![]() Planetary Mysteries contains, in addition to the interview with Hoagland, an article by Rolling Stone writer Jeff Greenwald on the social and political issues involving Mars, as well as other provocative essays on megaliths and glaciers. His own book, Monuments on Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever (to be published next year by Grossinger’s North Atlantic Books) is a voluminous study of the search for life on Mars since the nineteenth century, the various space missions and their discoveries, and the different scenarios and interpretations of the “face.” Hoagland, who helped design the Pioneer 10 Plaque - humankind’s first interstellar message - is as knowledgeable as he is impassioned about Mars. What follows is an edited version of Grossinger’s interview - which appears in its entirety in Planetary Mysteries - with Richard Hoagland, reporter and science writer and former consultant to Walter Cronkite and CBS News. If not, if the “face” is artificial - left behind, perhaps, by intelligent beings from outside the solar system - now isn’t too soon to start asking why. ![]() If so, no one will be laughing but us lonely humans. And I’ll confess to some ambivalence about printing this: I’m sure the “face” isn’t a hoax, but it may turn out to be a big joke, just another pile of rocks, about as historic a discovery as the man in the moon. Certainly many reputable scientists have dismissed the “face” as a play of light and shadow. Perhaps even more extraordinary than this “proof” of extraterrestrial intelligence is the capacity of humankind to deceive itself. It now appears that one of those probes may have turned up something after all - a discovery so improbable, so controversial, so mind-boggling, that NASA and the scientific establishment have disclaimed it, and it’s been left to a group of maverick scientists to sort through the scanty but highly suggestive data that points to the existence of a carved, mile-high, upward-looking human “face” on Mars and an adjoining “city” of pyramids. Planetary Mysteries by Richard Grossinger has rekindled my interest, to put it mildly. Either “they” would find us, or it would be quite a while before we could extend the search to other stars. But as one planetary probe after another turned up nothing but rocks or swirling, poisonous gases - no life and no evidence of any ancient civilizations, at least in our own solar system - I lost interest. Common sense suggests it (as well as every science fiction book I’ve read since I was twelve). Thus, mission planning, manufacturing the spacecraft and the launch vehicle and readying the support systems took place swiftly.I’ve never doubted there was life on other planets. Once India decided to go to Mars, ISRO had no time to lose as the nearest launch window was only a few months away and it could not afford to lose the chance, given the next launch would present itself after over 780 days, in 2016. Apart from deep space communications and navigation-guidance-control capabilities, the mission will require autonomy at the spacecraft end to handle contingencies. After leaving Earth, the Orbiter will have to endure the Interplanetary space for 300 days before Mars capture. The enormous distances involved in interplanetary missions present a demanding challenge developing and mastering the technologies essential for these missions will open endless possibilities for space exploration. Further, a specific search for methane in the Martian atmosphere will provide information about the possibility or the past existence of life on the planet. Marking India's first venture into the interplanetary space, MOM will explore and observe Mars surface features, morphology, mineralogy and the Martian atmosphere.
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