MUSK WANTS ONE MILLION HUMANS ON MARS TO SUSTAIN A COLONY. 4/4: For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet Hardcover – May 18, 2023 by Matthew Shindell (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2024
⏱️ 6 minutes
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Summary
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.
By focusing on the diverse human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we know and love, Shindell shows how Mars exploration has evolved in ways that have also expanded knowledge about other facets of the universe. Captained by an engaging and erudite expert, For the Love of Marsis a captivating voyage through time and space for anyone curious about Curiosity and the red planet.
2023 CURIOSITY ON MARS
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? |
| 0:04.0 | Jane Gaskin did exactly that, trading in the family home to begin a new life in the |
| 0:09.1 | tropics. |
| 0:10.1 | But she soon discovers that Paradise has its secrets. |
| 0:13.4 | I'm Alice Levine, and this is the price of Paradise, |
| 0:18.0 | the island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder. |
| 0:23.0 | Wish you were here. |
| 0:24.0 | Follow the price of Paradise Now, wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:28.0 | This is CBS I on the World. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm John Bat with the space historian and |
| 0:35.0 | curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Matthew |
| 0:39.5 | Schendell. His new book is for the love of Mars, the Human History of the Red Planet. |
| 0:45.0 | The Robots, the Programs Wave After Wave of Conquest, probing Mars, first a flyby with Mariner, then orbiters, then landers, now rovers, and of course |
| 0:59.0 | ingenuity, the brave little toaster that flies on the surface of Mars. This comes out of the |
| 1:05.1 | Cold War and Matt you make an ironic point that the Cold War came to a moment |
| 1:10.4 | where the US had successfully defeated the Soviets in the race to the moon. |
| 1:16.6 | And a presentation was made by NASA to then Nixon administration to reproduce the Apollo program on Mars. |
| 1:24.2 | What happened, Matt? |
| 1:26.2 | Yeah, so, you know, there was this moment within NASA where the success of the Apollo program to many was sort of an indication that, you know, |
| 1:37.7 | NASA was so good at what it did that it should continue to basically push the envelope, to continue with the same level of funding and you know continue the U.S. leadership in space by moving from from the moon to Mars with a similar program. But you know the |
| 1:57.0 | the politics at home were not really suitable for that, right? |
| 2:03.0 | Like the US public had, you know, enjoyed the Apollo program, |
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