NEWS FEATURES, Acoustic Americana Music Guide, July 20, 2012

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NEWS FEATURES
from THE ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE
July 20, 2012 edition
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Here’s this week’s news. Enjoy!
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What’s in this edition…
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♪ 1) Berklee College of Music Offers Free Music Handbook E-Books
♪ 2) 9th Annual “International Acoustic Music Awards” Accepting Entries
♪ 3) Summer Concert Trends Oppose Successful Festivals: Call to Action
♪ 4) Guide Adds New Features
♪ 5) Musical Fourth of July Lit Up the Sky, and Free Concerts Coming
♪ 6) 2012 “Cowboy Keeper” Award Recipients Announced
♪ 7) Momentous History that Changed Everything, Until We Forgot it
♪ 8) But: Do We Want to Find Life on Mars? We love all the movies and science, but
       there's a lot more at stake
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Here are these feature stories…
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♪ 1) BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC OFFERS FREE MUSIC HANDBOOK E-BOOKS
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This will be a real “wow” moment for some of our readers. You can get FREE Music Handbooks with tips and techniques from the prestigious faculty of Berklee College of Music.
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Over the past few months, Berklee has unveiled a number of popular music education ebooks from their Music Handbook Series. These are very popular. Each handbook has been downloaded thousands of times, and includes exclusive tips, techniques, and best practices from Berklee instructors. Now you can get all five PDF handbooks for FREE, covering vital topics.
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The Handbook topics are Orchestration, Songwriting, Music Business Vol. 1, Music Business Vol. 2, and Music Production.
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Berkleemusic is the online extension school of Berklee College of Music, the world's premier institution for the study of contemporary music for over 65 years. Berklee's faculty and alumni have won over 200 Grammy Awards and sold over 400 million records.
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Go get ’em at www.berkleemusic.com/welcome/music-handbooks?pid=4554&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvKrPZKXonjHpfsX56e4pUaCwlMI/0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ARctgI/qLAzICFpZo2FFaH/KecIVF.
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♪ 2) 9th ANNUAL “INTERNATIONAL ACOUSTIC MUSIC AWARDS” ACCEPTING ENTRIES
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This is a contest with awards and placement of the winners and runners-up on an Acoustic Music Compilation CD. The IAMA was established to promote excellence in Acoustic Music Performance and Artistry. Acoustic artists in various genres can get radio play and web exposure by competing. 9th The 9th annual IAMA is now accepting entries. This is a different competition from the USA Songwriting Competition, with which you may be more familiar.
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IAMA is open to all indie artists and to labels. Unlike other music industry competitions, IAMA focuses on developing new markets for Acoustic artists, those on labels and those without CD releases. Past years' winners include DAVID FRANCEY (Canada), LIZ LONGLEY, THE REFUGEES (USA), KATE LUSH (Australia), WAYNE SOUTHARDS (USA), LARRY PATTIS (USA), OMEGA (Uganda), EL McMEEN, and others.
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There are prizes in eight different categories. These are Folk / Americana / Roots; AAA / Alternative; Instrumental; Open; Bluegrass; Best Male Artist; Best Female Artist; Best Group / Duo. In addition, there is an Overall Grand Prize awarded to the top winner, and worth over $11,000 (US). That prize includes radio promotion to over 250 radio stations in the US and Canada.
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Organizers gush, “Winning songs will be heard on radio! Winners and runner-ups will be featured on our CD compilation.” Up to ten different artists get featured and promoted on the IAMA website every month, with a review, ratings, CD information, and more.
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“The sooner, you enter, the sooner you get featured!” they tell the Guide.
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Judging is based on “excellence in music performance, songwriting / composition / song choice, music production and originality.”
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Participating sponsors include New Music Weekly, Loggins Promotion, AirplayAccess.com, Acoustica, SongU, Acoustic Cafe Radio Show, NoisyPlanet, Sonicbids, Broadjam and XM Satellite Radio.
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A bit about past winners & finalists.
