CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. – Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, H.G. Wells, Kim Stanley
Robinson and other greats in science fiction hitched a ride to Mars today—in a digital
form, at least.
A glass CD loaded
with literary, visual and audio science fiction works about the red planet was
strapped to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, the Planetary Society in Pasadena,
Calif. said Friday. Called the "Visions
of Mars" library, the 3.2-inch (8-centimeter) disk also contains
more than 250,000 names of the organization's members and space exploration enthusiasts.
Planetary
Society representative Amir Alexander hopes that future martian inhabitants
will stumble across the little disk.
"Imagine
a person ... coming across this old relic of a spacecraft, which is what this
beautiful spacecraft Phoenix will be in a few hundred years," Alexander
said, adding that they should find the DVD attach with Velcro to Phoenix. "What he or she will hold in their hands is a message from our world to
theirs."
Phoenix
launched at 5:26:34 a.m. EDT (0926:34 GMT) atop a Delta 2 rocket to begin a
nearly 10-month spaceflight to the Arctic Circle of Mars near the planet's
north pole. The probe carries a trench-digging
robotic arm and other instruments to sample martian soil and ice to study
its chemical makeup, as well as help scientists determine whether the region
once supported conditions
in which life might exist.
Bake and
freeze
Although
Alexander refused to divulge how much the disc cost to make, he said "it
is in fact the most expensive DVD ever produced."
The cost
arises from is unique design and preparation.
"This
is a special DVD that's designed to last for at least 500 years," Alexander
said, and is made of durable silicon glass. "It was Velcroed to the
spacecraft, then baked" to remove explosive gas bubbles, sterilize it and
ensure it sticks to Phoenix as it careens toward and lands on Mars, he added..
What's
more, Alexander explained, is that the disk was designed to withstand the
planet's bone-chilling environment.
"It's
designed to last several martian summers and winters," he said—even Phoenix's eventual encasement in solid carbon dioxide ice at its northern landing site.
An
eternal honor
The CD
contains 161 novels and stories, 63 pieces of artwork and four radio broadcasts
related to Mars, totaling 1.43 gigabytes of data.
Inlcluded
in the works are H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," Ray Bradbury's "The Martian
Chronicles" and even Thomas Disch's "The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars."
Kim Stanley
Robinson, a popular science fiction writer, said he is thrilled to have his
short novella "Green Mars" included on the CD.
"The
idea that I'm part of the first library on Mars ... is really a fulfilling
moment," Robinson said.
Second
chance
Phoenix's launch wasn't the first attempt
to send a digital library to Mars—the original was attached to Russia's Mars 96 lander.
"Unfortunately,
Mars 96 never made to Mars," Alexander said. "It made it to the
bottom of the Pacific Ocean and that is where the original "Visions of Mars"
disc lies today."
"Visions of
Mars" also wasn't the first record of humanity launched into space: Voyager 1
and 2 carried famous "golden records" beyond the reaches of the solar
system.
Scientific
visionary Carl Sagan led the selection committee for the records' contents, and
he also recorded an audio track for the Mars-bound tome in 1993 before he
passed away.
"For
99.9 percent of our tenure on Earth, we've been wanderers," Sagan proclaims
on the disk. "Whatever the reason you're on Mars is, I'm glad you're there
and I wish I was with you."
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