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Projects: Messages from Earth

Greetings to the Future Settlers of Mars

On May 25, 2008, Visions of Mars landed near the north pole of Mars on board the spacecraft Phoenix, in a mini-dvd provided by The Planetary Society.

This mini-dvd carries with it the names of hundreds of thousands of space enthusiasts, and the Mars dreams of Earthlings in stories, art works, and radio broadcasts.

It also includes this: personal greetings from space visionaries of our time to the future settlers of Mars. Arthur C. Clarke, Louis Friedman, Judith Merril, and Carl Sagan have all recorded messages to these unknown settlers, sending the best wishes of a generation of dreamers to those who will live the dream.

When decades or centuries from now residents of Mars rediscover the Visions of Mars DVD, they will hear these distant voices speaking to them, sending a message of hope and confidence in the future.

Click on any of the names below to hear their greeting to the future and view the related images included in Visons of Mars. Some day, on a different world, other ears will be hearing these same greetings once more.

Greetings to Future Settlers of Mars by:
Arthur C. Clarke Science fiction author
Louis Friedman Executive Director of The Planetary Society
Judith Merril Science fiction author and editor
Carl Sagan Astronomer, author, and co-founder of The Planetary Society

The Phoenix Mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. International contributions for Phoenix are provided by the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), the University of Copenhagen, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.