Humanity is headed to Mars. This one brave act changes everything, lending a duality to our daydreams, de-familiarizing our night gazes up into the dark with our children, newly shading our mistaken beliefs on the simple color red. Those first arriving will shoulder the scientific burdens, preparing the paths of pain, experimenting in physics, geology, engineering, health, AI, robotics. But the humanities must follow on, for we will not simply visit Mars, we are going there to live, to die. To remain will mean to thrive in a world of the word. The ground, the rocks of the planet, will demand a poetry of their own, and every art, as quickly as the first imprint of a toe pressing the soil. The planet waits for new red words. So very patiently.
