Mars Anyone?

Have you signed up yet for the one way trip to Mars? 78,000 people from all over the world have applied to the Netherlands based Mars One to make the one way trip. Young and old alike have decided that life on earth is not a big deal. Knowing they can never come back isn’t a deterrent to these adventurous people. They want out and can hardly wait until 2023 when the first 4 lucky winners will depart for the Red Planet. There is no maximum age for applicants, no required technical background, nationality or language. Well, astronaut candidates will have a few years to learn English if they don't speak it already. This requirement should excite members of the English only movement here in the USA. 

Of course some people question the sanity of anyone who would agree to make a one way trip to Mars. It seems a lot more people would be willing to make the trip if it was more like going to Disney World. You know, fly to Orlando, go on the rides, stay in the hotel and then head back home to Little Rock.

Had these round trippers been alive in say, the seventeenth century, it’s probably safe to say they would not have been aboard any wooden ships bound for America. They’re probably here now only because an ancestor got kicked out of London and was sent to the colonies. These naysayers obviously don’t share a bit of DNA with the Puritans who came to America. Did those brave voyagers realize they would never see their homeland again? That this was a one way trip? Certainly! And I guarantee you not one of them was thinking, “In America I can get me a wide screen TV and watch NASCAR and All Star Celebrity Apprentice on Sundays.”

And you can be just as sure that today’s scaredy cats live within a square mile of where those naughty ancestors landed. You just know when the pioneers set out to settle the west their great-great grandfathers thought the people getting on the wagon trains were fools. “Why would you go to parts unknown Clem? I hear tell there’s wild Indians and grizzly bears nine feet tall. Why, you can’t never come back here.”  

A spirit of adventure and a desire for a better life for their children was what drove the Mayflower passengers and later, the pioneers, to say goodbye forever to what they knew and head for the great unknown.        

Now some might say, “That is the difference. How could anyone have a better life on Mars than they could here on earth?  For starters, earth has oxygen, not to mention Starbucks.” Maybe it’s what Mars won’t have that makes it so appealing. No unemployment for example. Listen, it’s been rumored that the entire city of Detroit has applied for jobs on Mars. And since a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than here on earth, there won’t be any excuse for not sweating to the oldies every day. And you just know there’s at least one applicant that applied in hopes of being selected so their partner will get the message. It’s over. For good this time.

For the astronauts who do decide to go, I wonder how quickly they will lose interest in everything happening on earth. For their sake, I hope it’s quick. I mean imagine you’re from Chicago. You get to Mars in early October, just in time to find out that the Cubs are going to the World Series. Your brother-in-law Carl could easily have scored a couple of top notch tickets for you. Forget it. You decided to take a one way cruise to Mars.

Our ancestors didn’t have that problem. There were no cell phones or iPads back then. Benjamin Franklin hadn’t even discovered electricity yet. No worries and no regrets about who won the British Open for residents of the Plymouth Colony, that’s for sure.    

If you’re interested in making the trip though, be advised that there will be a minor fee associated with submitting your application. The amount varies by the gross national income of the applicant's home country. For US citizens the fee is $38. It’s a better deal than the Pilgrims had. They agreed to be indentured servants for seven years.  

Need Extra Cash? Sell Naming Rights

When professional sports teams started offering naming rights as a new profit center or a way to defray the cost of building a new stadium or arena, I thought it was an annoying practice. I was very much afraid that my beloved Yankee Stadium might one day be called Pizza Hut Yankee Stadium or Trump Yankee Stadium. Surely the House that Ruth Built deserves better. The sad fact is that companies don’t always have fetching names, suitable for adorning the arena of your favorite sports team. Take the University of Louisville. A couple of years ago they opened a new basketball arena with the name KFC Yum Center for a moniker. Say it: “I’m going to the Yum center tonight.” It could have been worse. When the Houston Astros opened their park in 2000, the stadium was named Enron Field. It’s Minute Maid Park now. Better for sure but again, I’m very happy that Minute Maid Park is an Astros thing and not a prefix to Yankee Stadium. At least the Coca-Cola Company, which owns Minute Maid, didn’t insist on calling the stadium Minute Maid Grove.
And naming rights aren’t limited to professional sports. High schools are doing it too. Consider the Tennessee Credit Union Academy of Business and Finance, Antioch High School in Nashville (long enough for you?) or the Poland Springs Arena at Toms River High School, North in New Jersey. Shouldn’t a high school in Maine have snapped that one up first?
This is really just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know that respected universities are offering people the opportunity to sponsor bathrooms and even bathroom stalls? Yes, according to a Time magazine article this week, the University of Pennsylvania has a bathroom lined with plaques noting, “This relief you are experiencing is made possible by a gift from Michael Zinman.”
I have no idea why Mr. Zinman would want this type of recognition but I find it even more curious that universities would stoop so low. This country went through the great depression in the 1930s without resorting to bathroom stall naming rights. I wonder how long it would have taken back then for a university board of trustees to dismiss a university president for suggesting such an outrageous idea. An hour I’ll bet.
Regardless, it won’t be long now before the floodgates are open. Everything we see and touch will come with naming rights, individualized too, like urinals. Here are my predictions for future naming rights deals. Remember you heard it first here.
Federal Government buildings. With the deficit crisis seemingly unsolvable, naming rights seems like a natural solution. Picture the Statue of Liberty with a Nilla Wafer instead of a torch. Of course the wafer would light up at night for all to see. Imagine if you will what the Ford Motor company could do with the Lincoln Memorial. Of course they’ll have to get rights secured before Lincoln National Life Insurance gets wind of the opportunity. And then there’s our United States Capitol, home of our Congress. The very thought of the largest lobbying firms bidding for the naming rights to that plum is thrilling. We could cut the deficit in half.
The U.S. Postal Service, another financially troubled agency is certainly a fantastic naming rights opportunity. Think NASCAR without the speed. Postal workers will one day wear uniforms adorned with ads for fried chicken, cereal, and software just to name a few. And postal delivery trucks are another potential boon to advertisers. Considering the steady drop in snail mail, the trucks will soon be smaller. New vehicle designs will be smaller mimicking race cars we see whipping around Talladega, Pocono and Darlington; loaded with ads for everything from M&Ms to GoDaddy.com.
On a more personal level, individuals should be able to get in on the act too. This is America right? Some people already put ads on their cars but once we get more comfortable with the concept and advertisers get even more aggressive than they are now, we are looking at a cradle to grave opportunity. How about offering naming rights for your baby? “Big Mac Jonathan Smolinski” has a ring to it for example. And, when our lives are over, there is plenty of space on our caskets. Imagine being able to defray the cost of your funeral by selling naming rights to your coffin. Don’t expect too much though. People will only view it for a day or two. “Say it with flowers” might be a good choice.

Copyright 2012, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.