Life on Mars? Exploring 200 Years of Our Fascination with the Red Planet

Please join the Smithsonian Libraries on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 for a lecture featuring Dr. Joshua Nall, Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge, UK.

6:00pm, Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Warner Bros Theater at the National Museum of American History
12th Street and Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC

This event is free. RSVP is requested. Please click here to RSVP or contact us at 202.633.2241 or silrsvp@si.edu.
For access services, please contact us at silrsvp@si.edu or 202.633.2241, preferably two weeks prior to the program.

Life on Mars? Exploring 200 Years of Our Fascination with the Red Planet
Dr. Joshua Nall, Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, in the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.

Humans have long been intrigued by the possibility that Mars might harbor life. Planetary scientists nowadays continue to hunt for evidence of it, and space technologists even advocate settling ourselves there permanently. These are bold projects, and in this talk I suggest that we look back before we look forward, to consider how humans studied and thought about Mars before the Space Age. Investigating 19th-century arguments over whether the red planet was teeming with intelligent life, and exploring fantastical stories about what that life might do to us, reveal important lessons, I will argue, for how we understand the next century of Martian exploration.