animal photographer on Mars

animal photographer on Mars

fiction
edward w pritchard


There is a lot of down time for an animal photographer on Mars. To date no one has found any evidence on Mars of any life form that wasn't transported here from Earth.

My dream is to make high quality original movies about Animals. Even though there is no indigenous life on Mars I came to Mars to work for the US government as an animal photographer GS 16 science botany division US space agency. I stay three years to pay off my student loans back from my expensive graduate education on Earth.

Early on it was exciting to race to a construction site with my cameras at the call of alarm of possible indigenous life discovery in some out of the way building site in a dark corner of a red streak or Tharsic bulge. Now, after forty three null encounters with possible new life forms some of the excitement is gone from racing around in a Rover loaded with delicate expensive photography equipment that as photography Science officer I am responsible for.

How I long to return to the billions of species back on Earth with my cameras.

 There is a lot of down time for an animal photographer on Mars and during my stay here to date I have spent a lot of my free time thinking of the sanctity of the implication that no life has been found to date anywhere or anyplace but on Earth. To me the implications about the Why of life is much more fascinating than those of the wheres and the whens of Life's origins.

Winona Three Wolves
US Science officer
Mars station 3
day 558