WHY   WYOMING ?

     Okay, so you're probably wondering, "Why Wyoming ?"  What does Mars have to do with us, here in the land of oil rigs, pronghorn and empty spaces ?  Shouldn't we be more concerned with getting the oil drilled and the hay harvested instead of getting to Mars ?

     For partial answer, take a look at the background on this page, artist Robert Murray's "First Human Base on the Red Planet".  Surely this is a picture straight out of Wyoming's past:  a few people and their meager machines surrounded by magnificent desolation, struggling to carve out a niche for themselves in the inhospitable landscape.  Only a few differences: the tractor is sealed and pressurized, the garden covered by a dome, the generator is solar panels instead of a windmill.

     Few Americans understand this state of existence better than Wyoming residents:  we brave the snow drifts and empty spaces, isolation and hard life for the opportunity to carve out our own niches, here in this magnificent desolation we call Home.  We are individualists and free-thinkers; we don't take kindly to being told how to live.  We are the front wave of the Diaspora, the leading edge of humans outward-bound.  We ARE the Martians.

     For another part of the answer, listen to "On to Mars!" by Bob McNally.  Every 'Wyomingite' will recognize the pioneering spirit it captures; we HAVE "done it many times before, found the will, paid the bill".  We have all heard "our courage calling down the line, calling for us to move on".  We have ALL been "struggling on that long walk" and "immigrants on that long ride"; when the time comes, we'll be the first "leaving on that midnight ship in smoke and rumble, flame and roar, strapping for that high ride".

     For us in Wyoming, it's an old story.