Thursday, September 19, 2013

White Flight From Planet Marred by Diversity of Passenger List

by Ron Powell

White flight is a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions.
Now the term may well be applied to a significant number of white people who expressed the desire to leave the big blue marble and take a one-way trip to the angry red planet....
The Mars One venture says more than 200,000 people registered their interest in taking a one-way trip to the Red Planet, but only a fraction of those are officially in the running for the trip.
To be precise, 2,782 people have paid their registration fee and submitted public videos in which they make their case for going to Mars in 2023 — with no guarantee that they'll ever come back.
Mars One plays off the fact that it's far easier logistically to send astronauts on a one-way trip to Mars than to make a round trip. The concept of the 55,000,000 km trip, which could take up to 300 days, has been compared to the way Europeans settled the Americas centuries ago: The first settlers didn't expect to come back home, but instead created a new home in the New World.
In a news release announcing the end of the first five-month recruitment..., Mars One said 202,586 people registered their interest in the trip. Registrations came from more than 140 countries, with Americans making up the biggest contingent (24 percent). The other countries in the top eight included India (10 percent), China (6 percent), Brazil (5 percent) and Great Britain, Canada, Russia and Mexico (each representing 4 percent).
The passenger list for the first flight to Mars has the potential of being racially diverse to the point of placing white passengers in a numerical minority.  A disappointment for those who may well have signed up to get away from people of color...
A word of advice to those who are looking to 'escape' from the planet they helped to fuck up environmentally and socially:
Be careful of what you wish for, you could find yourself longing for the good old days of global warming and a black president...

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