Monthly Archives: August 2009

“Strange to think a single rose-pink snowflake”

To make Mars a living place, a real place, a part of our world with meaning — the poetry of Stuart Atkinson will guide you. Heartfelt and informed, his poetry touches our human mind and soul.
If you are an artist searching new visions, let the words of an astronomer dedicated to educating the public about Mars speak to you, teach you, and share their wisdom. “It’s not science that will get the public to support a manned mission to Mars,” argues Atkinson, “It’s all about life.”
To bring a supposedly foreign place so close, to make it so real, approachable, and full of hope; not something to be feared but met with in wonderment, in celebration, is the work of a Mars Artist. Mars can become as familiar as the mysteries we face every day on Earth — this is a poet’s gift. This is Art in its most important, vital, human form. This is the role of Mars Artists. Our minds need passionately to eat of Stuart Atkinson’s “cinnamon-dusted crust.”
“I watched the Augustine meeting on NASA TV and there was pretty little passion there when you consider we’re essentially talking about nothing less than mapping out the future of mankind’s expansion out into space.”
Hundreds of years from now humans living on Mars will wonder what we thought of their home.
They will read the poems of Stuart Atkinson.
Look Out Below…
 
Strange to think a single rose-pink snowflake
floating from the frigid polar sky could have been
the start. Settling on the silent ice as softly as a sigh,
pressing on the white-capped scarp just hard
enough to send a tickle of a tremor
through its gateau-like layers of rock
it shocked the sleeping stones awake,
setting them shivering and quivering just enough
to shake loose a crust of ochre-dusted snow
and send it tumbling to the world below,
blossoming into powder puffs as it scuffed
each ledge and boulder on the way,
spraying veils of flour-fine ice into the
vacuum-thin air before crumping
into the polar plain and billowing away
from the high cliff’s crumbling base…
Imagine walking in the Great Wall shadow
of that scarp; delighting in the flint-sharp polar light,
rejoicing in the silence, relishing the peace
when suddenly the ground beneath your feet
begins to quake, and looking up
you see snow flaking off the cliff. Soon rocks and grit
a thousand shades of pink and red
are falling from the sky – a dry waterfall
of icing sugar frost and pollen-fine dust,
rushing through the air to strike the ground
without a sound in a martian mare’s tail cloud
of tan and titian fines that huffs and puffs
towards you, a slow-motion Barsoomian tsunami
as weak as the beating of a faerie’s wing…
Such sights our eyes will never see,
and I cannot help but envy those who, in the future, do.
© Stuart Atkinson 2008
Fall further in love with Mars here:

What would Zheng He do?

Lunar Astronaut Buzz Aldrin came out in favor of the HEROIC “Mars to Stay” mission architecture!

“They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don’t look forward to go back home again after a couple a years,” Aldrin said. But that’s not to say they’ll never return to Earth. Years down the line, there may be the opportunity for a return mission, depending on technological advancements. “At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back.”

The full article may be read at Universe Today:

Zheng He was the 13th Century HEROIC Chinese admiral of the largest expeditionary fleet assembled for hundreds of years following his time. Shortly after his death the ships which had carried him to Africa, India, and beyond were burned in their docks by a new reactionary Ming emperor. Within a hundred years Christopher Columbus had discovered America and China began its slow decline into tribute to foreign powers.
In China, 11 July is Maritime Day (中国航海日), devoted to the memory of Zheng He’s first voyage. For more about Zheng He, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

Additional free designs and their authoring files may be found here: http://www.titlesequences.com/mac/public_downloads.html

Frustration with the Augustine Committee

The Augustine Committee seems to be embracing heavy lift but oriented toward a space program of lunar missions, with Mars seen as an eventual objective in the indeterminate future. This is a serious mistake. If anyone reading this blog ever wants Mars to be explored, much less settled, in their lifetime, America must not only develop a heavy lift vehicle such as the SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy, or the Ares 5, but, the program must be oriented specifically toward Mars — not the moon. The moon is a siren call. Mars is an entirely different environment capable of supporting human civilization en mass. With a 24 hour day, vast quantities of water, and all the essential elements found on Earth, Mars offers humanity a permanent second home. Martian exploration will use aeroshells, parachutes, and on site refueling; thermal, pressure, and gravitational environments are entirely different between Mars and the Moon. Lunar equipment and procedures will not evolve into Mars missions.
Asteroid mining and Martian settlement will provide the engine humanity needs to sustain a permanently expanding frontier. Mars Direct is a low cost straightforward way to settle Mars. Now!
The Mars Society is an international organization committed to this moral imperative. Products with variations of the “Cowards Return to the Moon” theme can be purchased at cost from Factual Fiction’s online store.
While such a populist theme may seem blunt, rude, or whatever, over the last decade of involvement in space advocacy we’ve observed a remarkably consistent dichotomy between persons involved in the space community: old political timid bureaucrats predictably favor lunar exploration, with their excuse being “safety, proximity to earth”; bold young creative entrepreneurs OVERWHELMINGLY favor Mars Direct, with their rally cry being, “LET’S GO!”
This dichotomy is so consistent, obvious, and predictable a simple biological solution to change American space policy suggests itself: testosterone replacement therapy. No kidding. It is time to view lunar exploration with disdain. Heroes go to Mars. Cowards return to the moon!!!!

Welcome to the Mars Artists Community

Enough is enough: artists can make Mars exploration and settlement favorable to languishing in LEO or cowardly returning to the moon…simply by making the coolest, most cutting-edge, professional space imagery — ENTIRELY — Mars-centric.

The idea is to establish a model library copyrighted solely for creation of Mars imagery — but, otherwise open to use by any contributing artist or studio. Since 3D modeling is extremely labor intensive an artists’ cooperative centered upon developing Martian vehicles, habitats, and astronauts, will lower the cost of high-quality creative iterations by artists taking advantage of free Mars Only models. With a library of easily modified Mars Only models, through trial and error of creative processes, Mars Only productions will evolve to be of higher-quality, more pervasive, expressive, and cool!

This is in addition to the self-selection of artists who realize a Mars-oriented space program — NOW! — is more desirable than one languishing in LEO or returning to the moon. Not only will the most informed artists work on Mars-Only models — but, they will work together for a greater cause: the promotion of Mars exploration and settlement over the bureaucratic intertia of dream-crushing Lunar/LEO bullshit.
Eventually we will have our own website, blog, and online Mars-Only library, but, in the meantime checkout MarsSociety.org and send us a message if you are interested in hearing more or contributing: Inspired@FactualFiction.com
(By the way we call the above rover “Temerity None.” Tesla Experimental Motors Excursion Rover I___ T___ Yeti…or something like that.)