June 28, 2003



Gearing up For Mars Day

Found this on website of the Planetary Society.

On August 27, the planet Mars will be closer to Earth than it has been in more than 50,000 years. The planetary event will enable the public, space enthusiasts and astronomers to view greater detail on a planet that is increasingly seen as humankind's next giant leap.

To celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime event, The Planetary Society will mark this occasion with special events around the world, including an 83rd birthday party for a man whose name is now synonymous with the Red Planet - Ray Bradbury, author of the famous The Martian Chronicles. Bradbury's birthday comes the same week as this historic Mars opposition.

I think a celebration is definitely in order. Bradbury is huge, and the idea of tying this thing into his birthday is a good one. Moreover, this strikes me as a good opportunity to look back on more than 125 years of Mars as a part of the popular consciousness. A partial list (not necessarily in the correct chronoligcal order, but pretty close):

  • Giovanni Schiaparelli and his canali
  • The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  • The John Carter novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Percivel Lowell and the "canals" of Mars
  • Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast
  • The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
  • Mariner 4
  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
  • Mariners 6, 7, and 9
  • Viking 1 and 2
  • Pathfinder
  • Mars Attacks!
  • Surveyor
  • Discovery of possible ancient Martian fossils in Antarctic meteorite
  • Mars Rovers

Again, this is just a partial list. I didn't even count the Russian missions, and I'm sure I skipped over some major cultural milestones. The planet Mars--125 years of dreaming and working ever closer to realize our dreams. That's definitely worth celebrating.

Posted by Phil at June 28, 2003 11:22 AM
Comments

Oh man, this is wonderful. I'm going to link this some time this week.

Posted by: Dean Esmay at July 9, 2003 05:27 AM

In windoze I'm getting some horizontal line drop-outs in your text.

FYI

good piece. Got to you through Dean Esmay, up above.

Posted by: BigD at July 10, 2003 04:15 PM

August 27th is the NEW MOON as well, so in essence...the old Biblical prophecies in the Book of Revelation which predicted that the "moon turned to blood", could very well mean Mars because it's so close. I know that its hard to confuse Mars with the Moon....but I'm just getting all the angles out there.

And with prophecy, you never know!

Posted by: Rio Zahra at August 9, 2003 12:05 PM