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* DAVE BERG (2003 USA Songwriting Competition Honorable Mention Winner) has signed a worldwide co-publishing agreement with Los Angeles and New York-based Downtown Music Publishing, and his upcoming full length album, “Not Quite So Alone,” will be released by Downtown imprint Mercer Street Records. Berg’s credits as a country songwriter include the No. 1 hits “Somebody” sung by Reba McEntire, “If You’re Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)” and “These Are My People” sung by Rodney Atkins, and “Moments” sung by Emerson Drive.
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* IAMA Finalist SETH GLIER is a Grammy Award Nominee. His acclaimed MPress Records’ CD, “The Next Right Thing,” is a contender for the 2012 Grammy for “Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical,” along with engineers Kevin Killen, Brian Muldowney & John Shyloski.
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* THE WAILIN’ JENNYS (8th Annual IAMA, Best Group, First Prize Winner) performed their IAMA winning song "Bird Song" on NPR radio's "A Prairie Home Companion."
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KEN HIRSCH (15th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, First Prize winner, Pop & Overall 2nd Prize Winner) co-wrote the score of the stage musical "An Officer and a Gentleman" – it premiered in Sydney, Australia in May 2012.
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The contest currently offers an “Early Entry Bonus.” The first 1,000 entered by September 28 or earlier, will receive a free copy of the Acoustic Music Compilation CD with the music of the winners and runners-up.
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Ways to enter:
Online, with your MP3, Youtube, Reverbnation, or Soundcloud files, at https://online.songwriting.net/iama.
Or, by mail, with info at http://www.inacoustic.com/entryform.html.
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♪ 3) SUMMER CONCERT TRENDS OPPOSE SUCCESSFUL FESTIVALS: CALL TO ACTION
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This summer’s free music, including the numerous “concert-in-the-park” series in various municipalities, the two local Levitt Pavilion series, the L.A. downtown lunchtime and evening concert series – and similar outdoor music events across a wide region – are heavily trending away from Folk-Americana music.
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For us, that’s alarming. For anyone who pays attention, it’s hard to figure. This year’s spring / early summer music season saw nearly every Folk-Americana-friendly festival break attendance records, from the one-day events to those that run two or three days or more. Most of them sold-out, often well in advance. Campgrounds were full, and local lodgings had the no vacancy signs lit. Moreover, that’s consistent with last fall’s festivals, which achieved the same, despite a struggling economy.
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Yet bookers of free outdoor summer concerts throughout Southern California chose to book a mixed bag of pop, cover bands (the ones that routinely serve as background noise in bars), and a lot of ostensibly “world” music / world beat. It’s as if KCRW did the bookings – and in fact, they are among the sponsors-of-record for many of these shows.
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For the Guide, it quickly became decision time. Series that we routinely list in their entirety every year began last summer to be different. This year, they’re so different that Folk-Americana offerings are the exception, rather than the rule, as in so many past years. It’s seriously gotten worse. So we decided to stop listing all these series, and include only the individual concerts that we believe will interest our readers.
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Admittedly, there’s a bit of politicking in that decision. Simply put, why should we help promote events that have strayed so far away from the music we support? That’s consistent with the practical side, too: we don’t believe you want to wade-through a lot of events that are different from what you come here to find; and for us, we have enough trouble preparing and including the events and the news we believe will interest you.
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It isn’t trivial. Limited budgets are spent to book musicians and pay sound companies and technicians. Anything booked is at the expense of what could have been booked.
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So, we encourage you to contact city hall, or the parks department, or whichever agency books or hires the bookers in the places you’d like to go – or to play. Tell them what kind of music you want to hear. Ask them what happened to the acts you enjoyed in recent past years. Tell them what kind of music will get you to come out to enjoy and support the way your tax dollars are being spent. Or in the case of a privately-funded series, what it will take to get you to attend a concert and eat in a local restaurant, shop in a local store, and pay to park in their garage.
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If you’re a musician, why not contact the local series and ask about applying to perform next summer? Tell them you can bring excitement, like you do when you play indoor venues that pay you, or like you did when you played those sold-out festivals.
