A knock on the door

In the terrifying Doctor Who episode "Listen," the Twelfth Doctor and his companion, Clara Oswald, go as far into the future as possible -- just prior to the heat death of the universe -- to rescue a stranded human named Orson Pink who, during the early days of time travel research, accidentally projected trillions of years into the future and then couldn't get back.

But the Doctor notices something odd almost immediately.  It is -- allegedly -- a completely dead universe.  The barren planet Orson's spaceship landed on has breathable air, but he has been, up to that point, the only living entity there.  So why does he have the magnetic locks activated on the hatches, and a message written on the wall saying "DON'T OPEN THE DOOR"?

Reluctantly, Orson tells them that -- impossible as it sounds -- "there's something out there."  He says he's been having auditory hallucinations, and the message is to remind him never to unlock.  And soon they hear it -- a loud knocking, in increments of three.  The Doctor, ever curious about anything mysterious, orders Clara and Orson into the TARDIS, and then shuts off the magnetic locks on the hatch.

As soon as he does, the door handle starts to turn...

The whole idea revolves around the pithy observation that no one is afraid of being alone in the dark -- what we're afraid of is the idea that we're in the dark and might not be alone.

The suggestibility of the human mind is almost certainly responsible for a good many claims of the paranormal.  We hear an odd creaking sound upstairs when we're by ourselves (or think we are), and quite understandably, get spooked.  In that state, we're more likely to attribute the noise to something scary or dangerous.  A ghost, an intruder, some thing upstairs waiting for us to say those famous last words from horror movies -- "I heard a noise.  I'm going to go investigate."

That same sound, heard on a sunny day when the whole family is home, might just elicit a shrug and a comment that "old houses make noises sometimes."  Our emotional state, and the context we're in at the time, make a great deal of difference to how we'll react.

This is probably the explanation for the "high strangeness" reported by astronauts, as recently recounted by "paranormal investigator and esoteric detective" Paul Dale Roberts.  These apparently have included:

• UFOs, one "shaped like a beer can" and the other a "long, white, snake-like or eel-like object"
• what looked like "swarms of tiny glittering fireflies" near the viewport
• a sensation of a mysterious presence, there but unseen, with the astronauts on the ship
• visions of ethereal, semi-transparent "angels" following them
• disembodied voices, repeated knocks, and scratching sounds coming from outside the spacecraft (see why I thought of "Listen"?)

The likeliest explanation for the UFO sightings (especially the "fireflies") is space debris.  There's a lot of it up there, some natural, but much of it detritus from satellites and other human-made objects.  A recent survey estimated that there could be as many as 129 million bits of debris up there in orbit around the Earth (amounting to around eight thousand metric tons), most of it under a centimeter in diameter.  The vast majority is no threat to people on the ground; stuff that small burns up in the atmosphere long before it hits.  It is, however, a danger to spacecraft, and recent ones have shielding specifically to protect the hull from impacts and punctures due to running into all that assorted floating junk.  You may have heard of Kessler syndrome, or a "collisional cascade" (named after astrophysicist Donald Kessler, who wrote a paper about it), where space debris causes collisions that result in more debris, increasing exponentially the likelihood of further collisions -- eventually making it impossible to keep an intact satellite in orbit.

As far as the other "high strangeness" goes, well -- it's probably a combination of the natural noises made by the spacecraft and the overactive imaginations of people cooped up in a tiny metal box hurtling through the vacuum of space.  Astronauts are screened for psychological stability and are highly trained, so they know what to look out for -- but they are still human, and prone to all the odd biases our brains come preloaded with.  No wonder they report some weird stuff up there.

Of course, we can't be sure.  Certainly the universe is filled with mysteries.  But the danger comes in leaping from "space can be a weird place" to "anything unexplained we run across up there must have a paranormal explanation."  Like I said in a recent post, before you accept a supernatural explanation, make sure you rule out all the natural ones first.

Keep in mind, though, that the Twelfth Doctor and Clara joined a man who was the last creature left alive in the entire universe, and... there was a knock on the door.  Even knowing it was fiction, that scene left me shivering.  Because who knows for certain what's out there in the dark?

Could be damn near anything.

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Wanted: Mars colonists. Must be willing to travel.

Interested in exploring strange new worlds?  Eager to go where no one has gone before?

Mars One, a non-profit group based in the Netherlands, wants to establish a permanent colony on Mars by the year 2023 -- and is looking for astronauts.

