Mars just not exciting

Just about anyone with a TV set watched the first Apollo moon landing, but by Apollo 16 the public were growing tired of the spectacle and it has even been said that the Networks received complaints that reruns of I Love Lucy were been pre-empted to make way for live pictures from the moon. Now in a new survey of American youth, NASA faces the glum prospect that even before it has begun the return to the moon and plans to put a man on Mars, the younger generation feels apathy toward the missions.

The problem is more acute than you might think, since teens and twenty-somethings are the ones who in later years will be digging deep for the tax dollars to pay for these programs, especially projects that may stretch for decades at a time. NASA therefore faces a serious challenge here on earth to enthuse a new generation with the spirit of exploration. Unfortunately we’ve not had an orator of Kennedy’s standing for many years – the way Bush junior has talked about the space program has made it seem about as exiting as a tax audit, so the prospects do not seem good.

A recent workshop attended by some 80 NASA personal involved in public relations focused on the Internet as a particularly strong way of getting out the message. NASA has of course already enjoyed some success with online projects. Its Mars mission websites have received very strong levels of traffic; the Pathfinder web site received 40 million hits in a single day when the first images were beamed back of the plucky little rover on the Martian surface. Equally, when it was announced that signs of life had been detected in a Martian meteorite, President Clinton felt it important enough to comment and the story made headlines across the planet. Unfortunately these were both very much flashes in the pan. One has to wonder, even if a flying saucer touched down on the Whitehouse lawn, if in this age of soundbites and rolling news, the story would be more than a seven day wonder. The real challenge is not getting people excited, because clearly there is a latent interest for big space stories, but maintaining the commitment of the public over the dull stretches of time between the news-worthy moments. For instance, how many people give any thought to the present space program – how many even know that there is a permanent presence in space aboard the International Space Station? Were it to spring a leak and they all died horribly in orbit, it would make news, but the daily grind of routine aboard the station is hardly of interest to CNN.

NASA talks of recruiting movie stars to promote their activities, but then mentions Patrick Stewart and David Duchovny as potential partners. Well sorry David, but you are hardly a man in the public eye since the demise of The X Files, and equally, you’re both predominantly associated with science fiction. You’re simply going to be preaching to the converted. Better to ship Renee Zellweger up to the station for a week long stay. There has been some serious sounding talk of Madonna making the trip, but the Russian Duma voted the proposal down. That was actually a great shame and rather short sighted. If as reported Madonna really is keen to make the trip, then NASA might want to consider putting some pressure on their Russian partners, or flying the material girl themselves aboard a shuttle. Sure, it’s all horribly contrived and serious scientists would be horrified at the waste of time and effort, but imagine the publicity.

Something else that really needs addressing is the underlying reasons for going into space. There is a lot of talk about manufacturing in space and developing new technology that can be applied to consumer and industrial products, but such innovations have been slow in coming. Perhaps the biggest push should be made to show the Moon and Mars as potential lifeboats for the human race. Stephen Hawking made just such a case earlier in the year, and again we got that brief spike of interest, but who remembers it now? NASA could even push the high frontier metaphor. America is a country of immigrants, so what better way to promote space than as a new frontier to be conquered. I don’t look forward to the first MacDonalds on Mars, but it’s a price worth paying for the survival of the human race.

