The Quotable Mars
| M |
This short collection of quotes provides a glimpse into how our perspectives on the Red Planet have changed over the past 400 years.
1601–1700
"For Mars alone enables us to penetrate the secrets of astronomy which otherwise would remain forever hidden from us."
"I dare not affirm that I am able to observe the phases of Mars; nonetheless, if I am not mistaken, I believe I have seen that it is not perfectly round."
"Mars has nothing curious that I know of; its days are not quite an hour longer than ours, and its years the value of two of ours. It's smaller than the Earth, it sees the sun a little less large and bright than we see it; in sum, Mars isn't worth the trouble of stopping there."
1801–1900
"There are on this planet, traversing the continents, long dark lines which may be designated as canali, although we do not know what they are. . . . Their arrangement appears to be invariable and permanent; at least as far as I can judge from four-and-a-half years of observation."
"To save my soul I can't believe in the canals as Schiaparelli draws them. . . . I verily believe . . . that the canals as depicted by Schiaparelli are a fallacy and that they will be so proved before many oppositions are past."
"To account for these phenomena, the explanation that at once suggests itself is, that a direct transference of water takes place over the face of the planet, and that the canals are so many waterways."
1901–2000
"The conclusion . . . is therefore irresistible - that animal life, especially in its higher forms, cannot exist on the planet. Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely UNINHABITABLE."
"If the papers really wanted the truth, and respected the opinions of scientific men the case would be very different, but sensation is the thing that 'sells' and science isn't sensational. . . . I admit that a lot of nonsense has been written about Mars, but I fear our newspapers can hardly be brought to serve as reliable astronomical journals."
"I will say that the expounders of the ways and means of communication with other planets have held the center of the stage so long and have talked so much nonsense mingled with plain assertion that I fear the statement of one scientific society would have little weight with the public that enjoys the sensation of being humbugged."
"The hypothesis of plant life . . . appears still the most satisfactory explanation of the various kinds of dark markings and their complex seasonal and secular changes."
"Surely one of the most marvelous feats of the 20th-century would be the firm proof that life exists on another planet. All the projected space flights and the high costs of such developments would be fully justified if they were able to establish the existence of life on either Mars or Venus."
"In looking for life on Mars we could establish for ourselves the reputation of being the greatest Simple Simons of all time."
"It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought."
"The Mars we had found was just a big moon with a thin atmosphere and no life. There were no martians, no canals, no water, no plants, no surface characteristics that even faintly resembled Earth's."
"Extending out from the chaotic terrain . . . are some extraordinary channels, which are also found in a number of other localities on the planet. It is hard to look at these channels without considering the possibility that they were cut by flowing water."
"Unlike the moon, whose story appears essentially to have ended one or two billion years ago, Mars is still evolving and changing. On Mars, as on the earth, the most pervasive agent of change is the planet's atmosphere, itself the product of the sorting of the planet's initial constituents that began soon after it condensed from the primordial cloud of dust and gas that gave rise to the solar system 4.6 billion years ago."
"Although there are alternative explanations for each of these phenomena taken individually, when they are considered collectively . . . we conclude that they are evidence for primitive life on early Mars."
"Today, rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles. It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered."
2001 and Beyond
"The Mars we are trying to explore does not exist."
"Mars has surprised us again."
"Further, it is clear that . . . granular flows can produce landforms with all of the geomorphic features of Martian gullies . . . . Many details of this hypothesis remain to be investigated, but it is wholly consistent with earlier . . . interpretations of the present-day Martian environment: no liquid water, and dominated by eolian processes."
"The distribution of small temporal H2O frost patches is irregular; some bright patches recur annually and some are sporadic . . . . Because the dominant process in the polar night is buffering of low temperatures by CO2 condensation, winter H2O accumulation is expected to be quite uniform over longitude, and slowly varying with latitude . . . . Thus, the source of these seasonal water frost patches must be local, near the surface, and active on an annual basis.
"Mars has been a most daunting destination. Some, including myself, have called it the 'death planet.' Why do we say that? Two-thirds of all missions that have flown to Mars . . . have failed. Just getting to Mars is hard, but landing is even more so."
