Life On Mars

Was there life on Mars? Is there life on Mars? Will there be life on Mars? In reponse to the first two questions, I truly don't know the answer; but as far as the third question goes, the answer is yes. Right here, right now on Earth are people who will be, later in this century, as taikonauts, cosmonauts and astronauts -- or as all three together -- scampering around the surface of the Red Planet, exploring craters and mountains, and probably looking for good places to start a base camp and colony. That's pretty mind-blowing when you think about it.
 

And don't you know it, somebody out there will be playing David Bowie tunes on whatever crazy little delivery methods they've dreamed up in the meantime.

"Oh, man, look at those Cavemen go / It's the freakiest
show . . ."

Can you dig?

After Mars, next stop is . . .  [fill-in-the-blank].

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Holger-Madsen: Himmelskibet

Holger-Madsen's Himmelskibet (1918) is a Danish film about the journey of the Sky Ship Excelsior and its crew from Earth to Mars. Arriving with canned meat and weaponry, these space travelers encounter an advanced civilization peopled with beings that look remarkably like Danes, albeit dressed in loose-fitting white outfits similar to something probably worn by ancient Greeks and Romans -- with Egyptian accessories. Turns out that Martians are peaceful vegetarians, neither tempted to start the next World War nor particularly daunted by Earthlings. 

During the Great War of 1914-1918, Holger-Madsen (1878-1943) worked on films in neutral Denmark. He was, no doubt, appalled by the industrialized slaughter wrought by the adjacent conflict. Interestingly, his "real" name was Holger Madsen, to which he added the flourish of a dash. 

What else was going on at the time? Just days before American entry into the Great War in 1917, the Convention between the United States and Denmark for Cession of the Danish West Indies (1916) went into effect, allowing Denmark to remain neutral right to the end of the war. Jomfruøerne (De dansk-vestindiske øer) have been known ever since as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Meanwhile, the mysteries of Mars are still being explored in 2012.

Today's Rune: Signals.         

Cars on Mars



Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The surface of Mars. Looks like some remote part of Earth . . . How cool is that? And we've only just begun . . . Curiosity killed the cat / Satisfaction brought it back . . .

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Martian Chronicles: Mars-500

How long will it take for human beings to make it to Mars? To set up a base? A colony?

Work is being done toward preparing the way for people to go the distance to Mars. Check out, for instance, the Mars-500 project (diagram above):

http://www.imbp.ru/Mars500/Mars500-e.html

and:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars500/

And also, check out the Mars Society:

http://www.marssociety.org/home

If you could, would you want to go to Mars? 

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

In Praise of NASA

Thanks all for the comments about Apollo 11 and the space program! I respectfully -- and adamantly -- disagree with those who think NASA a waste of public money. First off, we're talking a relatively puny federal budget of seventeen billion dollars for this fiscal year, which is fairly typical for NASA. Compare this to the vast squander in Iraq, Afghanistan, the so-called War on Drugs, or the 680 billion dollar "defense"* budget, and one has to applaud NASA and its bang for the buck.

The space program provides ways to better understand climate change, has vastly helped improve global telecommunications and continues to boost investment in R & D at universities throughout the USA. The space program for the past fifty years has included R & D investments in every state in the Union. Technological spinoff is evident virtually anywhere one turns, on a daily basis.

These are academic points anyway. NASA and a slew of international space agencies and projects will continue for as long as we exist. It's just a matter of scale and speed at this juncture. For now, no sleep till Mars!

Today's Rune: Movement. *"Defense Department" is an Orwellian, and now almost universal, revamping of the more accurate term, "War Department," truth in language being a casualty of the Cold War. [Photo credit: NASA. Buzz Aldrin poses with US flag on the Moon, July 21, 1969].

In Orbit -- Right Now

Taikonauts, astronauts, cosmonauts: people are going back to the Moon, and on to Mars. Just today, the OV-105 Endeavor linked up with the International Space Station, which now has a baker's dozen on board.

I can't even imagine volunteering for a Mars flight that could take five years round trip, if everything goes according to plan. Can you?

Meanwhile, the USA needs to get back into the NASA program in a big way. We need another Julian W. Scheer in the PR department, man! The USA only has three space shuttles in service, with retirement right over the horizon: besides Endeavor, there are still also Atlantis and Discovery. We don't do it, we'll get passed right on by like the horseman, by Brazil, India, Japan, Russia, China, and private corporations (Dr. No anyone?).

Competition is supposed to get the blood flowing, not ebbing. Get to it, Americans, or become the Final Frontier's once-rocked, now barely nods off into dreamyland country.



