A library for Mars

Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:06 PM by Alan Boyle

The Phoenix Mars Lander is equipped with instruments that could detect the signature of life on Mars - but it also carries signatures, stories and lots more for future generations. The nonprofit Planetary Society is sending along what's billed as the first library for the Red Planet: a silica-glass mini-DVD encoded with scores of stories about space exploration, audio and artwork from some of our planet's best and brightest, plus digitally encoded names submitted by thousands of Earthlings. Perhaps the coolest thing about the DVD is the label addressed to future visitors on Mars: "Attention Astronauts: Take This With You."

NASA / JPL / Lockheed Martin

The Planetary Society's mini-DVD, packed chock full
of digital signatures and goodies from Earth's
cultures, can be seen mounted on the Phoenix Mars
Lander during preparations for launch.

It's not out of the question that some Marswalker will actually pick up and decipher that DVD someday: After all, one of the places moonwalkers have visited is the landing site for the Surveyor 3 probe, which touched down in 1966 and happened to be within walking distance of the Apollo 12 lunar module three years later.

Unfortunately, it will take humans much more than three years to get to Phoenix's intended landing site in Mars' northern highlands. Fortunately, the Planetary Society's DVD is built to last at least 500 years, and perhaps much, much longer.

What would a Martian traveler find on the disk? Assuming that he or she could figure out how to decode the DVD, the "library" would yield 80 forward-looking stories and articles - including literary classics penned by Voltaire and Jonathan Swift, science-fiction classics by Arthur C. Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson, and many more goodies well worth adding to your reading list. Of course you'll find Orson Welles' radio retelling of "The War of the Worlds," as well as Mars-themed sci-fi art and photos of the real Mars, as seen by past space probes.

The DVD also includes audio-enhanced slideshows in which Clarke and other luminaries (including the late Carl Sagan) speak directly to future Martians. For Sagan's audio clip, go to this Web page and click on the link titled "Hear Carl Sagan's Message to the Future."

These presentations, along with many of the text/video/audio selections, were first placed on a CD-ROM titled "Visions of Mars" more than a decade ago. In an exercise much like the current project, the CD-ROM was placed on Russia's Mars 96 probe. That spacecraft, however, never got out of Earth orbit due to the failure of a booster stage. The first Martian library went down in flames, and the Planetary Society had to start from scratch.

"We were looking for several years for another ride, essentially," the Planetary Society's Susan Lendroth explained. The team behind Phoenix Mars Lander obliged, and so "Visions of Mars" project director Jon Lomberg updated the content for a fresh launch.

Meanwhile, the society put out a call for people to submit their names for digital inclusion on the disk - following up on similar "send-your-name-to-space" projects for the Mars Exploration Rovers, Selene, Stardust, and so on. About 250,000 people answered the call (including yours truly).

Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Planetary Society, said the resulting mini-DVD is made of material that should last even though it's sitting on the exposed part of the spacecraft, in full view of Martian passers-by. That's the whole point, said the society's executive director, Louis Friedman.

"Since the Planetary Society's disk should last for centuries on Mars, we hope astronauts at some future date will enjoy the visionary works we have sent in this first Martian library," Friedman said in a news release. "These tales and images have inspired generations about the wonder of space, including many men and women who are now researchers and engineers in the space program."

What would you put on a digital disk destined for another world? Are there obvious choices that Friedman, Lomberg and the other folks behind "Visions of Mars" have missed? One audio expert has wondered whether "Visions of Mars" would be playable even a few decades from now, let alone hundreds of years - and that's an interesting point. Do you have any better ideas for preserving interplanetary time capsules? Feel free to leave your suggestions as comments below.

Update for 9:30 p.m. ET Aug. 1: If you follow the Web link in the paragraph just above, you'll read that the audio quality for the original "Visions of Mars" CD might not have been up to snuff. It turns out that the audio was redone at higher quality for the Phoenix mini-DVD, addressing that concern.

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Comments

As a librarian I am thrilled to hear of the first library on another planet in our solar system!