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And, while you should always be positive and polite, think of a way to ask them how many bar / cover bands they think people can stand, or if booking a lot of those bands fulfills their commitment to presenting local arts. You may want to let them know that “world music” may be some people’s cup of tea, but the multiplicity of sold-out festivals across Southern California prove the local market for Folk-Americana is formidable.
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Construct your presentation with examples that prove the public’s hunger for your music, whether it’s blues, bluegrass, borderlands, Cajun, cowboy, Celtic, accessible classical, acoustic renaissance, singer-songwriter, or very traditional or old-time Americana.
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Meanwhile, the Guide will endeavor to report all the Folk-Americana, honkytonk, accessible classical, and other great live performances – some free, some requiring a ticket – all things that can make your summer musically memorable.
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♪ 4) GUIDE ADDS NEW FEATURES
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They’re simple things, but ones you’ll find useful.
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First, we now include “FREE SHOW-of-the-WEEK” picks in addition to our longtime “SHOW-of-the-WEEK” picks.

Second, we have, of late, been including some TV LISTINGS – acoustic and Americana (and a few other) music performances on TV.
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Both changes are there to help you enjoy a music-filled summer on a low (or a no) budget.
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The new “FREE SHOW…” category helps you find the best performances that won’t cost you anything. (We are careful about it, and usually will not include “free” events that are in “no cover” restaurants where it would be awkward to sit at a table without ordering something; we don’t want anyone to be embarrassed. And remember, some things happen in pay-to-park areas, and there could be other peripheral issues.)
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So, why add TV listings? It’s because TV is becoming important again! Even on those nights (or weekends) when you just can’t go anywhere, you can often catch a show worth watching. Just scroll through our listings, or search the words “on TV” in this edition.
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So, keep it in mind to check the Guide for MUSIC PERFORMANCES ON TV, as well as in all the venues and outdoor concert locations, and for “FREE SHOW-of-the-WEEK” listings. If it’s Acoustic and / or Americana or accessible classical, we really-really-really try to list it for you.
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♪ 5) MUSICAL FOURTH OF JULY LIT UP THE SKY, AND FREE CONCERTS COMING
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The PACIFIC SYMPHONY and its members comprise an adept and versatile organization. No question, they are Orange County's premiere musicians. The Guide chose their annual Fireworks Concert at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (the former Irvine Meadows) as this year’s “SHOW-of-the-WEEK” pick for the Fourth of July, and we couldn’t have done better.
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“It is a Symphony record actually. Indeed, this concert sold a record-breaking 10,450 tickets,” said Pacific Symphony spokesperson Janelle Kruly, when asked about attendance in the packed amphitheater. She added, “It might be better to say it is the highest-selling and highest-attended Summer Festival concert we’ve ever had. We have a winter series as well, in a different venue, but it doesn’t really work to compare them.”
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The program for the Fourth was a trip through some of the EAGLES greatest hits and selections from the treasure trove of JOHN WILLIAMS’ film scores, along with the holiday’s de rigeur trip through JOHN PHILLIP SOUZA’s rousing marches.
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The choices made from John Williams' encyclopedic catalog of compositions was smart. It included the expected icons and the rarely-if-ever-heard theme from "1941." We had altogether forgotten that piece, with its many homages to music of the epic films about WWII from the '60s and '70s, done in a light and airy mood to fit the decidedly non-serious film that starred the late John Belushi.
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Of course, Star Wars figured prominently. Orchestras seem to enjoy doing that film series’ themes, and they always bring enthusiastic audience approval. We’ve seen Williams himself conduct Star Wars’ music at the Hollywood Bowl, and we’ve seen a surprise takeover of the conductor’s podium and baton by Darth Vader, when the Pasadena Symphony-Pops performed that music two years ago.
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The Pacific Symphony was not to be outdone. Their audience got a visit from R2D2. How a robot that looks like an art deco cross between a trash can and a 1930s dishwasher can be so charming is one for the sociologists, but he had plenty to say, replying to the maestro’s questions with his characteristic hoots and beeps. The audience and the musicians loved it.
