WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE UP TO?

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 12

WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE UP TO?

(By

WHIM WHAM!

A Soviet unmanned probe yesterday sped towards a rendezvous with Venus before the end of the year. If successful, it will be the fourth Russian landing on earth s planetary neighbour in less than six years.—News. What’s Venus like? Are there Trees or Stones or Sands on It? Will Any of Us live till the Day when Somebody lands on It? Will Anybody ever see the Print of a human Foot on It? What do You think We shall ever do with It, or put on It? How much more human Litter are We going to scatter In the Solar System, and how much will Any of It matter To the bored and the bitter Generations of Mankind, For ever looking for the Peace that They never find? The Moon was a Man, a Friend, a Face. Now the Moon is only a Place, Is a Base in Space, Is a Used Car Lot, An unbeautiful Spot, And a good Riddance too, to All that poetical Stuff And classical Nonsense of which We’ve had more than Enough. Bring on the Myth of Man’s technological Achievement! Don’t worry about What the Myth of Adam and Eve meant. Our Eyes are starry, our Explorations Planetary,— Heroic Plumbers of Space, we’ll make It sanitary! What’s our Vision of Venus (Sir?) but a rundown Airport Lounge in some terrestrial Town, With a Duty Free Shop, and a Bank, and Bars, And a Bore from Saturn boring a Bore from Mars, And the Tedium of the Topic under discussion Will be the Same in English, or French, or Russian, Or whatever Language is UNIVERSALLY spoken by Then. What’s so Special about Men That their tiresome Habits And their Breed, like Rabbits, Should plague every Planet in the One Small System of our Sun? Sir, don’t You wish You knew Something about Anything? I do.