Post #153 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

In my last post I told you that lots of people wanted to go to Mars on the Mars One project so they’d be famous and they’d be helping the world create a better future. Sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it? Well here’s an example where accomplishing the same results wouldn’t be so hot.

How’d you like to be super famous all over the world and be on TV over and over and over for almost four months? Almost everybody would know your name and be talking about you. “What could be wrong with that?” you ask. Well, it didn’t turn out so well for Barney Clark.

The year was 1982. The guy on the left in this picture below was named Barney Clark and he was the first person in the world to have an artificial heart.
(I found this picture at the cedmagic.com website.) It was a really big event for medicine. A human getting an artificial heart for the first time in history! He was hopefully going to get better and live a productive life. (He was 61 when the operation happened.) But things didn’t turn out that way for Barney Clark. Sure, he was famous, on TV all the time, and all that stuff, but the artificial heart didn’t work so well for him and there were all sorts of complications. In fact, Mr. Clark suffered badly during the experience.

Barney Clark lasted 112 days on that machine. He never got out of the hospital again. He died. It was a very sad story and I feel bad for that poor man. (My granddad told me that story after he read my last post. He had me look up the info on Wikipedia.)

To be fair, Mr. Clark didn’t have a whole bunch of choices. He had been sick for a long time and the artificial heart was probably his only chance. Also he didn’t ask to be famous, but that’s what happened.

But, like I said, when it comes to new untested science, couldn’t similar things happen to those people on that Mars One mission? They want to be famous. Well, they’ll get that. But the science will be mostly new. And untested. Unlike Barney Clark, Mars One astronauts DO have other choices. Like not signing up! Think about it, people!

Just trying to help, as usual.
From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

P.S. And please say a prayer for Mr. Barney Clark. It was not easy for him or his family.