VarleyNews

© 2007 by John Varley; all rights reserved

I'm On My Way to Mars!!!!!

August 4, 2007 - On Saturday, August 4, just five days before my 60th birthday, a Delta rocket lifted NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander into the pre-dawn sky at Cape Canaveral and started it on its way to Mars. It's going to travel 422 million miles and-we hope-land on the Martian Arctic Plains and start digging for ice and organic compounds.

But forget about that. That's just a minor point, a secondary mission to give the scientists something to do. It's also carrying a DVD with my story, "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" on it! (Also a few other things by people like HG Wells, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, and Carl Sagan.) As I write this, the little craft is already beyond the orbit of the moon, and moving at 12,000 miles per hour. That is farther than any story of mine has ever traveled, and faster. I can't tell you how much this delights me.

It's due to arrive on May 25, 2008. Mark that date on your calendar. Now, even if it crashes (and our record on Mars landings is not good), a story of mine will likely end up on Mars. Even if it misses, even if the rockets fail and it whizzes on by well, it will just go into orbit around the sun, or maybe escape entirely and head out into interstellar space, I'm not sure which. One thing is sure: It will never return to Earth unless somebody goes out there and brings it back. I'm in space!