Mars Rocks!

By Bill Doughty

“Long live American curiosity.”

Tonight a science advisor called “Curiosity” a “one-ton automobile-size piece of American ingenuity ... sitting on the surface of Mars” that recognizes science, technology, engineering, mathematics -- and innovation.

An artist's conception of Curiosity on Mars.

Scientists, like explorers and sailors of other ages, navigated their ship and it's landing craft to the surface of the red planet, sending the largest and most complex probe rocketing at 13,000 mph to drop its cargo onto the surface of the planet with a gentle touch down.

Some of the world’s attention turned from triumphs like the London Olympics and tragedies like another shooting in the heartland.  Fascinating was the human dimension -- the hugs, handshakes and other heartfelt shows of affection.

Another administrator called it a great adventure and quoted Teddy Roosevelt, father of the U.S. Navy’s Great White Fleet:

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Recognizing the London Olympics occurring simultaneously, a scientist said, “You came back with the gold.”

“This feat you’ve seen tonight is something only the United States could do, and the Rover is made in the USA,” said a panel participant.

“I am forever humbled by the experience,” said another on the panel.  Panelists are unnamed to demonstrate the humility, cooperation and teamwork exemplified by the mission.

The first image from Curiosity on Mars.

"That great things take many people working together is one of the greatest aspects of human existence," said another.

Finally, right before the panel opened up to news media, an administrator said:  “There is no greater inspiration for Middle School students learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics than a mission to Mars.” 

Curiosity is an MUV, if you'll allow the term -- a Mars Utility Vehicle, capable of ranging far and wide.  Follow the Mars Science Laboratory mission at: NASA MSL.

Mars, named after the God of War, was an inspiration for authors like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Edgar Rice Burroughs, all featured on Navy Reads.

Ray Bradbury: ‘Everything is Love’

by Bill Doughty

Ray Bradbury, who passed away earlier this month, may have discovered the  meaning of life: “witness and celebrate” and love life with a passion.

“There’s no use having a universe, is there?  There’s no use having a billion stars.  There’s no use having a planet Earth, if there isn’t someone here to see it.  You are the audience.  You’re here to witness and celebrate,” he said in Point Loma in 2001.

“Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything,” he also said.

Bradbury, unable to join the military due to poor eyesight, used his eyes to read books, his mind to balance wonder with insight, and his fingers to create new worlds.  His science fiction, fantasy and horror stories were popular with soldiers and sailors in World War II, helping them escape, imagine and reflect for a few hours.

Ray Bradbury was inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.  In the wake of the depression his family moved from Illinois to Arizona and eventually to California.  After high school he was self-educated, believing in the power of libraries and books.  

“I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college.  People should educate themselves -- you can get a complete education for no money.  At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.”

In Los Angeles he was mentored by Leigh Brackett and literally looked over Robert Heinlein’s shoulder as Heinlein wrote.  

The Navy Professional Reading Program includes some works of fiction, including one by Robert Heinlein, “Starship Troopers.”  Heinlein, Bradbury and Isaac Asimov are considered excellent gateway authors for young readers who discover literature through science fiction and fantasy.

Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man,” “Martian Chronicles” and “Fahrenheit 451” are revered as masterworks.  In honor of Bradbury, Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater on the moon after the Bradbury’s novel “Dandelion Wine.”

“Fahrenheit 451,” published in 1953, is seen as a classic in dystopian fiction, along with George Orwell’s “1984,” published in 1949, and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” published in 1932.  Modern dystopian tales (that may stand the test of time) are Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1985), Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” (2006) and Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games” (2008).

“Fahrenheit 451” continues to be a top seller.  The book celebrates books, the freedom to read and the need for a diversity of ideas.

“There are worse crimes than burning books.  One of them is not reading them,” said Bradbury.  “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.  Just get people to stop reading them.”

Through books we can see the world and understand what it means to be alive -- important thoughts for Father’s Day.

On his view of the meaning of life, according to Sam Weller, author of “The Bradbury Chronicles,” “His mantra to his very last breath was ‘do what you love and love what you.‘  He believed that love was the rocket fuel ... that propelled his career.  He always said that ‘everything is love.’”

Critical Curious Thinking - Mary Roach

by Bill Doughty

To misquote Forrest Gump, a book of essays is like a box of chocolates.  New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach’s The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2011) (BASNW) is a collection of curious, sweet/tart morsels for critical thinkers.

