Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination

457 Pages·2005·2.858 MB·English

by  Robert Markley

DYING PLANET
(cid:2)≥5≥(cid:2)
DYING
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
DURHAM & LONDON
2005
PLANET
Mars in Science and the Imagination
ROBERT MARKLEY
(cid:2)≥5≥(cid:2)
∫ 2005 Duke University Press All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $
Designed by Rebecca Giménez
Typeset in Minion by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear
on the last printed page of this book.
FOR THE MARTIANS:
Michelle, Helen, Harrison, Jeanne, Dan, & Jeannette
‘‘there is no if . . .’’

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ≤ ix
Introduction ≤ 1
ONE
‘‘A Situation in Many Respects Similar to Our
Own’’: Mars and the Limits of Analogy ≤ 31
TWO
Lowell and the Canal Controversy: Mars
at the Limits of Vision ≤ 61
THREE
‘‘Di√erent Beyond the Most Bizarre
Imaginings of Nightmare’’: Mars in Science
Fiction, 1880–1913 ≤ 115
FOUR
Lichens on Mars: Planetary Science and the
Limits of Knowledge ≤ 150
FIVE
Mars at the Limits of Imagination: The Dying
Planet from Burroughs to Dick ≤ 182
SIX
The Missions to Mars: Mariner, Viking, and
the Reinvention of a World ≤ 230
SEVEN
Transforming Mars, Transforming ‘‘Man’’:
Science Fiction in the Space Age ≤ 269
EIGHT
Mars at the Turn of a New Century ≤ 303
NINE
Falling into Theory: Terraformation and Eco-Econom-
ics in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Martian Trilogy ≤ 355
Epilogue: 2005 ≤ 385
Notes ≤ 389
Works Cited ≤ 405
Index ≤ 435
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing any book is a long and involved process, and writing a book that
encompasses more than one discipline extends and complicates that pro-
cess. Simple thanks are often insu≈cient. That said, I owe sincere debts of
gratitude to a number of friends and colleagues.
My initial interest in Mars was triggered by conversations with Molly
Rothenberg, and the earliest versions of some of the key ideas in this book
were developed in dialogue with her. A multimedia version of aspects of
my argument in this book can be found on the dvd-rom Red Planet:
Scientific and Cultural Encounters with Mars, published in 2001 by the
University of Pennsylvania Press. My coauthors in that four-year collab-
oration really do deserve more thanks than I can give them here: Har-
rison Higgs, Michelle Kendrick, Helen Burgess, Jeanne Hamming, Dan
Tripp, and Jeannette Okinczyc. Red Planet includes excerpts of video
interviews with planetary scientists, cultural critics, and science-fiction
authors. For their insights and their patient responses to various ques-
tions about Mars, I am deeply indebted to Richard Zare, Je√ Moore, Kim
Stanley Robinson, Chris McKay, Molly Rothenberg (again), Katherine
Hayles, Philip James, Robert Zubrin, Carol Stoker, Frederick Turner,
Henry Giclas, and Martyn Fogg. I owe thanks as well to other scientists
with whom I have discussed Mars over the years, particularly John Bar-
row, Matt Golombek, Robert Craddock, Michael Meyer, Kevin Zahnle,
Marc Buie, and especially Earl Scime. All are absolved from any respon-
sibility for the interpretations advanced in this study.
At the Lowell Observatory, I benefited from the expertise, helpfulness,
and genial good humor of Antoinette Beiser and Marty Hecht. Much of
the research for this book was carried out while I held the Jackson Chair