Blue Sky On Mars

I’m not sure if it’s a result of some camera artifact, but the images coming back from Mars show that the sky kind of looks blue. Immediately, I was brought back to the movie Total Recall. I was obsessed with that movie. It was one of the few feature length movies that we had for our beta VCR in the early 90s. My brother had worked at a video rental store and was able to get a copy and I watched that movie dozens of times.

The irony is that I can recall most of Total Recall. In our home, whenever there was a party we would say, “See you at the party Richter”, or there that was the line where the main character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger smashes a portable computer containing a message and it repeats the line over and over again… “get your a** to Mars.” There was also the stuttering malfunctioning robot head that said “Two weeks”. That was also a common catch phrase.

Not to give away too much, but there has been sufficient analysis to determine that the film’s main story was an implanted memory which was entitled Blue Sky on Mars.

This is what came to mind when I saw those first images come back. So what makes it seem like the sky is blue on mars? Well, it turns out that it’s actually how light looks passing through the Mars atmosphere at sunset). What’s exciting about the images coming back and indeed many of the things we’re going to discover over the next decade is that you really have to see it to believe it.

In fact, there are many things that we think we have a good understanding of when it comes to space exploration, biology, physics, or even computing, that we find out is very different when we go from theory to practice.

Here’s another.. all of the 3D animations from the Mars landing show these big billowing flames coming out of the sky crane that was lowering the rover. However, when you actually look at the footage, you see no flames. It just appears that hot gases are what actuate and provide lift for the crane but not in the form of a flame. Typically hyrozene reaction that was missed by animators.

We finally hit a renaissance in place exploration and it’s going to inspire a new generation to think bigger about what’s possible. It should also inspire us to think bigger and do better in all our pursuits.