Scotch Snobbery and Ice on Mars

The exciting news from NASA’s latest jaunt to Mars is that the Mars Phoenix lander may have found it’s first patch of ice on the north polar region of Mars. There has been no confirmation that this is or just another buried rock. Although I am able to to imagin the outcome this discovery actually being water ice. This sort of news just may insp9ire some wealthy tycoon to find a way to be the first to get his hands ona a few novel chunks of this stuff so he can flaunt his wealth by pouring a $50,000 of a rare single malt scotch whiskey over it as he watches melt.

This wealthy tycoon will first have to find a way to invest and generate some much needed income and lenient tax breaks from the federal government before he can dispatch a vehicle to Mars and mine Martian glacial ice. Instead of building an international space station geared toward researchers’ and scientists’ our wealthy tycoon could build and develop an orbital hotel and casino that would cater to the wealthiest on earth. These are the folks that are eagerly awaiting the commercialization of space travel and have the necessary comeuppance to lavish on posh hotel rooms with intergalactic views.

Once our wealthy tycoon has has accumulated a mound of wealth with his posh earth orbit casino and hotel outfitted with floating one-armed bandits and zero-g roulette tables he approaches NASA and company to broker a deal with them to help him build his ice mining rig that will fly to Mars. Part of the deal would be that the NASA astronauts could come along for the ride and do their obligatory research and science for the benefit of mankind while the tycoon’s private astronauts go about the business of bagging as much Martian ice cubes as they cram on the vehicle.

The return trips is another bonus for both parties as the NASA astronauts are treated to a little R&R at the orbiting casino along with comped hotel rooms, a free buffet, and few hundred bucks to gamble.

In the meantime our wealthy tycoon friend is serving that 50 year old single malt scotch on the rocks - Martian rocks that is.

This entry was posted on June 5, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Mars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.