Belgium gets a fright

In a program acknowledged to have been influenced by the Orson Welles radio broadcast of The War Of The Worlds, a fake news program in Belgium saw 30,000 concerned viewers jam switchboards. But this was no alien invasion, rather it was a salient demonstration of just how easy it is to tap into local concerns and bypass the normal common sense of viewers. Belgium is a country roughly divided between the Dutch-speaking Flemings of the north and the French-speaking Walloons of the south, and recent tensions between the two groups have led to constitutional amendments granting some formal recognition and autonomy to the regions. On Wednesday the 15th of December, viewers tuning into Belgium State Television were astounded to be told that the Flemish parliament had voted for Flanders' secession from the Kingdom of Belgium. The broadcast utilised real news reporters and fake outside broadcasts of jubilant crowds, and even prominent politicians took part. Such was the concern of viewers that the stations website was crashed under the strain. Television journalist Philippe Dutilleul had planned the program for two years, and has received mixed reactions to the broadcast. Flemish nationalists naturally applauded the resulting upset, but the president of Wallonia has called the TV event an "unacceptable" breach of journalistic ethics. Jean-Paul Philippot, the chief administrator of Belgian state television was called in to the responsible ministry to explain himself and receive a roasting. Perhaps the most interesting thing to consider is that despite the vast range of alternative news sources available to viewers (other channels and the Internet), many still apparently took the broadcast at face value, and were genuinely concerned. It makes you wonder what would happen if a big broadcaster did something similar with terrorism. Time magazine has a detailed piece further explaining the tensions that exist between the two regions.

Google Mars to get upgrade

Google has already had running for some time a limited Martian version of their hugely popular Google Maps for Earth, allowing users to look at various features on the Martian surface and to pinpoint the locations of landers. In an agreement announced today with NASA, Google is to enhance this service significantly, allowing in due course for users to view high-resolution 3-D maps of Mars (and the Moon.) The collaboration is a growing one, with Google funding a NASA research center in Silicon Valley and using their search and indexing technology to unify and make easily accessible the vast amount of data held by NASA. Other aspects of the deal will allow real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle from home PCs. Read more at BBC news.

Martians have invaded already say scientists

In a controversial paper by a Russian-American team of researchers, it is has been claimed that incredibly hardy microbes with an extreme resistance to high levels of radiation may have evolved on Mars. The argument goes that at no time in the Earths history has there been an evolutionary need for such extreme resistance, which is rated at several thousand times the lethal doze for a human being. It has already been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that some meteorites found on Earth had originated on Mars (they were themselves likely blasted from the Martian surface during cataclysmic meteor impacts) and given that the evidence for water on Mars keeps coming on thick and fast, it is not a great leap to imagine some of these super bugs surviving the trip to Earth. Deinococcus radiodurans is one such microbe, and in honour of its toughness, has been nicknamed "Conan the bacterium" by microbiologists. But not all scientists agree with the theory, with a counter argument raised that the radiation hardiness is simply a side effect of the microbes developing a resistance to dehydration. The BBC News site has more on this story.

War Of The Worlds comic may be revived

Back in 1996, writer Randy Zimmerman worked on a comic book mini series called The Haven And The Hellweed, which took a hard look at the realities of a modern day Earth under attack by Martians, and just how harrowing and difficult any kind of resistance would have to be. The story was continued in an intriguing sequel called The Memphis Front, but this was cancelled after only 2 issues when the publisher ran into trouble. Yet despite the long hiatus, Randy has not given up on his cherished story and while nothing has yet been formalised, there is a possibility that the first series may be reprinted, and the Memphis Front finally finished. Speaking to this website, Randy had this to say. “I've always wanted to at least finish The Memphis Front because is IS such a great, tight, story. At present I haven't worked on it in over a year, but issues 3&4 are pencilled and scripted (#3 needs to have the inks finished, while 4 needs to be lettered and inked), and #5 is plotted (or course- it's the climax of the story), but hasn't been touched since I finished typing the plot many moons ago. The WOTW stories are still very close to my heart and I do consider it to be some of my very best writing to date. There were also more stories planned - the next arc I would have done would have covered Detroit (it would cover a wider span of time as we followed the same character living in Detroit for almost the whole duration of the war), and I had another writer that was supposed to cover the invasion of Chicago (which would have taken place before Memphis), but he never took it past the plotting stage.”

There have been several other attempts to expand on The War Of The Worlds by speculating on the impact of a second invasion, most famously in the 1970’s Killraven series. Just this year, Boom Studios unleashed their Second Wave series, but neither this nor Killraven came quite as close as did The Haven And The Hellweed to capitalising on the full storytelling potential of the idea, so there is definitely cause for guarded optimism that Randy might get to at least finish The Memphis Front. Who knows, perhaps we might even get to see those Detroit and Chicago stories. It’s a franchise that could run and run. The London Front, anyone?

