Mars history:
Mars in the popular imagination
In Gulliver’s Travels, first published in 1727,
Jonathan Swift describes the two moons of Mars, 150
years before they were officially discovered and named
by astronomer Asaph Hall. Although many scientists
dismiss this as a coincidence, the imagining of Mars
by writers, thinkers and movie directors has created
a sci-fi folklore that’s both informed and fueled
popular interest in the Red Planet.
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Of course, much of this “informing” process
has involved pure speculation. The suspense and mystery
of exploring the unknown makes for good fiction. As
does, apparently, mistakes in translation. When Giovanni
Schiaperelli, an astronomer from Milan (1835-1910)
mapped Mars in the 1870s, noting structures he called “canali” (Italian
for channels), English speakers thought he had discovered
canal-like structures made by aliens. It didn’t
matter that the canals were soon discovered to be an
illusion—American astronomer Percival Lowell
had already concluded they were real, artificially-made
structures, describing Mars as a marginally habitable.
Lowell’s work triggered a sci-fi trend in books,
movies and stories about Mars, and the funny green
aliens that supposedly inhabited it.
War of the Worlds
In 1898 writer H.G. Wells penned a nightmarish depiction
of a Martian invasion of Earth. War of the Worlds popularized
both the belief in aliens, and dystopian sci-fi, a
horror genre that plays on our fear of the unknown
universe. When War of the Worlds was
broadcast as a radio play with Orson Welles in 1938,
many listeners thought it was real and panicked. While
we consider ourselves more media savvy today, Wells’ story
is still compelling—over the past 100 years,
it’s been reproduced numerous times in multiple
media, from music, movies and comics to computer games.
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Courtesy NASA-JPL/Caltech |
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While Mars sci-fi surged in the 1930s-60s, with movies,
popular stories and books by such writers as Leigh
Brackett and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the imagined Mars,
with its extended dream of alien life forms, was dashed
in 1976 when two NASA Viking probes landed on the planet.
The probes showed a dry, desolate place, and no existence
of life. Many believed this was proof that Martians
and alien life forms existed in imagination alone.
Mars reality in real-time
As
a result of more thorough scientific and geological surveys
of Mars in the past two decades, scientists have discovered
that the Mars of our popular imagination, the one that
is warm, wet and hospitable to life, may have actually
existed millions of years ago. And in 1996, NASA research
conducted on a Martian meteorite showed some evidence
for the existence of microscopic life. While science
fiction endures, the popularization of the Internet in
the 1990s and 2000s has sparked widespread interest in
the real-time exploration of Mars. NASA’s
Pathfinder rover mission (1997), for example, remains
one of the most popular events in Internet history, watched
on the web by millions. Because landing on Mars and exploring
it is exceptionally difficult, however, the mysteriousness
of the Red Planet continues.
Excerpt from The War of the Worlds radio play with Orson
Welles (1938):
Announcer:
I'm speaking from the roof of Broadcasting Building, New York City. The bells
you hear are ringing to warn the people to evacuate the city as the Martians
approach. Estimated in last two hours three million people have moved out along
the roads to the north...
Hutchison River Parkway still kept open for motor traffic. Avoid bridges to Long
Island... hopelessly jammed. All communication with Jersey shore closed ten minutes
ago.
No more defenses. Our army is... wiped out... artillery, air force, everything
wiped out.
This may be the last broadcast. We'll stay here to the
end...
10 popular books about Mars:
- War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1894)
- Station X by G. McLeod Windsor (1919)
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
- Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (1951)
- David Starr, Space Ranger by Isaac Asimov
(1952)
- Martians Go Home! by Fredric Brown (1955)
- Martian Time Slip by Phillip K. Dick (1964)
- John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
(1964)
- Mars We Love You by Jane Hipolato and Willis
E. McNally eds (1971)
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992)
10 popular Mars movies
- Rocketship X-M (1950)
- Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)
- Invaders from Mars (1953 & 1986)
- Angry Red Planet (1959)
- Mars Needs Women (1966)
- Mission Mars (1968)
- The Alpha Incident (1977)
- Total Recall (1990)
- Mars Attacks! (1996)
- Mission to Mars (2000)
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Do you want to know
more?
Read:
Is there water on Mars?
Life on the Red Planet
Mars in the solar system
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