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Arthur C. Clarke Stands By His Belief in Life on Mars
By Leonard David Senior Space Writer
posted: 12:25 pm ET 07 June 2001
WASHINGTON -- Noted space visionary and writer, Sir Arthur C. Clarke,
believes that new images of Mars clearly show the red planet dotted with
patches of vegetation, including trees. Such a find may help spark a far
grander space program more aligned with the adventure and exploration
portrayed in the epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey - the collaborative work
of both Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick.Clarke spoke last night, June 6, via phone from his home in Sri Lanka as
key speaker in the Wernher von Braun Memorial Lecture series held here
at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.Pouring over images on his home computer taken by the now-orbiting Mars
Global Surveyor (MGS), Clarke said that there are signs of vegetation
evident in the photos."I'm quite serious when I say have a really good look at these new Mars
images," Clarke said. "Something is actually moving and changing with the
seasons that suggests, at least, vegetation," he said.Clarke repeated several times that he was serious about his observations,
pointing out that he sees something akin to Banyan trees in some MGS
photos.Science met its match
Joining Clarke in last night's lecture was a panel of space authorities,
Apollo 17 moonwalker, Eugene Cernan, science fiction writer, Ben Bova,
and space historian Fred Ordway.Cernan said that he has concluded there's little difference between
science
fiction and science fact. He said that the only difference is time, a
dimension we know so little about."Standing on the surface of the Moon in sunlight, you are surrounded by
the
blackest black that you can allow your mind to conceive. Not darkness, but
blackness," Cernan said. That view affords a person a face-to-face look at
the endlessness of time and the endlessness of space, with Earth moving
through that blackness. What you see is infinity, he said."I have looked and focused as far as I can focus on infinity. I can tell
you that
it literally does exist," Cernan said.
Awestruck by the vista from his trek to the Moon, now over a quarter of a
century ago, Cernan said that he came to a point "where science did not
have an explanation" for what he saw. "It was just too beautiful to have
happened by accident. Science met its match," he said.The other things
Cernan decried the fact that the country's space exploration agenda today
rings hollow compared to the past."What's it going to take to get people to dream again, to realize they can
once again do the impossible?" Cernan asked. "John F. Kennedy said that
we plan to go the Moon 'and do those other things'.we haven't done the
other things yet," he said.Ben Bova said that NASA's program is driven by politics. If there's no
political push and no political will, then "I think it's going to have to
come
from the private sector," he said.
How to reactivate America's space program to do bold things "is the $64
trillion question," Clarke responded by phone. Space tourism may act as a
trigger, he said, as could some major discovery, such as new findings on
Mars.Ordway said that 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the vision it portrays, came
at a time "when space was on everybody's agenda," he said.Old and new worlds
"I think there's a real possibility there may be a propulsion
breakthrough,"
Clarke said. "The rocket is going to play the same role in space as the
balloon did in aviation. It will be superseded by something much better,"
he
said.
Cernan said he remains optimistic about the future of space exploration.
In the future, people will not only be living on Mars, "they are going to
be
coming back to see where their forefathers grew up," Cernan said. "I think
someday they will be talking about the Old World and the New World, and
we're going to co-exist together. That's science fiction today, but give
us
time," he said.
Clarke said however, that such a scenario has one problem.
"I'm afraid the great, great grandchildren won't be very happy back here
on
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Earth at three times normal gravity," Clarke said.
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