An Ohioan named Pritchard approaches the rocket field of the Third Expedition on the day of its launch and informs the guards that as a taxpayer he has a right to go to Mars. He estimates that in two years the world will be consumed by atomic war and claims that he and thousands like him want to be on Mars when that happens. He states their aims would be to “get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription and government control of this and that, of art and science” (40).

The guards laugh at Pritchard and mention the failure of the first two expeditions, but Pritchard is unbothered, choosing to believe the two men had found paradise on Mars and “just never bothered to come back” (40). When the members of the Third Expedition cross the field, Pritchard calls out to them, demanding to be taken along and the guards subdue him. He is placed in a police wagon and driven away. He watches the rocket launch through the back window of the car, left behind “on an ordinary Monday morning on the ordinary planet Earth” (41).