Like her own works -- Stiff, Bonk, Spook, and Packing for Mars -- Roach has fun removing the lid to reveal essays about space, time, species, mind and the universe.  As a special treat, she offers recommendations for Navy Reads readers in this blogpost, but more about that in a moment.  First, from BASNW 2011:

With help from Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, we get a goldfish view of the world and reality.  Other essays deal with chemistry, robotics, fracking and fertility.  Essays can be read in any order and some can be skipped, but I confess to enjoying each one...some more than others.

Jill Sisson Quinn takes us into the forest for an existential look at the 8-inch Ichneumon wasps that lay their eggs, Aliens-like, into the bodies of wood wasps, even into and through tree bark.

We learn about alcohol poisoning (and poisoning of alcohol), invasive species like giant Asian carp and New York City coyotes, and the mating habits of Layson albatrosses at Kaena Point, Oahu, Hawaii.

The book features works from such luminary writers as Malcolm Gladwell, Jonathan Franzen and Oliver Sacks, writing for New Yorker.  Works come from Discover, Outside, Orion, Wired, Scientific American, Atlantic and other magazines.

Editor of the overall The Best American Series, Tim Folger, introduces Roach’s selections with a lament about the lack of attention given to science in today’s culture, a view shared by critical thinkers who visit a book store and see the dwindling size of the science section.  (But, I was happy to find there were four copies of BASNW at the neighborhood Barnes & Noble.)

Folger discusses the cultural reaction to a historic discovery a year ago, Feb. 3, 2011, by the Kepler telescope.  Kepler revealed 1,235 planets orbiting other stars, doubling the number of known planets in our galaxy. [Planet Candidates (2,326 as of 2011 Dec 5)]

That discovery increased the odds of intelligent life existing in the cosmos, but because it was made a few days before the Superbowl (and perhaps for other reasons), it got very little attention.

Reading about discoveries by scientists and thinking about their insights can be as satisfying as watching football and eating chocolates.  By the way, scientists have found that chocolates can be good for you.

Mary Roach.  (Photo by David Paul Morris)

According to Mary Roach, “Make no mistake, good science writing is medicine.  It is a cure for ignorance and fallacy.  Good science writing peels away the blindness, generates wonder, brings the open palm to the forehead: ‘Oh! Now I get it!’”

A goal of the Navy Professional Reading Program is to foster critical thinking. Ancient philosophers, Enlightenment giants, military historians and popular science writers, like Roach, offer “aha” opportunities to think critically, analyze logically and act wisely.

Ms. Roach sent me her suggested reading list for better critical thinking.  Her recommendations to Navy Reads:

• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre

• Spook:  Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach

• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan

• Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There, by Richard Wiseman

• The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking:  How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy and Sane, by Matthew Hutson

“If TV were a book,” Roach told me, “I'd put Mythbusters on the list.”

From Roach’s Spook: “In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts." 

Heinlein, Haldeman, ERB & Mars

by Bill Doughty

Robert A. Heinlein, whose Starship Troopers is a surprising fiction title on the mostly nonfiction Navy Professional Reading Program list, owes much to Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB).  But, unlike most of the fantasy and science fiction that preceded him, Heinlein’s literary fiction opened doors to a future history through human eyes, concentrating more on the heart and hands heading to Mars than on the tools those hands operated.

If former Lt. Cmdr. Heinlein represented the WWII and Korean War period SF of his generation, then Joe Haldeman is a Vietnam-era and Post-Vietnam counterpoint starting in the early-mid 70s, especially with his masterpiece The Forever War.  Both writers established powerful characters of both genders and moved away from earlier genre fantasy and SF that tended to objectify women or stereotype people of other backgrounds or cultures.

Sir Ridley Scott

Haldeman, praised by Heinlein and vice versa, served as a combat engineer in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Purple Heart.  His combat experience shapes his writing and gives credibility to his military SF.  The Forever War concepts show up in the films Avatar  and Aliens. It will be fascinating to see how Ridley Scott brings Haldeman to the big screen if/when it happens. Scott, who created Blade Runner, Alien and now Prometheus, has the rights to make The Forever War.

Haldeman’s skill in writing about war, space and time led Stephen King to endorse him: “If there was a Fort Knox for the science fiction writers who really matter, we’d have to lock Haldeman up there.”

Haldeman’s latest work is a trilogy beginning with 2008’s Marsbound, which shows a Heinlein-like commitment to characters and heart but with a warped look into what can happen after first contact with a “Martian” race and “Others.”  Interestingly, Haldeman writes in the first person as a female protagonist.

Marsbound gives a distinct nod to Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Barsoom series -- A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, John Carter of Mars, etc.  The spaceship that carries characters to and from Mars is named the John Carter.  The aliens are red, green and yellow, like the characters created by ERB, but unlike ERB’s swashbuckling swordplay, Haldeman employs psychology, sex and Sun-Tzu.