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“Artoo” revealed results of an audience vote that chose between the Star Wars and ET themes as the closing piece of the first half. Given the messenger, there was probably some of that voter fraud that nobody seems to be able to find anywhere else. But the symphony resolved things nicely, playing both pieces.
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The orchestral handling of EAGLES hits was a treat. So many of those melodies and song structures lend themselves quite readily to orchestral arrangements. Many orchestras have done BEATLES tunes, quite successfully. This was a fun reach beyond that. The symphonic treatment of EAGLES music suggests that lots of folk-rock tunes can be candidates for full orchestration, and should be. (Hey, it’s worked for the CMH label and all their “Pickin’ On” bluegrassifications of other music, so why not?)
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Those EAGLES tunes were not performed by the orchestra alone. A tribute band took part with electric and acoustic guitars, a full drum kit inside a glass enclosure screen, and several of the band members doing vocals. The contributions of the seven tribute-band rockers were uneven. We would rather have heard the symphony on its own. But the crowd seemed pleased with it, singing along throughout, from best seats to cheap seats, and that's what counts. (If the symphony ever wants to work with Eagles tribute artists again, we'll be happy to recommend some other folks.)
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This Fourth of July event brings innovations, but has its traditions. The winner of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island is always announced, along with the gross-out number of dogs devoured. A completely different tradition is a medley of armed services themes, something that always works on the quintessentially American holiday. It was performed flawlessly, and veterans and their family members stood proudly as the theme of their service branch resonated through the conservative Orange County air.
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The finale, of course, brings the fireworks. These were launched from an adjacent lawn area, and that is a bit problematic. Those in the know streamed-up into the aisles between the nosebleed seats. The “why” of the migration was soon revealed. The enormous band shell blocks the best concert seats from viewing the rockets’ red glare / bombs bursting in air.
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Still, the fireworks were presented with that marvelous high-energy occasioned by a joyful journey through the SOUZA catalog. Why doesn’t everyone demand Fourth of July fireworks be presented like that? Nobody tops Sousa for fireworks music. They get that here.
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In addition to its summer series in the amphitheater, PACIFIC SYMPHONY performs a few FREE concerts in parks during the summer.
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Last week, they proudly announced, “It’s time for everyone to grab a lawn chair, pack a picnic and head to a nearby park for an evening of FREE outdoor music and entertainment! Pacific Symphony’s 2012 ‘Target Symphony in the Cities’ concert series celebrates summer with a mix of light classical and pop music.”
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It’s the eighth year in a row that Target stores are the sponsor of the popular series that attracts thousands of people annually to parks throughout Orange County.
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The theme of this year’s free concerts is “Spanish Nights and American Flair,” featuring the popular guitar group TRIADA. The program offers a delightful melding of American and Spanish-infused music, favorite patriotic songs, and a little Tchaikovsky for good measure. Led by Music Director CARL ST. CLAIR, this year’s performances in parks are in three cities. On July 28, go to Mission Viejo’s Oso Viejo Park. July 29, the symphony plays for the first time at Irvine’s Orange County Great Park. And August 19, they’re in Lake Forest’s Pittsford Park.
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The three concerts in the parks get underway at 7 pm. If kids are involved, go early. The Symphony’s pre-concert “Musical Playground” features many interactive and hands-on activities for children. These include favorite features found at folk festivals, like making an instrument, playing in a drum circle, visiting an instrument petting zoo, and meeting Symphony musicians. “Musical Playground” begins at 5:30 pm in Irvine and Lake Forest. In Mission Viejo, there’s a “Prelude in the Park” that begins at 4 pm and offers a larger array of pre-concert festivities; the Symphony’s Musical Playground begins there at 4:30 pm.
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But the grownups deserve the complete symphony experience, and musicians always gain inspiration seeing others who are the best. However you figure it, you need to get to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater – or to the Hollywood Bowl to see the L.A. Phil, or to the L.A. County Arboretum for the Pasadena Symphony & Pops, or to Santa Anita Racetrack Park to see Cal Phil – at least once this summer. No mosh pits, no crowd surfing, no bruises or temporary hearing loss. Pack a classy picnic dinner and a bottle of vino. Take a special someone. It’ll make for a memorable summer evening. And there’s an added benefit of seeing the Pacific Symphony: it’s cooler near the beach.
