"I don't know why you're on Mars. Maybe you're there because we recognize we have to carefully move small asteroids around to avert the possibility of one impacting the Earth with catastrophic consequences, and while we're up in near-Earth space, it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to Mars. Or maybe we're on Mars because we recognize that if there are human communities on many different worlds, the chances of us being rendered extinct by some catastrophe on one world is much less. Or maybe we're on Mars because of the magnificent science that can be done there, that the gates of the wonder world are opening in our time. Or maybe we're on Mars because we have to be, because there's a deep nomadic impulse built into us by the evolutionary process. We come, after all, from hunter-gatherers, and for 99.9% of our tenure on Earth we've been wanderers. And, the next place to wander to is Mars. But whatever the reason you're on Mars is, I'm glad you're there. And I wish I was with you."