They're serious about this.  Astronaut selection will begin this year, they say, and requires no previous experience.  They are looking for candidates that have "a deep sense of purpose, willingness to build and maintain healthy relationships, the capacity for self-reflection and ability to trust.  They must be resilient, adaptable, curious, creative and resourceful."  Six teams of four will eventually be selected and trained, and the first launch, scheduled for 2023, will take one of those teams -- "decided democratically" -- to the Red Planet.

The remaining teams will go on subsequent flights at two-year intervals, with the twenty-four astronauts ultimately being the founders of a permanent Mars colony.

Supplies will be sent on unmanned craft ahead of time, and (if all goes well) the materials will be there for use once the colonists arrive.

The training sounds rigorous, and will include "simulated missions, practice in a restricted mobility environment, and lessons in electronics, equipment repair, basic and critical medical care."  But after all, they'd better be ready for a year-long flight in cramped quarters, not to mention being prepared for dealing with all of the ills and accidents that human beings are subject to.  If one of them gets the flu, it's not like they'll be all that close to a pharmacy.

The whole thing sounds pretty thrilling, but there's one significant downside -- it's a one-way trip.  One launched, there's no coming back.  As you see Earth recede in the spaceship's windows, you'd better wave goodbye -- because you'll never stand on Terran soil again.  For that reason alone, I wouldn't sign up -- even if I were young enough, which I'm not.  (There's no explicit maximum age for volunteers, but practically speaking, I'd be 63 by the time the first launch took place, which seems a bit geriatric to begin a career in space exploration.)  The fact is, I'm a little too fond of my home planet to commit to leaving it forever.

There's also the inevitable problem of there being no knowledge of how living on Mars would affect human physiology.  Mars' gravity is about 38% of Earth's, for example.  I can see how this might make some problems better (e.g. lower back pain), but you have to wonder how to get around issues like the muscle atrophy and bone decalcification that plagued the men and women on the International Space Station. 

Another problem is the lower sunlight intensity.  Neuroscientists are only beginning to understand the effects that sunlight exposure have on neurotransmitter levels, circadian rhythms, and the immune system, and Mars would have at best 50% less sunlight, because of its greater distance from the Sun.  It's to be hoped that the colonists would have access to such things as broad-spectrum artificial light, which could ameliorate any problems, but it's something to consider.

There's also the problem of resources.  You may have heard about the Biosphere 2 Project, in which volunteer scientists were shut into a self-contained ecosystem in the Arizona desert.  Ecologists and physical chemists had worked for years to come up with an optimum balance, because the idea was that nothing but sunlight was supposed to come from outside -- the plants were to act as air purifiers and food producers, every drop of water was recycled, all electricity was produced by solar cells, and so on.  The 12,700 square meter facility had separate biomes (a rain forest, a miniature ocean, a coral reef, a savannah grassland), and was so big it generated its own weather (condensed moisture on the glass ceiling at night fell as "rain").  But even with all of that planning, the project had to be modified during its two-year (1991-1993) run -- oxygen levels fell, probably because of uptake by soil microbes, resulting in the necessity to artificially inject oxygen into the air; rapidly-reproducing pest species such as cockroaches, ants, and morning glory vines exploded in population; some of the "biomes" (especially the grassland) didn't do well.  Clearly, there were unaccounted-for variables.  And while the Biosphere 2 volunteers could just ask for help if things went too wrong, our Mars colonists won't have that option -- they will be entirely on their own to produce what they need, and deal with any problems that occur, in a far more hostile environment.

Last, I worry about the psychological effects.  Humans are social primates; we are happiest in free-flowing large groups.  What would it be like to spend two years, and never see anyone but the same three people, every day?  What happens when frictions occur?  You've got nowhere to go; the first colony's living quarters would almost certainly be smaller than Biosphere 2 was.  And outside the walls, all you have is the endless, lifeless Martian deserts.  The idea makes me shudder a little.

But anyway, if you're interested in volunteering, click the link at the beginning of this post, and check it out.  And while I won't be there with you in line, I do think it's a fascinating opportunity.  The idea that humans may, for the first time, leave this little blue and green planet where we were born, and establish an outpost elsewhere in space -- well, for someone who was raised on Star Trek, it just seems like the first step toward greater things.  And who knows, maybe there will turn out to be life on Mars?