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Pacific Symphony tickets for the amphitheater in Irvine are available at 714-755-5799. Or get info on all their events, season schedules, and tix at www.PacificSymphony.org.
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♪ 6) 2012 “COWBOY KEEPER” AWARD RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED
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Five honorees have been selected for the prestigious 2012 “Cowboy Keeper” Award. The esteemed recipients of the 2012 Cowboy Keeper Award are CHRIS LeDOUX, the COWGIRLS HISTORICAL FOUNDATION, J.R. SANDERS, SUSAN THOMAS, and THE WILL JAMES SOCIETY.
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Each year since 2006, the “National Day of the Cowboy,” a 501(c)3 organization, has selected individuals and organizations that have contributed significantly to the preservation of pioneer heritage and cowboy culture. It honors them with its Cowboy Keeper Award. The award was conceived in support of the NDOC’s mission to increase awareness for and celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy.
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Legendary cowboy CHRIS LeDOUX was idolized by rodeo fans, writing timeless songs that captured the essence and spirit of rodeo and cowboys, forever immortalized in GARTH BROOKS’ “Much Too Young to Feel this Damn Old.” On stage, he brought a wildly soaring energy level and excelled at everything he tried. He received a horse as a boy and made up his mind to be a ridin’, ropin’ cowboy. His awards included the 1976 World Champion Bareback Rider. When his musical star began to rise, Chris went to Nashville to try his luck, where he was told “his music wouldn’t sell.” With true cowboy grit, he started his own record label, selling his music everywhere he could. Thirty-six albums and millions of sales later, he showed the world a man who stuck with his dreams. He eventually achieved success at every level of rodeo and International acclaim as a singer-songwriter. But Chris wanted to be known best for being “a good husband and family man."
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JR. SANDERS, a California-based Western author, is the tireless catalyst behind the groundbreaking national “Read Em Cowboy” project. He developed and initiated it in 2011 in support of the quest for a National Day of the Cowboy. As a result of his work, there will be at least eight Read Em Cowboy events nationwide in 2012. All are all focused on encouraging young people to read and write western literature and cowboy poetry while learning about pioneer history. Sanders’ deep interest in old west history is reflected in his literary articles and his books, such as “The Littlest Wrangler,” as well as in his work as a living historian, creating historically correct presentations to schools, colleges, and historical societies throughout Southern California. He has worked both on-camera and behind the scenes on A&E / History Channel’s documentary series “Dangerous Missions.” J.R. is an active member of the Western Writers of America, the National Day of the Cowboy, and the Wild West History Association.
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THE COWGIRLS HISTORICAL FOUNDATION are Arizona’s beloved ambassadors of western heritage, and a non-profit organization that’s faithfully “Saddled Up for Service.” These young women increase public awareness of the importance of preservation of western heritage and the equestrian life style. Their initiatives are met through excellent educational programs including workshops they conduct, teaching poise, horsemanship, and public speaking skills. They have won many awards for their parade participation, including appearances in Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade.
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Nevada’s WILL JAMES SOCIETY is a nonprofit organization that promotes the legacy, literature, and art of that great cowboy and author of the American West, WILL JAMES, through the giving of full sets of his inspiring and captivating western books to public and school libraries, and hospitals and members of the military, throughout the world. The Society has given-away over 1,700 Will James books in the past five years. Society members are dedicated to preserving the works and memory of James, a renowned western author and artist who won the Newbury Prize for Literature in 1927 for his most famous book, “Smoky the Cowhorse.” For twenty years they have faithfully hosted the annual “Will James Gather,” educating, entertaining, honoring, and fundraising through the sharing of music, western literature, cowboy poetry and storytelling. They steadfastly recreate a campfire atmosphere and invite the best of story tellers and cowboy singers and writers to participate in the Gather.
