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People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
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15 Feb, 7 tweets, 5 min read
Have a freebie on us - salon.com/2020/06/13/the…

I was a reporter when that story broke and cannot quite believe it is 25 years since it happened!
The story behind the story is even wilder - in one version, an escort ensconced in a fancy hotel with an official from the Clinton White House telephoned a supermarket tabloid and said life had been discovered - on Neptune
The debate became very heated, very vitriolic and now, today, it all hinges on experts who like arguing over the shape of crystals - but it was an object lesson in how NOT to announce life has been found on Mars. There have been other occasions!
And after it lands this week, if #Perseverance does discover something "Interesting" it will likely be announced by social media -- and we have a long interview with the JPL news and social media manager on this very subject
And if you are in the astrobiology business, here's a tip - don't tweet a photo of a cake nymag.com/intelligencer/…
We already had one scare last autumn - when our book arrived in the UK it was the same day as the life on Venus story broke. I spent a whole evening with post-its and tippex
And finally my all-time favourite news story involving aliens - and one to remember if you start singing sea shanties at the top of lamp-posts after #Perseverance lands
wxyz.com/news/national/…

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More from @People_Of_Space

People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
17 Feb
So another thread on..... Mars, this time the early years of the space age

#CountdowntoMars #Mars #Perseverance ImageImageImageImage
1964 was a vintage year. The Beatles, Goldfinger, (consults notes – I was very young at the time), my christening and..... oh yes, JPL sent the first missions to the Red Planet @carolynporco ImageImageImageImage
What people forget is that even then so very little was known about the Red Planet as it was not easy to see with then state-of-the art equipment – in that same year of 1964 the official USAF Cartography Center map of Mars still had canals drawn on it as ridiculous as it seems ImageImage
Read 10 tweets
People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
17 Feb
Good morning, and wonder ..... are you ready for some prime Mars related-content? And, indeed .... life on the Red Planet choice cuts? #Mars #LifeonMars #countdowntoMars ImageImageImageImage
As we head towards tomorrow’s excitement in Jezero Crater, time for the very question of eternity: are we alone? And so I will tweet a thread on how our view of life on the Red Planet has changed over the years...... ImageImageImageImage
Where did the notion that life might exist on Mars come from? One of the first mentions is from the telescopic era when the polar ice caps were discovered and by the person who actually discovered them Image
Read 15 tweets
People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
16 Feb
I just saw my old comrade-in-the-science-writing trenches Marcus had tweeted this It is a source of great pleasure to me that my old contemporaries like him, @ScienceNelson, @drdwhitehouse and @DrStuClark are doing so well!
I started the day talking about books and so will say a few more words here. I don't read that many space or science books any more, mainly because I don't have to for work any more. But here are some authors who I think are brilliantly good
One of the reasons I was delighted to collaborate with @howellspace is because she is to my mind the most productive space writer working today - since we finished Mars she has published two more books with another on the go and another on the cards after that ImageImage
Read 10 tweets
People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
16 Feb
So my final thread this evening..... I reminisced early about the tail end of the Soviet days, when you only ever heard the good news after it had happened. Remind you of anywhere else?
China’s space program today is the same; trying to work out what is happening is a full time journalistic detective story. For that, take a look at @AJ_FI who knows everything about China's space program - and the Tianwen mission now in orbit ImageImage
So the Tianwen orbiter has arrived in orbit around Mars and here is what we know - and what we can reasonably expect over the next few months..... ImageImageImage
Read 8 tweets
People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
16 Feb
As people seem to have enjoyed my reminiscences of Baikonur, here is an even more surreal story - and one that had me laughing so hard I thought I would have a nosebleed. It involves the Famous British Scientist Who Wok Up One Day To Read His Own Obituary
Professor Heinz Wolff was known to a generation of kids as the host of "The Great Egg Race" - where people built ever so slightly bizarre gadgets bbc.co.uk/archive/the-gr…
Anyone seeing this will think it is beyond parody - except, that whole time period of slightly earnest "educational TV" on the BBC was parodied in the utterly wonderful "Look Around You" - probably my favourite comedy of recent years
vimeo.com/38683125
Read 14 tweets
People_of_Space: Nicholas Profile picture
16 Feb
#CountdowntoMars #Mars @search_mars @howellspace @Thievesbook

I always knew I wanted to write books from an early age, and given my interests, it was obvious I should write about something I loved. Take a guess what that was. Just take a guess.
@search_mars @howellspace @Thievesbook So yes, the first book I ever worked on was about Mars - and the reason? Because the Soviet Union was launching two missions in the summer of 1988 to orbit and make landings on Phobos, the larger Martian moon
It also looked forward to how people would land on Mars, hence the title. Several people buttonholed me to say there was not going to be another space race. I pointed out it referred to humans going there.
Read 20 tweets

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