Wendy (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 8:26 AM)

I was somewhat disappointed to hear that the selection of information and works included on this disk were limited to mostly space related material. (sci-fi, etc.) I was hoping someone would have the forsight to include a world history and timeline. Or at least something that shows who we are today and what we are doing, not just "forward-looking" subjects. What happens, say, if earth does not survive another 500 years? Will this be all that is left of us? These things? We need to create something of this nature but containing a much more rounded out library. As an example, when I think about a point in time, say 500 years ago, I do not really care what their "forward-looking" views were, as much as I would like to find those missing pieces of history that were lost to us about what was happening at those times and who they were. I hope that when (yes I said "when") we begin to inhabit our sister planet Mars, that these kinds of things are not overlooked, or though of as less important than others. It is always important to remember where you came from and know as much as you can about you ancestors.

K. R., Richmond, Virginia (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 8:59 AM)

At least Voyager 1 and 2 packed a couple of record needles and graphical instructions on how to play the gold records. Unless humans get to Mars PDQ (within 50 years) there might not be a working DVD player around to play that disc back.

The best bet for future missions is to pack a player along with any recordings sent along with it.

Alan Sheets, Loveland CO (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 11:07 AM)

The thing that bothers me is that when one has a CD, one needs to have a CD player, too. There is no mention of a player and even if there were, one would have to know to put the disk in the player and power it. The rate at which music media changes here is the alarming part. Some of us can still play vinyl, but many do not even know the word. That is only 30 or 40 years ago and several evolutions of play technology back. So in 200 or 300 years can anyone know what to do with this disk?
Bill Isakson
El Cerrito, CA

William E. Isakson (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 11:17 AM)

A DVD is stupid. Send photos,etc enclosed in silicon or such. Such deciphering technology will not be available. Takes more space, but, info would be
accessable.

A.B., Kansas (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:13 PM)

Here is an idea, send the new i-phone and rechargeable batteries, a small recharger, solar powered. This should be easy enough even for a caveman!

Sam Quinn, Phoenix, AZ (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:24 PM)

I'm sorry, but I do find kind of ironic reading this story, in a page where there's also a Netflix ad...
;-)

Which makes me think. How will Nasa provide with electronic diversions to the future Mars explorers? Will they let them carry their Ipods or something? Will they carry a DVD library worth of 1000 movies, or will NASA transmit them regularly tv shows and sport games to their space ship?

red pill junkie, Mexico city (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:26 PM)

Audio and video are important media forms but the written word is just as important. I suggest a modern day rosette stone containing text in several languages. The text could be very small and could be written on a surface that would last almost forever. Perhaps it could also contain the instructions for building a DVD player to play the rest of the media.

Bill Kultzow (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:42 PM)

With all the information being available here on this Planet, my question is... Why even send it to Mars? Are we actually hoping that an Alien Life Form will happen upon this contraption and take the time to try and decifer it's contents. It seems like if we just started sending the information out into space via radio waves, micro waves or some other form of long distance communication and just sit back and see if we get a response we'd have just as much luck with getting the information to an Alien Life Form as we do by sending it to Mars and waiting.. As it is now we have simply spent a great of money, time and energy to send information into space that is readily available here on Earth for future generations of Earthlings to use. I just do not see the point in sending this to Mars.

Scott Louisville, KY. (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 2:22 PM)

They sent a DVD but nothing to play it on? Brilliant.

T. O'Brien, Vermont (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 3:59 PM)

Maybe it would make sense to send a DVD PLAYER.

It is more probable future martians will have +/- electrical understanding than an understanding of how to read a DVD.

noodnik (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 4:01 PM)

Do you really think an intelligent species, human or other wise, that could travel to Mars would be not be able to figure out how to play a DVD? We don't use wax cylinders like the original Edison phonographs, but we know how they work.

