You’ve probably seen “A Glorious Dawn” –– the autotune wonder that allowed Carl Sagan to sing to us. The Symphony of Science music video series has been steadily adding new sciency music videos, and the new “The Case for Mars” is the sixth installment. It features Robert Zubrin, Carl Sagan, Brian Cox, and Penelope Boston. John Boswell, the head musician and producer behind the Symphony of Science says this new video is intended to pique curiosity about the planet Mars and to promote human exploration of it.
You can watch all six videos at Symphony of Science.
To me, only Carl Sagan’s Brooklyn, New York, accent blends in well with that synthesized music.
This sounds nice, and I do think Mars should be explored for scientific purposes, which can be done robotically at a moderate cost. Given the enormous costs for piloted missions I suspect they will never happen, or at least not soon. The one planet which does need our urgent attention and where there are 7 billion pairs of feet on it is this one. If we don’t address some pretty serious issues in the near future we may not risk astronauts dying on Mars, but humanity dying out on Earth.
LC
LBC, The Case for Mars (sending humans there) IS about helping Earth.
By sending humans to Mars we generate jobs, technology, science, education on Earth.
You say it costs billions to send humans to Mars, well the money isn’t going to Mars, its going to workers here on Earth.
If you haven’t read Case for Mars by Zubrin you should pick it up, he brings up some interesting points. I’m not trying to persuade you off the robotic exploration side of things, personally I think we need more robotic exploration, but I am trying to get you to see how worth while human exploration of space is and the benefits it brings this entire planet.
What I refer to with respect to “helping Earth” is alternative energy and restructuring our affairs here in a fashion which are not as destructive to our life support system. I will say this, that serously working on that appears not terribly likely, about as likely as us sending astronauts to Mars.
LC
I would agree with that likelihood but it is easier to look in from outside than to look in from inside.