Massive waves of joy warmed planet earth in the circles of interest in exploration.   We know that exploration has not gone particularly well for indigenous people and has left marks that we are deliberately fearful to try to erase or footnote as huge mistakes. The landing the roboxplorer Perseverance on Mars may seem like an expensive (!) and unfortunate venture and a search for answers with the wrong set of questions.  I more of us who know how to explore ancient things would simply be honest the search for the origin of life would be secondary to the search for the Lifegiver. The  message from Jezero, “safe on the surface” competes with the cries for safety on this planet from women,  children and racialized people, for whom cutting edge discoveries seem to have little benefit.

A cold, old and male threat

Leaders who do not know what truth and justice look like are many (arguably in the majority) and those who use violent power to silence or discredit the quest for a more honourable use of knowledge and resources will not be affected if the Jezero messsge says “fossil worms”, “winged anthropoid”, or “bovine skull”.  Perseverance is not expected to discover the prescription for sustaining human life in all its diversity.  Males devoid of love threaten every thing we treasure and waking  them up will take the use of extraordinary technology.  Cold, old and male describe accurately the civic realities of life on earth as much as they do the threats to Perseverance on Mars.

Remember Noah’s ark and the preservation of all life.

There aren’t really many events in human history that affect every being equally.  People have been clamoring for the pat on the back and the recognition that one of us has risen to earn the Oscar for intelligent management of resources. So let us not keep eying the search for the origin of life rather than using the means we have to ensure that our lives, all our lives, are no longer threatened by military or political strongmen or by religious conmen using wood fires in highrise apartments.