesss! _My preciousss!"_ ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/35 "2018-10-14T22:09:44Z")
“I name thee…New Detroit!” ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/36 "2018-10-14T22:18:06Z")
Edgar Rice Burroughs was a god-damned liar! “Do as you will to your own and to your planet, but remember this warning - do not return to Mars.” ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/37 "2018-10-14T22:39:10Z")
_Astronaut comes out of capsule and slowly begins to descend ladder, watched by breathless billions worldwide, suddenly they begin to slip and tumble down_ “woooaahhh, oh sh…ouch, Jesus, fuck…_ooffff_…” _lands in an undignified heap and begins to pick themselves up_ “Goddammit, I _told_ those pricks we needed a non-slip coating…wait, is that camera still running?” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/38 "2018-10-14T22:42:34Z")
“Has anybody told those poor bastards back home about the giant asteroid heading their way yet?” ---
**Author:** ![RunSilent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RunSilent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RunSilent)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/39 "2018-10-14T22:55:55Z")
MARS CALLING EARTH! MARS CALLING EARTH! WE ARE IN BIG TROUBLE! THEY HAVE A 1920s STYLE DEATH RAY HERE! ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938/40 "2018-10-14T23:05:13Z")
It isn’t as big as Uranus but its a start. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-first-person-on-mars-say/822938.md?page=3)