Martians could invade Earth

A leading British scientist has warned that plans to bring back material from Mars could imperil the Earth should people come into contact with Martian microbes. Dr John Murray, a scientist connected with Europe’s Mars Express mission reportedly believes that life is to be found on Mars, but he thinks it likely that it will be discovered in a dormant state, frozen in ancient Martian ice deposits. Murray has been leading a team at the Open University in the city of Milton Keynes who have been examining fractured features on the Martian surface that are akin to ice formations on Earth. If this is the case, it may indicate the existence of a submerged sea, 800 to 900 kilometres in size and with an average depth of 45 meters. Since the sea will date back to a much earlier era in Martian history, any primitive life that may have existed will be frozen in time. Murray is proposing a two-stage mission to validate his hypothesis, the first a probe to smash into the ice and blast out a crater, the second to land and revive any slumbering microbes. But Murray is cautious about the prospect of bringing anything living back from Mars. H.G. Wells imagined Martian invaders dying of common earthly diseases, Ray Bradbury sent colonists to Mars who infected and wiped out a Martian civilisation, but to bring Martian microbes to Earth may well prove equally cataclysmic, should one of them prove to be a virulent pathogen to which we have no natural immunity.

There she blows! Water on Mars

In what may prove one of the most important scientific announcements in history, NASA has reported strong evidence that free flowing water has been spotted on Mars. The pictures that seem to clinch one of the longest running debates in space science have come from the now defunct orbiting Mars Global Surveyor, which recently ceased communicating with Earth. An image snapped in December 2001 of the Terra Sirenum region when compared with another taken in April 2005 seems to show a clear fresh deposit of material that has the distinctive look of water action. Close examination of the pictures even shows that the water (if indeed it was) has flowed around obstacles. Similar evidence is also seen in images snapped of the Centauri Montes region. The volume of water is likely to be small, in the region says NASA's Michael Meyer of five to ten swimming pools and the water would literally boil as it erupted from the ground. "You've heard of the smoking gun" says Meyer, "well this is the spurting gun." Of course, the pregnant implication of this discovery is that where there is water, there is quite likely life. To view the amazing pictures, visit the Mars Global Surveyor website.

More landers spotted on Mars

Further extraordinary images have arrived from Mars that show not only the presently operating Spirit rover (Opportunity was photographed several months ago) but the Viking landers as well. Shot from the orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the image of the Viking 1 lander also shows the discarded spacecraft shell lying some 260 meters from the lander and most amazingly, what may well be its parachute. It is planned to use the MRO to photograph other past landers in the coming months, some successful, some not. Next in line is likely to be the plucky little Mars Pathfinder, which paved the way for the highly successful Spirit and Opportunity, and of course it almost goes without saying that efforts will be made to find the resting place of the ill-fated UK mission, Beagle 2. Other lost probes that will be searched for are Nasa's Mars Polar Lander, and the Soviet craft Mars 2, Mars 3 and Mars 6. You can view the latest pictures here.

Superb new images from Mars

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is well into the science phase of its mission, using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)camera to return images of unprecedented detail, down to as close as 1 meter resolutions. Aside from the wealth of scientific information to be returned, a recent image has spotted the impact point of the Opportunity rover, with the remains of the heatshield and parachute also spotted nearby. Over the next couple of weeks, the camera will be looking for "all the easy-to-find hardware on Mars," says Professor Alfred S. McEwen of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. That includes NASA's rover Spirit, the Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, and Mars Pathfinder. You can see the Opportunity image here or see all images here. The team intends to release new images every Wednesday.