Mars, named after the Roman god of war, has long been a destination for science fiction writers.

Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian scientist, discovered what he thought were continents, seas and “channels” on Mars. American astronomer Percival Lowell hypothesized that the channels, interpreted as “canals,” showed signs of water and vegetation.  His views were part of a worldwide meme imagining life on Mars.

In the final years of the 19th Century, H.G. Wells captivated human imagination with the The Crystal Egg and War of the Worlds, where Martians who had depleted the resources on their planet came as predators to stake their claim on Earth.

Discoveries and conjecture about Mars inspired the young Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was educated at Michigan Military Academy and then served in the Army with the 7th U.S. Cavalry before devoting most of the rest of his life to writing.

Like Heinlein, ERB and Haldeman, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Lester del Rey, Philip José Farmer, Philip K. Dick and Frederik Pohl all had great works revolving around the red planet.

Heinlein created a mindbending look at Mars and spirituality with his Stranger in a Strange Land.  In The Number of the Beast Heinlein pays tribute to ERB with characters named Zebedia John Carter and Jacob Burroughs traveling to Barsoom and Oz.

As we’ve seen in earlier posts, ERB as a staple reading choice of Sailors who fought in World War II.  Pearl Harbor Survivors enjoyed SF, westerns and other adventure books.  Like the Greatest Generation service members who inspire Sailors today, Golden Age SF writers and imagineers like Haldeman inspire the writers and filmmakers of today.

Dec. 7 Survivors: Favorite Authors, Books

By Bill Doughty

History tells us that many Sailors who were awake on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7 – 68 years ago – were eating breakfast, heading to religious services, writing letters or reading.

Pearl Harbor Survivor Ed Johann was 17 years old on Dec. 7, 1941, young enough to have just gotten his tonsils out. On the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack he was working on a motorboat, getting ready to shuttle Sailors from ship to shore.

Before the war he’d read mostly westerns by Zane Grey and stories by Louis L’Amour.
After the war he read military history books. “I have over 100 books about Pearl Harbor – paperback and hard back,” he said. “Everybody should read more.”

The oldest living Medal of Honor Recipient, John W. Finn, who is also a Dec. 7 1941 Survivor, visited his namesake, at the Ford Island Boathouse on Dec. 6, 2009. (The JOHN W. FINN is a biodiesel-fuel boat, one of several at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, that takes thousands of visitors on any given day to the USS Arizona Memorial.)


John Finn told me his favorite author prior to WWII was Ernest Thompson Seton – author, artist and naturalist. “I always loved books about wildlife,” Finn said. Seton was a renowned conservationist, instrumental in preserving wilderness for future generations.

Art Herriford, National President of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, visited the Arizona Memorial on Dec. 7, 2009. There, he said, “Any time I come to Pearl Harbor it’s with reverence. I remember happy times before the attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. It changed the whole world, one way or another.”

Art said, “I read H. Allen Smith. He wrote a series of books. And I read a lot of humanitarian-type books.”



Survivor William K. Anderson said he read mostly magazines in the 1930s and 40s – like Popular Mechanics and various sports magazines.

“I was always interested in sports,” Bill Anderson remembers. “I read a lot of Zane Grey, too. I was a cowboy back in those days.”

Ret. Capt. R. E. Thomas liked Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young man.

Thomas was an ensign on USS Nevada and directed anti-aircraft fire against Imperial Japanese planes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

During the 1940s he mostly read non-fiction, he said, but one of his favorite genres of fiction was historical fiction exemplified by C. S. Forester’s series of Horatio Hornblower novels.

“I was a big fan… I tried to emulate that as a naval officer,” he remembers. “In history, Horatio Hornblower was modeled after Admiral Nelson of the British Navy.”

In 2009...

Two Sailors stand duty together at the Quarterdeck of the headquarters building where I work.

OS2 Mikhael Davis reads fiction and non-fiction. She just finished Kite Runner and Three Cups of Tea. Before reading those two Navy Professional Reading Program selections she finished James Clavell’s Shogun. Now she’s reading Abraham Rabinovich’s Yom Kippur War.

Her shipmate, BM2(SW/AW) Matthew Tutt, is a science fiction fan and avid reader of westerns by writers such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and fantasy by Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs… some of the same authors on the reading lists of Sailors on Dec. 7, 1941.

Here's what CNO Adm. Gary Roughead said recently about the "imperative" of education for Sailors:

"Always be looking to expand your horizons, expand the depth of your knowledge…believe that every day you live, you will learn something new…the drive to learn should never end and it also opens great opportunities."