 Who is the 'dope' on Mars?
THE DOPE on Mars By JACK SHARKEY Somebody had to get the human angle on this trip ... but what was humane about sending me? Illustrated by WOOD My agent was the one who got me the job of going along to write up the first trip to Mars. So I went on the first trip to Mars. Trip time is supposed to take 260 days (that's one way), so we're aimed toward where Mars will be (had better be, or else). A pilot, co-pilot, navigator and biochemist. He keeps bent low over a welded-to-the-wall (they call it the bulkhead, for some reason or other) table, scratching away with a ballpoint pen on the maps, and now and then calling numbers over a microphone to the pilot. The inertial gravities didn't bother me so much as the gyroscopic spin they put on the ship so we have a sort of artificial gravity to hold us against the curved floor. Jones (I still haven't learned his first name) has been up with the pilot all day. He passed my room on the way to the galley (the kitchen) for a cup of dark brown coffee (they like it thick) and told me that we were almost past the Moon. He is kind of squat, with a vulturish neck and close-set jet-black eyes that make him look rather mean, but he was pleasant enough, and said I could call him Pat. I still don't know Jones' first name, though Pat spoke to him, and it sounded like Flants. Also, I am one of the first five men in the history of the world to see the opposite side of the Moon, with a bluish blurred crescent beyond it that Pat said was the Earth. The back of the Moon isn't much different from the front. Actually, he explained to me, the screen is supposed to keep the image of space locked into place no matter how much we spin. I told him I hoped it didn't mean we'd land on Mars upside down. With Martian rime, Venusian slime, And a radioactive hoe. June 18, 1961 Mars has the whole screen filled. No sign of canals, but Pat says that's because of the dust storm down below. Kroger says the air is breathable, but thin, and it has too much dust in it to be any fun to inhale. He's all for going out and looking for lichen, but Pat says he's got to set up camp, then get instructions from Earth.
 The narrator
 Kroger, the biochemist  Jones, the co-pilot  The narrator  Desmond, the pilot