I've just returned from a week of meetings in Washington to determine the future of martian oil reserves.
What? You thought we were there looking for life? We have way too much of that here on Earth already. Why would we want to travel 10 million miles looking for more of it? That would be a lot like going to Iraq to corner the market on sand.
Or was that what it was? CIA Director George Tenet wasn't too clear on that last week. For all I know, seems like a plausible explanation. I'll have to ask him the next time I see him.
Well, anyway, my meetings were productive, but to be honest, there's not much more I can tell. The vice prez is still a little touchy on energy meetings. He still won't tell us who was at those top-secret energy consortium talks a few years ago. It's sure a shame that we have to knock on the door of the Supreme Court to get a hold of the guest list.
Dick's buddies aren't shy about their extraterrestrial intentions, though. Four years ago, in an industry journal, a Halliburton scientist noted that "one area of great importance is finding out of what the inside of Mars consists. That's where the petroleum industry comes in."
Excuse me?
I caught the first part. The importance of martian consistency - y'know, water and little, green men and stuff. Got it. But I'm not quite sure where the petroleum industry is supposed to come waltzing in.
The Petroleum News vindicated Halliburton's claims. They reported back in February 2001 that NASA Mars Exploration Director Geoffrey Briggs, Ph.D., had met with the folks from Halliburton and Shell, as well as from Los Alamos National Labs, to determine viable drilling technologies for the Red Planet.
Briggs elaborated on the wonders of high-tech geothermal drilling, then noted that NASA enjoyed the help of the petroleum folks because they "really understand the problems and make us face up to realities."
It's funny, but I had no idea big oil had cornered the market on reality. I'm glad we cleared that up.
To recap: about a month after Halliburton finished its contract work rolling up the red carpets at the Bush inaugural, they shipped off to Texas to determine the future of space exploration. And they're armed with a really big friggin' laser.
Cost estimates for the manned Mars mission of 2014 run somewhere between a half and a full trillion dollars, according to Kiplinger's. For those of you playing along at home, that's a one followed by a dozen zeroes. Carry the $300 NASA toilet seats and that's one hell of an undertaking. I have to wonder about the political motivations.
Not to knock the benefits of a Mars mission, though. Dick Cheney, more than most people, knows there's more to life than drilling for oil. He made sure to let President Bush know that there are military benefits to such an exercise, particularly in the arena of space-based defense. Rep. Tom Feeney from Florida makes the plan even more succinct.
Feeney told the Fox News Channel that, "Somebody is going to dominate space. When they do, just like when the British dominated the naval part of our globe, established their empire, just like the United States has dominated the air superiority, ultimately, whoever is able to dominate space will be able to control the destiny of the entire Earth."
Talk about playing for all the marbles.
Brian Clapp is busy moonlighting as a petroleum industry lobbyist. For a firmer grip on reality, e-mail him at:brian.clapp@asu.edu.
