4/4: For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
4/4: For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Mars-Human-History-Planet/dp/0226821897/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. Due to its vivid color and visibility, its geologic kinship with Earth, and its potential as our best hope for settlement, Mars embodies everything that inspires us about space and exploration. For the Love of Mars surveys the red planet’s place in the human imagination, beginning with ancient astrologers and skywatchers and ending in our present moment of exploration and virtual engagement.
National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell describes how historical figures across eras and around the world have made sense of this mysterious planet. We meet Mayan astrologer priests who incorporated Mars into seasonal calendars and religious ceremonies; Babylonian astrologers who discerned bad omens; figures of the Scientific Revolution who struggled to comprehend it as a world; Victorian astronomers who sought signs of intelligent life; and twentieth- and twenty-first-century scientists who have established a technological presence on its surface. Along the way, we encounter writers and artists from each of these periods who take readers and viewers along on imagined journeys to Mars.
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1804 Greewich Royal Observatory
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Matt Ford and I'm Alice Levine and we're the presenters of British Scandal. |
| 0:04.8 | People do strange things, don't they Alice? |
| 0:06.9 | I don't like the tone of your voice, what do you mean? |
| 0:10.0 | On our didn't mean you, I'm at the entire British public who in 2022 |
| 0:14.3 | followed a live stream of a lettuce with a wig on. |
| 0:17.5 | Entirely normal behaviour. |
| 0:19.1 | Most more normal than what was going on inside Downing Street. |
| 0:21.5 | For this series on British Scandal we're taking you inside number 10, |
| 0:24.6 | covering the shocking and very short premiership of Liz Truss. |
| 0:27.7 | Listen to British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:35.4 | This is CBSI in the world. |
| 0:36.9 | I'm John Bachelord with the Space Historian and Curator at the Smithsonian |
| 0:42.0 | National Air and Space Museum, Matthew Schindell. |
| 0:44.6 | His new book is for the love of Mars. |
| 0:47.2 | The robots, the programs wave after wave of conquest, |
| 0:52.7 | probing Mars first to fly by with Mariner, |
| 0:56.7 | then orbiters, then landers now rovers and of course ingenuity, |
| 1:01.6 | the brave little toaster that flies on the surface of Mars. |
| 1:05.8 | This comes out of the Cold War and Matt you make an ironic point |
| 1:10.0 | that the Cold War came to a moment where the U.S. |
| 1:13.5 | had successfully defeated the Soviets and the race to the moon. |
| 1:17.7 | And a presentation was made by NASA to then |
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