War Of The Worlds song

Sorry, but that headline is a bit of a misnomer. This is not a song about Martian invaders (wouldn't that would be fun) but a mellow little number about a relationship going to the dogs. Written and sung by the bizarrely named "Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly" (a name apparently cribbed from a computer magazine headline), the person lurking behind the name (which has a little bit of a science fiction flavour itself) is 20 year old Sam Duckworth, another of the new breed of musicians who have forged a presence online with the likes of Myspace. His first album 'The Chronicles Of A Bohemian Teenager' is making ripples with music critics, and while I certainly don't count myself as one, so can't judge one way or another as to the musical qualities of the song, his War Of The Worlds song is to my untrained ear a pleasant enough listen. Of course I'm slightly biased by that song title. Decide for yourself by listening at the Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly website.

Rosetta probe prepares for Mars flyby

Mission controllers for the European comet interception mission Rosetta are preparing the probe for a gravity assist flyby of Mars this February. The 3 ton probe is scheduled to meet comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, but requires 4 gravity assists along the way, sling-shotting around planets to gain speed. Rosetta has already completed one such manoeuvre around the Earth in 2005. The flyby will not however just be providing a push in the right direction from Mars. The probes instruments are being warmed up in preparation, and it will use its imaging system and imaging spectrometers to gather data about the surface and atmosphere of Mars and its chemical composition. It will also collect data about the atmosphere's interaction with the solar wind and the Martian radiation environment. Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars, will also be imaged. For a full report, go to the ESA webpage.

Scena Theatre stages War Of The Worlds

The Washington based Scene Theatre is to stage their own version of The War Of The Worlds radio broadcast this December. The play will be using the original script by Howard Koch, with the action primarily seen from the perspective of the actors in the studio, but listener reactions will also be inserted into the story, overlapping with the events in the studio. The story begins with the actors milling about in the studio preparing their lines, and will including authentic moments such as the actor playing the role of an unnamed secretary of the interior imitating the distinctive tones of President Roosevelt. This was a devious way in which Welles sidestepped the censor, who had insisted that the originally scripted role of the President would have to be removed.

Reviews are invited from anyone who attends this play. More details about the Scene Theatre at their website.

Dates: December 2 through January 14, Thurday – Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 3pm

PWYC previews: Saturday, December 2 at 7:30pm and Sunday, December 3 at 3pm

Venue: DC Arts Center (DCAC), 2438 18th Street NW,Washington DC (note: venue different from that of recent Scena Theatre productions).

Ticket prices: $25 - $32 ($5 discount to students and seniors)

Box office: Click here to buy tickets online or call 703-683-2824

Artistic Team: Robert McNamara (Director), AJ Guban (Set Design), Marianne Meadows (Lighting Design), David Crandall (Sound Design), Zoe Cowan (Costume Design), Melissa Narvaez (Properties Design)

Cast: with: Joe Baker, Dan Brick, Kathryn Cocroft, Kim Curtis, John Geoffrian, Elizabeth Jernigan, Michael McDonnell, Ellie Nicole, Karen Novack, Sasha Olinick, Lee Ordeman, John Tweel, Alex Zasatavovich

A photo from rehearsals can be found here.

Hopes fade for Mars Global Surveyor

NASA is not giving up just yet, but after 10 days of increasingly ominous silence from the 10 year old Mars orbiting space probe, it looks like curtains. Launched on November 7, 1996, the mission was intended to last two years, but like the incredible longevity of the Spirit and Opporunity rovers, the probe surprised mission controllers by lasting long past its warranty. In the process, it took a staggering 240,000 pictures of the surface, but aftern receiving a signal indicating there were problems with a solar panel, the probe fell silent. NASA had hoped to catch a glimpse of the surveyor on Monday might from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but nothing was seen. Hopes are now being pinned on an effort to instruct Mars Global Surveyor to send a single to one of the rovers below, asking it to switch on a beacon. If the beacon switches on, then this will provide a chance for mission controllers to pinpoint the location of the wayward probe.