Skylab -- 1970s! Soyuz. What détente can do, comrades. And if you're ever in Grand Rapids, Michigan, check out the Gerald R. Ford Museum -- it's very cool. Check out the 70s room in particular, after the Watergate display. It's really worth a visit. Last of the mod Republican presidents, after Ike Eisenhower.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Invaders from Mars

For the first time since I was a little kid, got to see William Cameron Menzies' Invaders from Mars (1953) and totally get why it stayed with me through the decades. Though definitely a B movie production, its enduring power derives from the primal story line. What happens when people you trust, love and depend on turn into something alien, suddenly capable of destroying you?

Memory plays tricks -- I must have conflated two scenes wherein the main protagonist, a kid, realizes his parents have been taken over by alien control with a later scene when aliens, operating underground, are about to drill into the back of the kindly Dr. Pat Blake's neck and place an implant there. (A still from this scene with Dr. Blake, played by Helena Carter, is pictured above).

What's a person to do when one minute all is well and the next, an atomic age equivalent of a horde of Mongols is streaming over the horizon? In its own endearing way, Invaders from Mars remains as creepy as The Bad Seed (1956) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962), as effective in tapping into fear of absolute -- and involuntary -- betrayal as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). It's no coincidence that remakes have been attempted of all of these spookathons.

The context of Invaders from Mars may may inspire another post down the line, as well as period details, golly gee dialogue and various SF/fantasy genre conventions.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Moon Shot: India Steps Out Into Space, Too

Earlier today (October 22, 2008), the Indian Government launched Chandrayaan-1, an unmanned missin to the Moon. This is amazing, and heralds India's emergence into what used to be called "Great Power" status. Seems like just days ago when I was writing about China's latest space launch. Congratulations to China, India, and all those global citiziens favoring space exploration. Nifty-fifty.



What's next for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)? Sort of like JFK's "ten years to the Moon" program in the 1960s, the ISRO aims to launch two men into space via their Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-Mk II) by 2015. These will not be the first Indians in space, though. Cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma was the first, back in 1984 with two Soviet cosmonauts. There is also discussion of a manned mission to the Moon, and, at least with China and other space programs, Mars.

The official ISRO logo -- looks like some kind of Star Trek jive, eh?

Today's Rune: Signals.

Taikonauts in Space!

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, many Americans showed interest and enthusiasm for space exploration, astronauts, cosmonauts -- all "of that Star Trek jive," as Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper put it ("Elvis Is Everywhere," 1987). Somewhere along the way, visible interest waned considerably. Why? I have no idea. What I do know is, now the People's Republic of China has an ambitious space program, most recently evidenced by a space walk made by hángtiānyuán / taikonauts.

The Chinese government has several things going on, ranging from Project 921 (starting to get people in space, which they began to achieve in 2003); building a space lab and space station that will be separate from the International Space Station (target date: 2010); mission to the Moon (human surface walks by 2024, followed by construction of a Moon base): and mission to Mars, with people beginning construction of a Martian base by ca. 2050.

Back in the USA today, Wall Street dropped 777 points (gee, does that make end-timers think of the mark of the Beast plus one-one-one?) and the USA is deeply indebted to its gigantic trading partner, China. In a sense, the USA and European (etc.) allies carry the torch for the Greco-Roman civilizations -- highly organized but warmongering, overextended and ultimately collapsing, absorbed by others. It wouldn't really be a great shock if this same process is now underway, or in the pipeline, would it? Meanwhile, the Chinese have remained around since even before the Greeks.

In any case, Chinese space participation will quickly up the number of fellow human space travellers. In the last fifty years, fewer than 500 people have been up (or is it out?) there -- and eighteen have died coming or going so far.


Today's Rune: Signals.

Phantom Vibrations

Yes, Virginia, we're living in the wireless age. Cell towers are sprouting up everywhere, and now we have a phenomenon called "phantom vibration syndrome." What the hell, what the heck?


A lot of the time at work, I wear a sports jacket or suit, and I tend to drop my mobile phone in an outside pocket. In preference to email or cell phone call, I rarely use my office line anymore, and got rid of my home land line years ago. I usually keep my phone in manner mode/vibration mode. From time to time I'll feel a vibration, take out the phone to check caller i.d. -- and see that no one, apparently, actually called. This, dear readers, is the epitome of phantom vibration syndrome.

Coming across an article recently made me really wonder what causes these strange vibrations. Land lines in the past sometimes pulsed or picked up a party line, so I figured my cell phone was picking up somebody else's signal, just for a moment. Maybe so. Ellen Smith's "Is That Your Phone or Your Imagination?" (AP) posits a psychological explanation. Her article is also floating around the internet under the title, "Phantom vibrations shake 'crackberry' addicts." It seems that BlackBerry users are so addicted to their devices, they feel vibrations out of anxiety or anticipation. To me, though, it seems physiological. I can feel the vibrations, and I don't think they're imaginary.


Today's Rune: Flow.

