Monday, May 19, 2008


Scientists are sending a DVD to Mars. It is due to arrive on the surface of the Red Planet on May 25, which is next Sunday.

Now hang on a minute, I hear you ask. What if Martians don't have a DVD player? What if they are still using video tapes? What if they haven't progressed past Super 8 movie reels?

Well, scientists have taken that into account. The DVD is made of tough stuff that will make it playable for at least 500 years, which they reckon should be enough time even for the most primitive form of life, such as a single-cell bacterium or an American Idol judge, to build a DVD player.

Now I know you think I am making this up, but I'm not. They really have sent a DVD 680 million kilometers to Mars.

Scientists spent months making the disk, which opens with a greeting to Martians. "Let me introduce myself to you," it says.

"I am Peter Smith, the principal investigator of the Phoenix mission funded by NASA. My father, Hugh Smith, was born in 1902, an era when there was no radio or recorded music or television."

I'm not exactly sure why it starts with this statement, but I suspect Smith believes the sympathetic Martians will immediately use some form of Intergalactic Paypal to help with his funding challenges.

Smith then admits that Martians might not be able to understand the disk. "We will have no common language," he says, in the language that they cannot understand. This reminds me of the safety card on airlines which says: "If you cannot read this, notify the flight attendant."

Also on the disk is the radio version of HG Wells' War of the Worlds, a story in which Martians try to take over the planet Earth, but are defeated.

I can only deduce that this has been cleverly included to stop them trying to do the same thing again. "Curses!" the Martians will say. "Apparently we tried to invade them before but we failed."

There are also messages from dead humans. There is an interview with my old friend the late Arthur C Clarke, filmed at his home in Sri Lanka.

And there's a message from the late science writer Carl Sagan. He recorded it at his beautiful house in Ithaca, New York, which is famed for its 60-meter waterfall.

Sagan greets the Martians and says: "Maybe you can hear in the background a 200-foot tall waterfall, which is probably, I would guess, a rarity on Mars."

Sagan is on pretty safe ground making such a claim, as there is no water on Mars. One wonders what was going through his mind when he chose to make this statement. "If people on earth are green with jealousy about my 200-foot waterfall, what about those poor schmucks on Mars, who don't even have running water?!"

The latest space probes have reported that Mars is basically a large, icy plain with virtually no signs of intelligent life. No, wait, that's Canada.

But Mars sounds pretty much the same as Canada, only with better nightlife.

Anyway, the DVD will arrive on the Red Planet at the weekend. I suspect pirate copies will be on sale in most Asian cities by Friday night.

If you think that DVD sounds dull, check out the stuff at our columnist's home: www.vittachi.com

Erm Can anyone shed some light on this? unfortunately I am at work and managed to "squeeze" this topic in. Please be gentle as this is my first ever thread.

war of the worlds is such crap.
big sociological test if you ask me.


aliens advanced enough for interplanetary travel, pick a planet inhabited by DIRTY aggressive intelligent life.. and they didn't even CONSIDER the viral or microbial issues..... riiiiiiight.


I think it's complete double-talk.

The REAL message is... that's ALL aliens would HAVE to do ...
release SUPER NASTY resistant microbes.

save them the hassle of strolling along in clumsy tripod walking machines..pecking off screaming humans everywhere.


douuuubbbllllle talk.
double your pleasure double your fun.

-

[edit on 19-5-2008 by prevenge]

I thought the disc was a unique way to publicize a mission among the general public.
I submitted my fathers name and my own to be put on this disc and printed off the certificate to send to my dad. He really got a kick out of the fact that his name would be sitting on Mars long after he had passed away.

There have been several of the publicity stunts to get people interested in different missions. I added our names to the copper impactor that plowed into an asteroid a while back. The disc was on the nose of the massive bullet that blew a hole in the space rock and all the names were vaporized on impact.

Our names also sit on the surface of the moon attached to a lander, but I forget what that mission was about.

All just fun stuff that has encouraged me to have more interest in what NASA is doing.

My name is on one of those discs also, alongwith my wife and
our daughters. I guess having our names on the planet is sort
of cool, at least that is what I thought when I submitted our names
and got a receipt to show so. Just a fun thing I suppose. I would
like to know oneday if someone actually will read those names
on Mars. Who will do that? Won't they get tired of reading those
names after say, oh maybe 100,000 or so?

ZOOMER

OH NO Extraalien !! They sold me the same 4 acres. What
should we do? Should we split it up into 1 acre parcels and
get out from under all of this? I was hoping to visit my plot
of land one day, but I would be trespassing on your property.

ZOOMER

LOL..

We could just take all the moon for ourselves and claim squatters rights..

As much as it could be a huge scam, it might just pay off to for us one day..or whoever we pass the deeds onto...

I think you can also buy up bits of the other planets too...

Good thread, Chip. We all need to remember that while exploring space is a serious business, the love of life, and the humor we humans share, is also important.

While some may see this thread as trivializing the seriousness of the Space Exploration Forum, I find it refreshing. Every once in a while we need to realize that fun is part of the reason we are here looking at all the possibilities.

A star and a flag.

I missed out on the whole DVD thing... Maybe I will catch the next one...


But I am claiming ownership of Ceres. It is not a planet or a moon by definition of the claims in 1980 and I have squatters rights until I file due process


[edit on 19-5-2008 by Foxe]

[edit on 19-5-2008 by Astyanax]

I think it goes to show astrophysicists and mission control types are not just horse blinder plaid pant wearing nerds. They have a playful side as well. I hope they included some Hendrix.
Was thinking of the golden ship but Bowies space odyssey would be more fitting.

[edit on 5/19/2008 by jpm1602]

Hendrix???

Nah...David Bowie...

"There's a star man waiting in the sky...."

I think I almost got in on that same tract on the moon. Glad I passed on that, because a 3-way split of 4 acres wouldnt do my dream habitat justice.

I agree that it is fun to feel like you are somehow part of cosmic research and exploration. The celestial land tracts, star registry, SETI project, names library...all good fun. On some level, I feel like I have been just a tiniest piece of the big picture and somehow donated. Perhaps, when the Greys invade and take over, they will pull out the dvd and spare all of their new friends the embaracement of slavery.

Well, if the Martians are mad about us crashing all kinds of stuff on their planet and digging holes in it and constantly peeking in their windows, they'll have the names of all the people they'll need to see when they get here.