Notice: This is an archived and unmaintained page. For current information, please browse astrobiology.nasa.gov.

Mars-Struck

Presenter: Seth Shostak, SETI Institute
When: March 9, 2015 12PM PDT

You love to travel. But would you if doing so meant never coming home? The private company Mars One says it will land humans on the Red Planet by 2026, but is only offering passengers one-way tickets. Hundreds of thousands of people volunteered to go.

Meet a young woman who made the short list, and hear why she’s ready to be Mars-bound. Also, why microbes could be hiding in water trapped in the planet’s rocks. And, how a wetter, better Mars lost its atmosphere and became a dry and forbidding place.

Plus, why Kim Stanley Robinson, author of a famous trilogy about colonizing and terraforming Mars, thinks that the current timeline for going to the planet is unrealistic.

Guests:

Laurel Kaye – A senior in the physics department at Duke University
Alfonso Davila – Senior scientist at the SETI Institute
Stephen Brecht – Physicist and president of the Bay Area Research Group
Kim Stanley Robinson – Hugo Award-winning science Fiction author of the Mars trilogy: Red Mars (Mars Trilogy), Green Mars (Mars Trilogy), Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)

Big Picture Science

  • The Big Picture Science radio show and podcast engages the public with astrobiology through lively and intelligent storytelling. Science radio doesn’t have to be dull. The only dry thing about our program is the humor. Big Picture Science takes on big questions by interviewing leading researchers and weaving together their stories of discovery in a clever and off-kilter narrative style.
  • Subscribe to this series

Other Seminars in this Series