Nina In New York: Does This Taxi Make Pickups In The Outer Galaxies?

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

A bit of good news amid the bad: plans to commence voluntary evacuation of the planet Earth are already underway.

Many of us have known it's been a long time coming, and the threats are closing in. People are deliberately re-activating diseases that have already done been cured. The globe is melting, Iceland is rising ever closer to the sun, and with every passing year we experience a weather event of which no one has seen the likes in a century. Everyone is shooting everyone and the Internet is ruined and "freegan" made it into the dictionary. George Clooney got married, for gosh sakes! Come on, guys. Let's go while they getting is good. Let's blow this popsicle stand. This place is dead anyway. No pun intended, because that's pretty dark.

I should back up and clarify that I have no actual knowledge of any official plans for planetary evacuation, but I can connect the dots as well as anyone.

Dot 1: Space taxis. Sounds like something out of Star Wars fan fiction, but it's real. NASA's proposed new budget includes $1.24 billion earmarked for developing a commercial space taxi program with two private companies. Granted, the intergalactic hacks are meant for shuttling employees to and from the International Space Station. But this is just the beginning! Of course that's how they'd start. In ten, maybe even five years, you could be Ubering your very own purple space cab to Neptune. Where you work in a sprocket factory. Duh.

Dot 2: Seriously, Neptune is it. Mars is so last light year. New research out of the University of Washington suggests that planets like Neptune, located in outer solar systems, could be made habitable for humans. Due to orbiting relatively weak, small stars, these little exoplanets mimic certain properties of Earth that, according to the study, make them candidates for future residency. Sure, right now they're filled with deadly gases and they're freezing cold and positively dreary, but think of the potential. Try to use your imagination, picture them all fixed up with some nice new tile, granite countertops and a coat of paint. A little de-fumigating, some seagrass planters and a killer water feature. Don't underestimate the power of an accent wall and some well-placed antique urns! Listen, when you see this puppy on Property Brothers, don't say I didn't try to give you the inside track.

So, okay. I have two dots. But they connect so clearly! Humanity has come so far in the realm of scientific knowledge and space exploration. We're right on the brink! Soon there will be self-driving spaceships that will hop us over to Uranus for a little luxury shopping, although you'll still have to talk fast to convince them to take you to Brooklyn. Soon we'll have a SpaceDisney, free of measles and smallpox and whatever else is about to befall our theme parks. Soon we'll get a clean start on a dusty old planet that just needed a little TLC. I'm not saying we can create a new utopia and leave all of our problems behind. There will be obstacles to face—the space chipmunks alone will prove a daunting foe—and people will be people wherever they reside. But it sure seems worth a shot. See you on the other side, folks.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!