Charles S Davis, Seymour, CT (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 8:23 PM)

If we were to find an alien DVD today, I have no doubt that we could figure out how to extract the information. It wouldn't be that difficult. It seems obvious to me that if someone at some point in the future has the technological capacity to be standing on Mars examining this spacecraft (which is beyond our own capabilities at present), they would no doubt find the DVD amusingly simple and would have no trouble extracting the information. This is the basis for all of these "note in a bottle" efforts and a DVD made of a sturdy material, will preserve more information for a longer time than anything else we have available at present. Also, a mechanical device, such as a DVD player, will simply not last. Of course, hopefully all of this information will still be available at the local library, Mars Branch.

Bob Bickers, Murrysville, PA (Sent Wednesday, August 01, 2007 9:57 PM)

Charles and Bob -- Are you really sure about that? Let's say I give you an unknown thing from a space probe.

1st, you've got to figure out that it is a information storage device. That's no small chore in and of itself, for any civilization. It could be a hood ornament or decoration.

Then, you have to figure out how it is physically recorded. It is probably binary, but I wouldn't count on it; after all, the Voyager records were in analog.

Of course, if you are dealing with disks, do you spin it CW or CCW? Read the data from the inside-out, or outside-in? How fast do you have to read the data? How many bits make up a character? What are the encoding and compression schemes? Or, how about if the data is stored on a chip or tape? How much electricity is too much for the media to take before it is destroyed?

Then, you have to figure out what kind of information you are looking for: audio, pictures, video, or data. The Voyager records have both audio and video on it, as well as a cuneiform pointing that out. The audio is fairly easy, but not foolproof, to decipher if the alien has ears like ours. Pictures are a little more difficult, but probably easy enough to figure out -- once you figure out how what the dimensions of the picture are.

Video and data are kind of tough, even if you make the assumption that the creator of the storage device went out of the way to make decryption easy -- an assumption that goes right out the window if the Planetary Society used off-the-shelf DVD technology designed for compression.

Alan Sheets, Loveland CO (Sent Thursday, August 02, 2007 3:43 PM)

Hey, my name is on that thing! The planetary society even gives you a certificate. How special!

I plan to make copies and give it out as Christmas presents to my family, along with an autographed glossy 8x10 of myself.

Andy Motherway, Minneapolis, MN (Sent Thursday, August 02, 2007 4:31 PM)

Alan; If they were unable to figure out how to play a DVD without a player then they probally wouldn't be able to figure it out even if they had one. If they could decipher the Rosetta Stone, I'm positive given enough time they could solve the problem of a DVD.

Charles S Davis, Seymour, CT (Sent Thursday, August 02, 2007 6:04 PM)

Christ, didn't you people have to take some sort of reading comprehension course in school. The project is aimed at humans not aliens. Secondly, our species has developed something called the internet. Google dvd and see how many hits you get. Unless you're telling me that these "Idiots from The Future" also won't know what a computer's for.

Dr. P Seattle, washington (Sent Friday, August 03, 2007 10:04 AM)

Hey My Name is on that thing too! I am very proud that I could contribute something to future history buffs. The DVD is as important as the Declaration of Independence--signatures of individuals who believe in something other than war, social issues, polution, or just the score of the next football game.
Do I think some intelligent alien race will 'discover' the DVD--no, I don't.
Do I worry that there wasn't a DVD player onboard--no, I don't.
There is enough 'junk' in antique stores here on Earth for me to collect all the records from artist that I grew up with in the '70's--I could listen to records until I die--just by paying $1.00 when they sold for $7.99 in 1979. And yes, I enjoyed "AirSupply", "Donna Summers", and some unnamed gospel groups from way out in the country region.
Even then, the importance of the DVD, it will someday be recovered by a group of Mars Colonist. Someone, with the wisdom will find a DVD player back on earth in some old musty antique shop, along with a computer, and will make copies for all the Colonist. They will read the names, the literature, the vision of the people--and someone will enjoy it. They may try to find out "What happened to (this person), who was their descendents." There may be some future famous people listed on that DVD. Then again, the world could have an nuclear war, enter a new 'dark age', and it might be 2000 years before humans get to Mars and find the DVD. A prime example, the Greeks' produced a nautical computer over 2000 years ago, and it has been 'rediscovered'.