Mars Flyer gets wind tunnel test

One of the most exciting prospects for exploration of Mars is the idea of sending an automated aircraft, which could clearly cover great distances and return unprecedented detail of the surface. The newest design to enter the testing stage rejoices in the wonderful name of the Mars Advanced Technology Airplane for Deployment, Operations, and Recovery, or to shorten it to its acronym, MATADOR. Not surprisingly given that brain bender of a name, this is a military funded project; don't the military just love their acronyms? However, don't be disappointed to learn that it is apparently unarmed, unless of course they know something we don't and we're preparing to declare war on Mars. The project is run out of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a name synonymous with murky stories of crashed UFOs and stored alien bodies. Tests of the winged design were conduced recently in a vertical wind tunnel. The plane has a folded wing design, which means it would deploy with the wings folded, and then unfurl them deep in the atmosphere. There are plans to do more testing in the future, including the possibility of sending the plane aloft with a balloon. You can find more at the AFRL (there's another acronyn) web site.

Excellent new science fiction documentary debuts on BBC4

Produced as the centrepiece of a week long stream of programs celebrating the importance of British science fiction, part one of this ambitious documentary series lends the subject all the gravitas you would expect of a BBC production, delving deep into the origins of modern science fiction and specifically the vital role played by H.G. Wells in the creation of several key tropes of the genre. Contributions come from a galaxy of star names; many of them revered as royalty in science fiction circles. Brian Aldis, Arthur C Clarke and Nigel Kneale (who we tragically lost just a few weeks ago) lend weighty and authoritative opinion as representatives of the generation of writers closest to Wells, while up and coming talents like China Melville, Stephen Baxter and Brian Stableford signal their own debt to a writer whose ideas are still being liberally borrowed from today.

The core focus of "From Apes To Aliens" is the vexed question of evolution; an idea that the program argues persuasively has always been a key component of British science fiction. Of course Wells himself returned to the theme several times in his novels, first in The Time Machine and again in The War Of The Worlds, though surprisingly the program makes no mention of the fact that he was tutored by T H Huxley, the greatest evolutionary proponent of the day (he was known as Darwin’s Bulldog) and surely therefore a huge and important influence.

The program makes use of archive footage and modern day interviews with writers and scientists, as well as occasional dramatic sequences. These recount key moments in Wells’ life and scenes from his books, though interestingly and quite effectively, the writer and his characters are here presented as essentially one and the same, thus Wells is seen not only writing his books, but constructing his Time Machine and exploring the underground caverns of the Morlocs. This seems a perfectly reasonable dramatic device given that Wells certainly interjected some autobiographical material into his novels. As an interesting aside, it’s not the first time this has been done, most successfully in the superb Nicholas Meyer directed movie Time After Time.

Given that this program is part of a retrospective season of British science fiction, it not unnaturally plunders the BBC archives for causal connections with Wells, and so there is no great surprise that Doctor Who is presented as an important antecedent. The insightful point is made that the time travelling doctor (as first presented to the British public by William Hartnell) was played very much as if he were a Victorian or Edwardian gentleman, and his Tardis was full of the sort of old clutter and bric-a-brac that you might find in an English home of those periods. As critic Kim Newman observes, the Time Traveller of H.G. Wells was dressed in the attire of his time, so it made sense for the Doctor to be dressed in the same way, rather than the modern uniforms of Star Trek. It is also worth remembering that the very first voyage of the Doctor was to the far past and a meeting with cavemen that evoked memories of Wells’ bestial Morlocs.

Readers of this site will be pleased to learn that The War Of The Worlds is also afforded due deference, though an error is made in crediting Wells with the inspiration for the story. It is certainly true to say that the idea for the War Of The Worlds was suggested during a walk by Wells and his brother Frank, as attested to by H.G himself in his autobiography. Along the way, they were discussing the plight of the Tasmanian natives who were then facing the genocidal attentions of colonial invaders, but Brian Stableford suggests erroneously that it was H.G. Wells who offered the observation, “suppose some beings from another planet were to drop out of the sky suddenly?” It was in fact his brother who made this hugely salient observation, though of course H.G developed the idea and made such capital of it, using his story to smash the smug assumption that the British Empire was an unassailable power in the world.

