The University of Arizona Press
December 10, 2024
William Sheehan, co-author with Jim Bell of Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet, was interviewed on the History Channel podcast. Ben Dickstein of the History Channel interviewed Sheehan from within the dome of the Clark Refractor at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. Kevin Schindler, historian of the Lowell Observatory, was also interviewed.
They spoke about Mariner 9, an American space probe, that has been orbiting Mars for the last year. But now, it’s running out of fuel and will be deactivated, having met all of its mission objectives. Mariner 9 gave us our closest look ever at the Red Planet, solving mysteries that have been debated for centuries.
Listen to “Breaking the Mars Curse” here on Apple or here on Spotify.
About the book:
Historian William Sheehan and astronomer and planetary scientist Jim Bell combine their talents to tell a unique story of what we’ve learned by studying Mars through evolving technologies. What the eye sees as a mysterious red dot wandering through the sky becomes a blurry mirage of apparent seas, continents, and canals as viewed through Earth-based telescopes. Beginning with the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and 1970s, space-based instruments and monitoring systems have flooded scientists with data on Mars’s meteorology and geology, and have even sought evidence of possible existence of life-forms on or beneath the surface. This knowledge has transformed our perception of the Red Planet and has provided clues for better understanding our own blue world.