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SUSAN THOMAS, has spent nearly four decades advocating for the rights of children with special needs. Raised on a ranch in Wyoming, she inspires and encourages young people to be all they can be through her work as an educator. A cowgirl of unlimited compassion, she has served and continues to serve on the Boards of numerous community organizations, including the Board of Reach for a Star Riding Academy, the Natrona County Fair Board, the Raising Readers Board and the Advisory Council, Grand Teton National Park Foundation. Her dedicated work as an NDOC volunteer in Wyoming resulted in passage of the National Day of the Cowboy resolution into Wyoming law on March 13, 2012, making Wyoming the first state to pass the resolution in perpetuity. With this action, she graciously brought the work of her late husband, U.S. Senator Craig Thomas, full-circle as the original sponsor of the legislation in 2005.
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The artist image selected for use in the 2012 Cowboy Keeper Award is the heartwarming painting, “Morning Lessons,” the work of PHIL BECK, a renowned and gifted western artist from Arizona.
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BETHANY BRALEY, Executive Director of the National Day of the Cowboy, says her organization “lifts its hat high to each of the [five] tremendously deserving honorees, [who] have all demonstrated a powerful commitment to the preservation of pioneer heritage and cowboy culture.”
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The State of California has officially recognized the National Day of the Cowboy on Saturday, July 28.
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Here in Southern California, you can celebrate at “FESTIVAL OF THE COWBOY & COWGIRL,” an all-day annual festival at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, 10 am-5 pm, then catch the evening show by multiple-top-award-winning western singer-songwriter BELINDA GAIL at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena at 7 pm (see both listings in the Guide’s Spotlight Events section for all the details).
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♪ 7) MOMENTOUS HISTORY THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING, UNTIL WE FORGOT IT
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On the day we published this edition – July 20th – an anniversary passed without notice. On July 20, 1969, humans “from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon,” as the plaque proclaims that remains there, affixed to the leg of the landing stage of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. Those first human visitors were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Apollo made a total of six lunar landings between 1969 and 1972. Despite NASA’s original big plans – for which our government killed all the funding – and a number of highly successful robotic probes and iconic movies about space, including the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, we haven’t been anywhere beyond low earth orbit ever since.
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Many of our readers were not even born when last we had a real space program. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are as distant as Marco Polo or Leif Ericson or Lewis and Clark. What a ridiculous, inexcusable shame. July 20th should be National Space Exploration Day, celebrated as a holiday. Better yet, make that World Space Exploration Day. If anyone would look up from their myopic infatuation with narcissistic tech that does nothing for advancing discovery or understanding for humankind.
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Anyone for rediscovering creativity, for pursuing the excitement and challenge of the unknown? Anyone for a Kick-Starter Space Program?
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If so, we invite your indulgence with the next piece…
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♪ 8)  BUT: DO WE WANT TO FIND LIFE ON MARS?
       We love all the movies and science, but there's a lot more at stake

        by Larry Wines
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[Astronaut SALLY RIDE died of cancer just after this was originally published. The Acoustic Americana Music Guide respectfully dedicates it to her memory and pioneering legacy.]
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Art, for over 100 years, mostly as sci-fi films, has been obsessed with the idea of Martians.
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Hopes ride high for Earth’s final mission to Mars, which lands August 5. They must, since no funding is in the pipeline for anything to follow. Nothing else can go there for years, if not decades. This time, the mission’s hopeful purpose is addressing the question of finding life.
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But if something else does live there, can we move-in and set-up shop?
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Sure, we know what some of you are thinking: “Don’t ask Native American Indians or native Hawai’ians, or any indigenous peoples whose technology was not capable of facing that of the newcomer (i.e., invader), or any of the hundreds of thousands who died from imported diseases for which they had no immunity.”
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Don’t worry. We understand that genocidal dynamics of human population interactions are different than encounters between unfamiliar organisms.