Birthdays: Virgil, Marie-Marguerite dYouville, Friedrich Nietzsche, P. G. Wodehouse, C.P. Snow, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arhtur Schlesinger, Jr., Mario Puzo, Italo Calvino, Michel Foucault, Karl Richter, Fela Kuti, Penny Marshall, Tito Jackson, Stacy Peralta, Vanessa Marcil, Dominic West, Yoon Son-ha.

The New Mother Nature

I checked out Detroit's Renaissance Center last night and a free Riverfront concert put on by the latest incarnation of Canadian rock group The Guess Who.

The interior of the Center is bizarro, right out of Things to Come or some other science fiction move. Very disorienting, with giant turbine-like towers, lots of glass and a labyrinth of eerie possibilities. There's also the glitzy Seldom Blues "Supper Club," featuring a snazzy view of the Detroit River and outrageous after-dinner drinks like Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac -- $150 per glass! Can you imagine?

On the Riverfront -- now accessible to anyone who can get there -- thousands of people showed up for The Guess Who. I've rarely seen Metro Detroiters look so happy. The weather was perfect, a nice breeze, coolish and low humidity. People danced, whooped and jiggled around. The band sounded pitch-perfect. And they played a lot of priceless songs. "Undun" (or "She's Come Undone" sounds a lot like Fleetwood Mac's/Santana's "Black Magic Woman," especially live); "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," "(Don't Give Me No) Hand Me Down World," and the crescendo finale, "American Woman." Loved it! A bunch of boaters anchored off shore and danced their asses off up top, honking in lieu of cheering and clapping. The Guess Who cycle was complete: born during the Vietnam War, alive and kicking during the Iraq War. "I don't need your war machine," indeed.


This woman, on the other hand, sparkled everyone else's eyes at Vicente's Cuban Cuisine, 1250 Library Street, Detroit, after the concert.


According to Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message." Also, "the medium is the massage." Fellow global villagers, are you ready for the next big thing?

Birthdays: Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Marshall McLuhan, Don Knotts, Norman Jewison, Garry Trudeau.

Hasta luego!

The Future at Forty

What ever happened to the future? Back in the 1960s and early 1970s -- despite Vietnam, global turmoil and various uprisings -- it felt like the Space Age was truly upon us. Even to me as a little kid, the excitement was palpable. Gadgets and gizmos, human rights and civil rights, environmental awareness, the ecology -- the 1965 World's Fair in New York City was one of the first major family experiences I can remember away from my home town in Pennsylvania. There was James Bond's Goldfinger car, and here was a silvery tomorrow.

Also with my family, I later saw the grounds of Expo 67 in Montreal, geodesic domes and all. More recently, I've walked the grounds of Expo 68 in San Antonio, where the space needle still aims at the heavens.

Probably the biggest disappointment was the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair -- so mediocre even The Simpsons joked about it years later. Ronald Reagan must have killed off what joy was left for the future. He was going on and on about "Star Wars," a dismal (and largely imaginary) new Maginot Line designed to ward off flying objects from the Soviet Union and Mars. (When the Challenger shuttle blew up on take off in 1986, he was heard to mutter, "Is that the one with the teacher on it?").

I've barely heard a thing about the expos since New Orleans 1984. Expos now seem more distant, less relevant, less frequent to even notice than back in the day. Under the watch of G.W. Bush, nothing good has happened at all. What happened to the great Mars project? Like everything else, I suspect, thrown onto the bonfire of the Iraq War. I don't think another hopeful International Expo will occur in the USA again for a very long time.


San Antonio-born actress Michelle Rodriguez seems like an Expo kind of woman. An appeal by her to the powers that be might help bring one back to "the Homeland."


British actress Anna Friel seems a bit worried about the future in this scene. It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to. Who can blame her? She's very nicely dressed for global warming, though.

Today's Rune: The Self.

Birthdays: Julius Caesar, Josiah Wedgwood, Pierre Louis Marie Chanel, Henry David Thoreau, Eugène Boudin, Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, George Eastman, George Washington Carver, Stefan George, Max Jacob, Buckminster Fuller, Pablo Neruda (b. Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto), Milton Berle (b. Berlinger), Andrew Wyeth, Bill Cosby, Christine McVie (b. Christine Anne Perfect), Cheryl Ladd (b. Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor), Robin Wilson (b. Detroit), Anna Friel, Trent Vanegas, Michelle Rodriguez.

A special happy birthday to my pal and former co-worker Trent Vanegas, now operating out of L.A. and going great guns with Pink is the New Blog.

"Don't stop thinking about tomorrow!"

Life On Mars?

It's so cold today, the Detroit area day schools are shut again. Last weekend while driving, it looked to me like some other planet the way the winds whipped and tiny yellowish snow seemed suspended mid-air like ice daggers. All very strange. The roads are white from salt, and the light at times is blinding. Good now to have a warm shelter and a window on Earth with nowhere to have to go until tomorrow.