Ray Bradbury

Bratberry turns 90 and a new map of his Red Planet this week on planetary Radio. Radio. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

Happy birthday, Ray, you old Martian you.

Your hometown celebrated last week, and we'll hear a bit of the party at City Hall.

Then, and how could this be more appropriate, we'll talk to

Phil Christensen about the most accurate map of Mars ever created. You can make it

even better. That's not a bad start, but we've also got Bill Nye the Science and

Planetary Guy's commentary and later today Bruce Betts will join me to give away

packing for Mars Mary Roach's great new book about human space travel.

Ray Bradbury arrived in Los Angeles at the age of 14.

That was in 1934.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that his hometown for the last 76 years would want to celebrate the beloved writer's 90th birthday.

Here is LA City Council President Eric Garcetti getting the party started. The audio quality is

pretty terrible but we think you'll enjoy it anyway. So it is my honor to

declare today with this Council and the Mayor that the that we declare August 22nd through August 28th, 2010, Ray Bradbury Week in the City of Los Angeles, and we encourage the residents of the city to celebrate this literary master's life and his work.

Please, a round of applause for Ray Bradbury.

Every council person and many other guests took the mic to greet Ray.

Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman arrived with a giant birthday card

with messages from 1500 well-wishers.

Lou saluted Ray for his wonderful works of fiction.

But I want to speak about something else, which is the influence he's had on science as a scientist.

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