Mars Phoenix Lander Interview

Earlier today I made a trip to the local office of the Daily Herald in order to be interviewed for a WBBM-AM radio (780 on the dial) newscast. The interview was conducted by Steve Grzanich, reporter and co-anchor of the afternoon news at WBBM. For half an hour we talked about the Phoenix lander mission to Mars and its place in the exploration of Mars. We discussed past missions to Mars, current missions to Mars, how we benefit from the study of Mars, and what the prospects are for future human missions to the red planet.

In addition to talking about Mars, I was able to get in brief plugs for the Chicago Society for Space Studies, the National Space Society, and my upcoming presentation on space art at the International Space Development Conference in D.C.

I was also supposed to be interviewed by Julie, a reporter for the Daily Herald, but just as I arrived at the Herald's office, she was called away on breaking news on the Drew Peterson escapade.

It was a fun interview and the time passed quickly. My long time interest in Mars is largely responsible for my work with the raw image data returned by various Mars missions, beginning with the Viking missions. I've been lecturing about the exploration of Mars since 1988 and it was my desire to provide unique images as a part of my presentations that got me started with processing raw image data instead of relying on images released by the NASA public affairs folks Prior to the Internet, the only way to obtain this mission data was by ordering CD's from the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC). Now the NASA PDS Imaging Node makes those data files easily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

I am told that the interview should air Thursday (tomorrow) afternoon and that the full interview will be available as a podcast in a few days on the WBBM web site. I'll provide the details once I have them.

Ad Astra, Jim

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Mars.