Running out of movies to order from Netflix?

Here's a list of nearly every Mars movie ever made. You can go chronologically, or alphabetically, or you can pick documentaries over sci-fi. Personally, I am itching to see the movie "Zombies of the Stratosphere," which involves a martian/mad scientist conspiracy to blast Earth out of its orbit, replacing it with Mars. If you ask me, this could be the answer to all of our terraforming issues with the actual colonization of Mars: let's just put Mars where Earth is, and eventually Mars will become more like Earth. It's foolproof, I tell you. Oh, and this movie has Leonard Nimoy (in his first screen appearance!)--that in itself should make it worth viewing.

Martian Airports

The author of this article takes what some Mars Enthusiasts are calling "The Hub" or Martian Airport. The Mariner 9 orbiter took captured this photo that to some appears to be an artifical structure. Various images of this structure, stripped of their "noise" as the author puts it, are displayed and used as evidence to deny rumors of a marian airport.

Speaking of "the face"...

I was browsing along and found a site, here, that has pictures of Mars that have been manipulated on the computer to create Art. It is pretty cool. Here, you can see the artist's take on the Mars "face' that Andy Warhol found and believes was evidence of ancient Mars civilization.
I am always amazed at the capacity for the imagination to take anything that we don't know much about, and run with it. Mars, I believe, is very beautiful, from what I have seen of it both as a "star" and from photos taken by the various missions. Yet, a large part of the beauty in it is, I think, the sheer fascination we hold with the planet. The same goes for the landscapes on Earth, of course.

Mars Lander

This game is a good way to avoid homework for a few minutes. Basically you try to land the Mars lander without making it explode. It's harder than it looks.

Colonizing Mars

Here is a plan words article that rehashes some of the subjects that Bernie has been talking about in class. Why should we colonize Mars? The author of this essay highlights points such as its similarity to earth, the possibility of bacterial life that might un-earth Earth's origin and profitability of developing Mars. There is just tons of land on Mars waiting for people to claim it. Like I said, this is a very basic outline, a lot of which Bernie mentioned in his lectures, but it was nice to see it all typed out.

Walking Naked on the Red Planet?

I can't decide if this article is serious or not. I think it partially is, it's just a little farfetched. It talks about modifying ourselves in order to better adapt ourselves to life on Mars. Personally, I think this is great, as it will open up a whole new path for market expansion of the cosmetic surgery industry, and plastic surgeons can do something else besides give people implants all day--they can better humanity by making them more equipped to handle a hostile Martian environment (I believe giving people scales was suggested). My favorite quote from the article is this gem by Greg Bear: "We're Earth's gonads, and we're about to do what comes natural." I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but maybe you can decide for yourself.

Mars as a Candy

We all know about the Mars bar (almonds, nougat and chocolate), a slightly harder to find cousin of the Milky Way (caramel, nougat and chocolate). But who knew to what lengths some people would go to try and make it tastier?

It is true, though, that the Scots eat a well-rounded meal, and don't seem to spare a thought for the arteries. When I visited, I never ate a dinner where there wasn't a pudding to follow it.

Greek Gods Take Over Mars!!

I've been reading an interesting book by Dan Simmons (award winning sci-fi author, after the style of Isaac Asimov himself) called Ilium. It's a fascinating book that takes a look a couple millenia into the future, or perhaps the past, maybe both at the same time. It deals with the events of Homer's Iliad but in this telling the Heroes of Greek epic take on the very gods themselves. I happen to be a classics minor and a sci-fi nerd so this book was particularly appealing to me. If you have any interest in either one then I suggest you take a look.

Disney on Mission for "Mars" Rights

http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/va/20070117/116903024600.html

Disney is negotiating for the film rights to "John Carter of Mars," a series of stories published in 1916 about a man who gets sent to Mars. Pixar will work on the film, and I wonder what it'll be like, given that the story is from a time when most of the nature of Mars was left to the imagination. Will people still accept Mars as a setting for futuristic space battles and colonies of extraterrestrials or will the real nature of Mars as we know it today get in the way of a story involving a civil war officer captured by Martians?

The First Post

This blog with report on human culture and the exploration of Mars.