It would have been nice to see a few more references to the incredible legacy of The War Of The Worlds, such as the Orson Welles radio broadcast, and you can’t help but smile when Doctor Who is once again trotted out for comparison, with the slightly more tenuous connection offered up between Wells’ Martians and the Daleks. The program leaves direct discussion of Wells at this point to look at the equally worthy work of Olaf Stapleton and then briefly touches on American influences. There is a quaint bit of Yank bashing here from Kim Newman, who gently chides the primitive early American television science fiction shows such as Captain Video, contrasting these with the much more polished and grown up BBC series Quatermass. Of course this is not to say that Quatermass does not deserve our wholehearted praise. The series had the British viewing public glued to their sofas every week and had palpable connections with The War Of The Worlds. The third series even focused on the discovery of a long buried Martian spacecraft beneath London.

The rest of the program works through several more of the greats of British science fiction, with welcome discussion of the work of Arthur C Clarke, with Clarke himself providing much in the way of comment. Of course pride of place is given to his magnum opus 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it is nice to see his less well-known (though I think equally good) Childhood’s End acknowledged as the prototype for that archetypal science fiction vision; as giant spacecraft hover over our cities in mute testimony to their overwhelming technological superiority. It is an idea since revisited many times on television and film, most notably in the excellent mini series V and of course, Independence Day, which (though not mentioned in the program) was of course an unacknowledged remake of The War Of The Worlds.

This first episode is an excellent series opener, full of detail and respect for the genre and I think one of the few times it has been treated with anything approaching the respect it deserves. The program does however end on a sad note, with a visibly upset Clarke lamenting the failure of science to emulate the great ideas of science fiction, notably in the lost promise of the Apollo moon program. Alas, as will be covered by the second program in the series, science fiction, and British science fiction in particular, has had far more predictive success with matters of an unsettling and depressing nature.

Martians And Us, From Apes to Aliens can be seen on BBC4 on Monday 13 November 2006 9pm-10pm; rpt Wednesday 15 November midnight-1am; rpt Sunday 19 November 12.50am-1.50am (Saturday night)

Science Fiction Britannia on the BBC

Starting this coming Monday (November 13th) on BBC 4 is a fasinating new season exploring the history of British science fiction. There promises to be a wide ranging selection of programming, including original documentaries and plenty of classic BBC science fiction. Highlights for readers of this site will be two documentaries. The three part The Martians And Us is the centrepiece of the season, the first part of which will be looking at how HG Wells captured man's fascination with evolution to father a new form of fiction. HG Wells And Me is a more general look at his life and work. There is also a welcome repeat for the excellent drama HG Wells: War With The World, which adapts his own autobiography. Plenty more details and clips at the Science Fiction Britannia website.

Orson Welles going to Mars and so can you!

The Orson Welles War Of The Worlds broadcast is going to Mars aboard the Phoenix spacecraft, due for landing in May 2007. A special DVD will contain the broadcast as well as a fantastic collection of material spanning centuries of human thought about the red planet. Works by top science fiction authors such as Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles) and Issac Asimov (I'm in Marsport Without Hilda) will be included on the DVD, as well as fantasy images of Mars. Not only this, but you too can have your name encoded on the disc, which may well be found by far future explorers (human, or otherwise.) It's a great idea, and the full list of material which can be found on the Planetary Society website (who are sponsoring the endeavour) reads like a veritable who’s who of science fiction, but includes some less well known material. I particularly love that H Beam Piper's superb Omnilingual is included, surely one of the best stories ever written about Mars.

I suspect Orson Welles would have been thoroughly amused to know his broadcast would one day make the trip to Mars, but what would H.G. Wells have made of the idea? I think he would have been a little bemused but rather pleased. In my opinion, it is no exaggeration to say that if not for the fascination Wells created in fictional mars-scapes, mission likes Phoenix would simply not be happening, so you can say that things have finally come full circle. That Wells' War Of The Worlds (though perplexingly, only an excerpt of the text) is to rest on Mars, is a truly inspiring thought.