The main importance, for me, I participated in a historic event. Even if this current "Roman Civilization" that we call the United States of America, doesn't exist in the future.

My name is there--you didn't participate and your name isn't a part of Martian History--yet anyway! So while we have the technology, the means, the capacity to send landers to Mars--Join the Planetary Society or the Mars Society. Do something for the Future!

My family name came to this country from Germany, hired by the Crown of England to fight the colonist. There is over 20 different variations of the last name, it has evolved and developed in many historical ways--from brother fighting brother during the Civil War to people who invented, who educated, who worked on farms. It was History, in the making then and Historical, because it involves the Future!

Jerry Matthew Weikle (Sent Thursday, September 06, 2007 8:50 PM)

I didn't realize the DVD was aboard until I read this story just now, nearly six weeks after the Phoenix was launched. It's a great idea, especially since its primary target group is made up of humans (as another observer notes). If aliens happen to discover it, well, if they are smart enough to get to Mars then they certainly are likely to be able to figure out how to read the DVD. And if they're curious enough to travel to Mars, then they're assuredly going to be curious enough to try to figure out how to read it. All that's ignoring the possibility they've already created such disks so alreadey know how to read them.

Regarding getting such an item into the hands of an intelligent alien species, if there are any, sure, it's far less likely they'll find such an item than they are to receive the various radio and television signals we've been cranking out for decades in pretty much an omni-directional pattern, especially the past few decades, when more and more radio and television broadcasters have gone to 24/7 schedules.

But I still think it's worthwhile to do this, even if only for future human Martian visitors/colonists.

Mekhong Kurt, Bangkok, Thailand (Sent Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:12 AM)

does anyone read any mars books? :(

marcie, cedar springs,michigan (Sent Monday, February 04, 2008 10:50 AM)

Who says that mars will be around another 500 years for this DVD to be read? The CO2 levels on it are very high. It might not survive global warming. Also, have you ever tried playing a CD or DVD that has scratches from over 100 years of dust blowing against it and wearing it down? I think we should have saved our money and fed some of the "life" on this planet with that waste. I wonder what the rocket's to transport this explorer's carbon footprint is. :)

Bob Barker (Sent Thursday, May 29, 2008 2:03 PM)

This DVD is a perfect demonstration of how arrogant human beings are. They believe DVD format & associated peripherals (DVD player, TV, wires) will last forever. If they wasted their time making a DVD hoping other human astronauts will read and understand, they are really stupid. If our DVD decompression schemes are lost/destroyed in the future how can these human rebuild a DVD player and play it? (Historical Mayans left us a lot of stuff to decipher, now we are leaving future people with a DVD to decipher, how ironic). If they wasted their time making a DVD hoping aliens will read and understand, they are really stupid. Alien will think it is a thin donut and chewed it, they will not think it is a storage medium, because they are so advanced or primitive that there is no need (or concept) of media that holds recorded information. I doubt if NASA has a brain at all, or they have friends working in video production industry who sell them this brilliant concept so they can make millions out of it. My advice is the well-known principle: KISS (Keep it simple & stupid). NASA missed this point completely making them look so stupid. If I were an astronaut honestly I would not bother finding a compatible DVD player, if I did get a DVD player and a TV, I will be very disappointed about what I see and heard (old movies, well known people that are not in my generation, etc etc - I just can't believe what is going on in their minds)

Bill Chan (Sent Saturday, May 31, 2008 8:05 PM)

With all the innovation, one wonders why NASA had to recycle the name for the lander. Phoenix was the name of a Lunar Lander also. When the time comes for man to go to Mars, perhaps they could use a name like Cathetel, the Angel of the Garden, as one would hope it would be a primary step towards engineering a habitable planet.

Malliobiana, Toronto, Canada (Sent Tuesday, June 03, 2008 8:51 AM)

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