I just recently finished re-reading (well, listening actually) to the audiobook of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land which is a book I have alternatively loved, loathed, and loved again over the years since I first read it.
(The emotional change is because I have changed as a person. There was a time in my life I thought it was sentimental nonsense. That time is long past. I'm still not thrilled with how the book handles homosexuality, which is to sweep it under the rug. I do like what it has to say about polyamory, sex positivity, and a liberal mindset though.)
The book is about many things, but chiefly, it's about a human being who is born on Mars, and comes to earth as a stranger, to learn about our world as an immigrant. He is human, but he doesn't know what it means to be human. Although the book starts on Mars, it's really a book about Earth.
Humans living on or being born on Mars are just so much science fiction, right?
Nope.
That's not a scene from a movie. It's what was on the news when I got off my train yesterday. It's real.
24 people are going to go colonize Mars.
This boggles my mind. It's not like Heinlein's book, either. There's no return trip. This is a one-way trip. Apparently they leave in 2024, just nine years from now. That sounds like a long time, but it isn't. I'm thrilled this is real. I can't believe I'm alive to see this happen.