Mars gets its first library!

Contents of Mars' new library:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/messages/vom_contents.html

And art gallery!

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/messages/vom_art.html


This color image, released by NASA on May 26, 2008, shows the American flag and a mini-DVD on the Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft's deck, which is about one meter above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million earthlings. REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Handout. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.

The spacecraft delivered The Planetary Society's Visions of Mars DVD to the surface as a kind of time capsule for future explorers. Attached to the deck of the Phoenix lander, the DVD is, in effect, the first library on Mars. It includes a collection of 19th and 20th Century science fiction stories, essays and art inspired by the Red Planet, as well as the names of more than a quarter-million inhabitants of Earth.

The Visions content represents 20 nations and cultures and includes works by Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan, sf authors Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Kim Stanley Robinson, and Mars science pioneer Percival Lowell, among many more.

For more information on the DVD:
http://planetary.org/news/2008/0525_Visions_of_Mars_Goes_to_Mars.html

Too bad they did not send instructions on how to read it. Hopefully who ever finds it will know or figure out what it is and how to read it.

Build your super computer:

An article about how a Belgian university built their own supercomputer equivalent using gaming graphics cards http://www.dvhardware.net/article27538.html




Creating new and better ways to use current technology has always fascinated me.