Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the Moon. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was utopian fiction. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells's novel about an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the science fiction genre.
Bayard Rustin was an African-American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have been met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which operated for years beyond their specification.
The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials.
The Sands of Mars is a science fiction novel by English writer Arthur C. Clarke. While he was already popular as a short story writer and as a magazine contributor, The Sands of Mars was also a prelude to Clarke's becoming one of the world's foremost writers of science fiction novels. The story was published in 1951, before humans had achieved space flight. It is set principally on the planet Mars, which has been settled by humans and is used essentially as a research establishment. The story setting is that Mars has been surveyed but not fully explored on the ground. The Sands of Mars was Clarke's first published novel.
The Tesla Experimental Station was a laboratory in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA built in 1899 by inventor Nikola Tesla and for his study of the use of high-voltage, high-frequency electricity in wireless power transmission. Tesla used it for only one year, until 1900, and it was torn down in 1904 to pay his outstanding debts.
The Southern Television broadcast interruption was a broadcast signal intrusion that occurred on 26 November 1977 in parts of southern England in the United Kingdom. The audio of a Southern Television broadcast was replaced by a voice claiming to represent the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', delivering a message instructing humanity to abandon its weapons so it could participate in a 'future awakening' and 'achieve a higher state of evolution'. After six minutes, the broadcast returned to its scheduled programme.
Andrea King was an American stage, film, and television actress, sometimes billed as Georgette McKee.
Invaders from Mars is a 1953 independently made American SuperCinecolor science fiction film directed by William Cameron Menzies and starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Morris Ankrum, Leif Erickson, and Hillary Brooke. It was produced by Edward L. Alperson Jr and was distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox.
Morris Ankrum was an American radio, television, and film character actor.
John Peverell Marley was an American cinematographer. He is one of only six cinematographers to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Willis Ben Bouchey was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows. He was born in Vernon, Michigan, but raised by his mother and stepfather in Washington state.
Aleksandr Leonidovich Zaitsev was a Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer from Fryazino. He worked on radar astronomy devices, near-Earth asteroid radar research, and SETI.
Flight to Mars is a 1951 American Cinecolor science fiction film drama, produced by Walter Mirisch for Monogram Pictures, directed by Lesley Selander, that stars Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, and Arthur Franz.
Pluton is a system of deep space communications and planetary radar in Crimea. It was built in the Deep-Space Communication Center area Eighty-Fifth Radiotechnical Center of Distance Communications with Space Objects; ; ; near Yevpatoria in 1960, and consists of at least three antennas. Three of them are of the ADU-1000 design, an assembly of eight reflector antennas, each with diameter of 16 metres. At the North Station, two receiving antennas were built, and a transmitter was constructed 8.5 kilometres away at the South Station.
Walter Sande was an American character actor, known for numerous supporting film and television roles.
Herbert Berghof was an Austrian-American actor, director and acting teacher.
The Last Days on Mars is a 2013 science fiction horror film directed by Ruairí Robinson with a screenplay by Clive Dawson, based on the short story "The Animators" by Sydney J. Bounds. It stars Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai, Goran Kostić, Johnny Harris, Tom Cullen, Yusra Warsama, and Olivia Williams. The film was an international co-production between Ireland and United Kingdom.
Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space. The first ever song that was performed in space was a Ukrainian song “Watching the sky...”(“Дивлюсь я на небо”) sang on 12 August 1962 by Pavlo Popovych, cosmonaut from Ukraine at a special request of Serhiy Korolyov, Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer from Ukraine. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A. Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of "Jingle Bells" over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on-board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim "You're too much" to Schirra after the song. The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it "...plays quite well".
Jeremiah is a 1998 American made-for-television biblical epic drama film produced for RAI and starring Patrick Dempsey as the Biblical prophet Jeremiah. The film originally aired on RAI network on December 14, 1998 (Italy) and PAX TV on August 27, 2000. It is also part of TNT's Bible Collection series.
