Red Planet : Scientific and Cultural Encounters with Mars

Life on Mars. For over a century, artists and scientists, philosophers and politicians have all been enthralled by the prospect.

For many, Mars serves as a reflection of our hopes and concerns and as a means of learning about Earth's geologic history and ecology.

In the face of diminishing natural resources, drastic atmospheric changes, and other signs of environmental instability here on Earth, some scientists believe that the exploration and settlement of Mars may be key to human survival.

Red Planet, an educational DVD-ROM for home, library, or school use, complete with the latest interactive multimedia technology, offers in-depth, cross-disciplinary analyses of Mars as both an object of scientific study and a cultural artifact.

Red Planet constitutes an entire virtual library on Mars.

With more than 3.0 gigabytes of material, it features extended video interviews with scientists, cultural critics, and visionaries and includes animation, hundreds of pages of text, voiceover narration, biographies of key figures, bibliographies, and technical glossaries.

Throughout, hyperlinks provide access to additional scientific papers and Mars-related web sites on the world wide web. The host server will link to web pages that will be regularly updated with the latest information on the red planet.

Exploring the significant roles Mars has played in nineteenth- and twentieth-century astronomy, literature, and speculative thought, Red Planet presents fascinating discussions with science fiction writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson, cultural critics such as N.

Katherine Hayles, and a diverse group of major scientific figures, including Richard Zare, Carol Stoker, Christopher McKay, and Robert Zubrin.

Together they help students investigate the social, philosophical, and economic values and assumptions that underlie different views on the future of our encounters with Mars, the next frontier.

Preview Red Planet at www.mariner10.com Edition Details: -Includes teaching manual -Operates on any DVD-ROM drive -Features rare film clips from government and Hollywood productions -Presents excerpts from the original "War of the Worlds" broadcast -Provides extensive bibliography of Mars science fiction and the history of Mars exploration -Contains more than three hours of high-quality digital video, including original interviews with top scientists, bestselling science fiction writers, and visionaries -Acts as a "miniserver" to guide access to worldwide web sites, including NASA's -Features digital imagery and sound throughout. The Mariner10.com series series from the University of Pennsylvania Press marks a breakthrough in multimedia resources for higher education, offering scholarly and educational titles authored exclusively for DVD-ROM.

Each title in the series is an original contribution to interdisciplinary knowledge and is authored by leading scholars and scientists.