Yesterday I saw Elon catch a Starship rocket mid-air, life on Mars seems closer every day, so I spent exactly six seconds thinking about living there before realising I'd need full access to the airlock system in case I need to jettison someone the fuck out. "accidents” will happen. It's only a matter of time until someone brings out the acoustic guitar and leaves me no choice but to “show them something” in the airlock bay.

A Martian sol (a day) is 24 hours and 39 minutes long. By minute 5 of that extra time, I'd be calculating the exact atmospheric pressure needed to make a vacuum seal malfunction look natural. Minute 10: contemplating how many witnesses would be too many. Minute 15: wondering if they'd even bother with a formal investigation, given the cost of shipping a forensics team from Earth, you know how it is.

The recruitment ads won’t ever mention how sound travels in a pressurized habitat. Every whispered complaint, every passive-aggressive sigh, every wet mouth sound amplified by metal walls and recycled air. (Fuck, just thinking about it makes me want to punch something right now.) Someone's going to hog the aux cable and force us to listen to shoegaze all day, torture. And there's always that one person who thinks communal spaces are for FaceTiming with their noisy aunt, delays and all.

I catch myself designing these elaborate habitat protocols in my head. Rule one: noise pollution is a capital offence. Rule two: personal space extends to the exact molecular limit of your assigned quarters. Rule three: anyone caught eating with their mouth open gets volunteered for the next high-risk surface mission.

They screen potential colonists for everything except the things that matter the most. Sure, test my physical endurance and technical skills. But what about the psychological evaluation for people who don't pick up after themselves? Picky eating? or music tastes?

My breaking point wouldn't be the isolation or the constant danger. It would be day 3 when someone leaves their dirty dishes in the hydroponic bay again. Or hour 13 of listening to that one mouth breather during the night cycle. In the close quarters of a Mars habitat, every small annoyance becomes an extinction-level event.

I'd start reasonably enough. Passive-aggressive notes here and there. Strongly worded suggestions about personal hygiene in low-gravity environments. But inevitably, I’ll end up ketching elaborate schematics and assassination ideas in my mission logs and scribbling “All work, no play, makes Rod a dull boy.”. The space madness would be death by a thousand tiny irritations, each one meticulously documented in my manifesto titled “Why Mars Should be a Dictatorship."

The psychological studies talk about isolation, confinement, and the stress of living in an alien environment. Nobody researches the breaking point for humans subjected to someone who keeps saying "literally" every three words, or that person who thinks group meditation sessions should be mandatory. These are the real challenges of Mars colonization—not the technical problems of keeping humans alive, but keeping them from killing each other.

In a Mars habitat, everyone hears everything. Every cough, every sniffle, every YouTube video played at full volume because someone forgot their Airpods back on Earth (first one to be ejected by the way). The real miracle of space exploration won't be getting to Mars—it'll be lasting a full year without attempting to “ship” anyone outside.

For now, I'll stay on Earth, where I can walk away from annoying situations without needing a pressure suit. Where my pet peeves don't have to be negotiated in triplicate with Mars HR. Where I can appreciate the luxury of enough personal space to avoid becoming the subject of future Mars colony crime documentaries.

But I do have notes for future colonization efforts. Extensive notes. A whole manifesto of them, actually, primarily focused on noise control protocols and the proper use of headphones. Just in case anyone's planning a Mars mission and wants to avoid their crew slowly descending into a Kubrick-esque psychological thriller. And really, you might think that you can live on Mars, but you can’t I swear, I know it to be true.

Top 10 Mars Pet Peeves Ranked by the AJJL score (Airlock Jettisoning Justification Level):

1. The Noise Polluter: Zero concept of sound etiquette in confined spaces. Their existence is just... loud. The breathing, the eating, the existing. In a pressurized can, there's no escape from their audio terrorism you’re dead, sorry.

2. The Aux Cord Criminal: Has terrible music taste and won't surrender control of the playlist. Currently on their 47th replay of Bowies "Life On Mars?" while we wait 20 minutes for Earth to receive our distress signal. Gone.

3. The No Headphones Energy: Blasts their video messages from home at full volume in common areas. We don't need to hear how your Gam-Gam’s pelvic floor is so loose it has to pick a pant leg.

4. The Personal Space Violator: Doesn't understand that being trapped together doesn't mean we need to be togethertogether. No, we don't need another "mandatory group bonding session." GTFO.

5. The Common Area Colonizer: Treats shared spaces like their personal pod. Their stuff is everywhere. Their presence is everywhere. They're just... everywhere.

6. The Early Morning Twitcher: Makes those little repetitive movements that are barely noticeable on Earth but become psychological warfare by week three in confined spaces.

7. The Ugly Voice Haver: Not their fault, but after four months in close quarters, their particular vocal frequency has become physically painful, step into the airlock mam.

8. The "Can't Pick Up After Themselves" Culprit: Leaves their stuff floating around in 38% gravity like orbital landmines. Bonus rage points if it's nail clippings.

9. The Picky Eater: Makes faces at the meal options. Sorry the Martian-grown lettuce is “too mushy” for you, maybe there’s better lettuce outside.

10. The Clean Freak: Actually, no, scratch that. On Mars, they might be the only thing standing between us and certain death by contamination. They can stay.