We were blessed to have him with us. Ray Bradbury reminds us of the uniqueness of the individual and the remarkable power of human imagination and curiosity.

Via the Guardian.

Douglas Adams had an asteroid named after one of his characters; now the late Ray Bradbury has lent his name to the spot where Nasa’s rover Curiosity landed on Mars.

Nasa announced yesterday – which would have been Bradbury’s 92nd birthday – that the landing site of Curiosity was now called Bradbury Landing, in honour of the science fiction author who died earlier this year. The Curiosity team tweeted: “In tribute, I dedicate my landing spot on Mars to you, Ray Bradbury. Greetings from Bradbury Landing!”, also sharing a picture of the site.

Curiosity landed on Mars on 5 August, beginning a two-year exploratory mission. Bradbury, who died in June aged 91, was the author of hundreds of short stories, as well as the novels Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451. His classic collection of stories The Martian Chronicles, written in the 1940s, imagined man’s experiences on Mars telepathic Martians who lived there. “The Martian desert lay broiling like a prehistoric mud-pot, waves of heat rising and shimmering,” he writes in The Earth Men. “There was a small rocket-ship reclining upon a hilltop nearby.”

“This was not a difficult choice for the science team,” said Michael Meyer, Nasa programme scientist for Curiosity. “Many of us and millions of other readers were inspired in our lives by stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of the possibility of life on Mars.”

From The Atlantic:

There can be no better justification for Bradbury’s honor than this video of him reading his poem, “If Only We Had Taller Been,” at Caltech in 1971. I’ve watched this videos dozens if not a hundred times, and every time it brings me a sense of awe for the feat of sending our man-made creations so far from our planet…Space exploration needs scientists. It also needs people like Ray Bradbury, people who can remind us who we are and where we’re going.

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3 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. dennisl59 says:

    In a follow up story, here’s the link to the Bradbury Landing Site showing the rover driving around, trying to find the nearest Starbucks after getting bad directions from the ‘locals’…

    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22aug_bradbury/

    posted 8/24 455pm Texas[Venti means 20, not Large!]Time

  2. NeverSurrender says:

    RIP Neil Armstrong – who truly was always the most interesting person in the room.

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