Facing Facts

On the 25th of July 1976 the Viking One orbiter took what should have been another routine image of the surface, but in fact set in motion one of the best-loved and most intriguing conspiracy theories yet developed. The image was of the so-called "face on Mars", a feature that looked distinctly man (or should that be Martian) made. NASA scientists were in fact the first to make the light hearted observation that it looked like a face, but also were quick to point out that the "face" was simply the result of random chance. The orbiter was looking down on that particular spot in such a way that the sun caught a natural feature and amplified the rock formations into the now iconic features. But the image was just too darn alluring, and set in motion an enduring myth and a mini industry of believers who have since spent considerable energy searching the surface for new features, even after the face was pretty well debunked by subsequent images.

There are now entire websites devoted to finding new anomalies on both the surface of Mars and the Moon, and as the images flood in from Mars, there are rich pickings to be had and plenty of scope to accuse both NASA and the ESA of covering up (doctoring) images to hide what the amateur investigators say is plain and obvious evidence of a alien construction on our neighbouring worlds. It all sounds a little desperate and certainly I think they are seeing what they want to see, (I’ve looked at dozens of these images and just can’t see anything untoward) but I have a little private bet with myself that it might yet be one of these amateurs who spots something that the more strait laced scientific community might overlook or even dismiss.

I certainly don't think they've found anything yet, but look at how web communities (and especially Bloggers) have worked together in recent years to investigate where the media fear (or are too incompetent) to tread - the case in point being the fake documents purporting to show Bush in a bad light during his National Service days. That same energy is being applied to the search for proof of live out there, and it would be just wonderful if some guy (or gal) in their spare room made the big discovery. There are just so many images coming in from Mars at the moment that something might easily slip past the scientists, so watch this space. In the meantime, the ESA have re-imaged the face and produced a lovely and pretty damning 3D movie of the rock formation that started the whole thing off. You can see it on the ESA site.

1938 Radio Broadcast celebrated

Many groups and origansations have been celebrating the Orson Welles broadcast of The War Of The Worlds, which terrified many thousands of listeners on the Halloween night of October 30th, 1938. Two events of note come from West Windsor, where can of course be found the unassuming little hamlet of Grover's Mill, the original Martian beachhead as selected by Howard Koch, the writer of the 1938 broadcast. On Saturday the 8th, the David Sarnoff Library in Princeton NJ hosted a live re-enactment of the infamous radio broadcast. Rather brilliantly, the broadcast used original vintage radio microphones provided by the New Jersey Antique Radio Club. Tonight, the 30th of October, local artist Donna Clovis and students from High School North will present "Powers From Pluto", which is an updated version of the broadcast which features television and the internet as the conduit for terror. Anyone interested in tickets can find contact details here.

Other celebrations of note:

WTBQ 1110 AM hosted a live open to the public recording on the 28th.
Los Alamos Little Theater is presenting a stage version of the broadcast tonight (Oct 30th) and several other performances in the coming week.
Pauls Valley Arts Council is doing what sounds like a very interesting stage play, that not only re-enacts the broadcast, but tells the behind the scenes story as well. You can catch a performance tonight (the 30th) at the Pauls Valley High School, Oklahoma.

Mission To Mars

The Mars Society, an organisation whose stated aim is to further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet, is soon to announce the crew of seven that will depart in May 2007 for a simulated mission to Mars. The project, known as the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, is located in the high artic, on Devon Island, Nunavut. It was chosen because the inhospitable environment is as close to Mars as you are likely to find on Earth. The project, which will run between May 1 through August 31, 2007, will allow scientists and engineers to study the Mars-like climate and conditions of the polar desert and to explore the human impact of long-term isolation in a harsh, cold environment. More information can be found at the Mars Society website.