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Still, this is not a science-fiction scenario. It’s real. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, named “Curiosity,” is the last of the robotic Mohicans. The Obama administration pulled the plug on the manned Orion program as the replacement for the Space Shuttle, after the 1% enriched themselves at the expense of everything and everyone else in the 2008 financial meltdown, and demands for financial austerity set-in. And, of course, the do-nothing Congress allowed the funding to run-out for the then-ongoing series of interplanetary robotic probes.
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It’s happened before, with Apollo’s veni, vidi, vici, that came and saw and collected and left, never to return. It’s as if Columbus came home with a potato and an ear of corn and nobody would ante-up to go back.
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The dream of finding life “out there” beyond Earth is as old as humankind’s first wonderings about the night sky. It fires our imagination. It’s still the one discovery that could change everything. When SETI – the radio telescope Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence – was threatened with being de-funded, a popular uprising demanded a way to keep it going.
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That spawned Carl Sagan’s novel and the 1997 Jodie Foster / Matthew McConaughey movie, “Contact.”
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That’s emblematic. It’s less about the success of Apollo and more about Hollywood.
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Art and science are the shared province of innovators and dreamers and explorers. Both use technology, but neither IS technology. Art and science are creative quarters where dreamers dwell, the Valhalla from which others are inspired.
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The late Carl Sagan became the post-Apollo rock star of space with the “Cosmos” TV series, advocating that we ask and search and learn by going. The “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” franchises made millions by combining Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood with technogeeky robotic sidekicks and the mystique of whatever is out there to be discovered – in the fantastic realm of color and music and light and the unexpected. The bar scene in the first “Star Wars,” populated with strange alien creatures, is among film’s most iconic creations, music and all. Underlying is the enjoyable idea that somebody is out there, wondering if somebody is over here, with the exciting prospects of meeting that unique someone in, well, the familiar metaphor of a bar. It’s the ultimate crossroads of human hope and longing for excitement that’s unknown and slightly dangerous. Those movies were dangerously sexy. Exploration is dangerously sexy.
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Mars holds a central place in all that. For over a hundred years, it was always Mars that sent the alien invasion. In 1898, H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” was published. Orson Welles scared the hell out of people by dramatizing it as a radio play in 1938. George Pal’s 1953 film version won an Oscar and remains a classic. And, as recently as 2005, Steven Spielberg employed Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Tim Robbins in yet another film remake.
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It’s a unique cultural history. Despite our scientific discoveries, invaders from Mars still don’t seem unbelievable, even today. Astronomers of another time saw canals on Mars, starting with Schiaparelli in 1877 – well, he labeled features he saw as “canali,” which means “channels” in Italian. English-speakers, being ethnocentric, read that as canals. In the 1890s, watery canals, like today’s California Aqueduct on steroids, became Percival Lowell’s obsession. He convinced himself they were dug by a Martian civilization that needed to get melt water from polar icecaps to the planet’s arid central regions. He drew elaborate maps of them.
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Photographs from Mariner spacecraft in the ’60s found no canals, though the massive Valles Marinaris, as big as 100 Grand Canyons, aligns with a small segment of what people thought they saw through telescopes. Or rather, what they still see – astronomers say the mysterious optical illusion of an angular network of lines can indeed be seen when the light is right.
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Point is, we have always been intrigued with finding life on Mars. More than anywhere else.
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In 1976, NASA’s pair of Viking landers brought rudimentary laboratories to test for life. Their investigations were inconclusive. After a long absence, the tiny Mars “Sojourner” became Earth’s first mobile explorer of another planet in 1997. Additional ambulatory probes followed.
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A couple of key probes were lost. Mars and the journey to reach it notoriously eats spacecraft. Still, gleaming red in the night sky, it maintains its Sirens’ call.
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Those probes over the past 15 years have made people believe again. There’s even a must-see YouTube video depicting the journey of a Mars Exploration Rover (“Spirit” or “Opportunity”) splendidly choreographed to Holst’s “The Planets.” It’s as effective as any John Williams’ space-epic film score, though the viewer comments are inane, insipid, silly, crude and stupid. It’s at http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzZWOGcdC_PI&v=zZWOGcdC_PI&gl=US
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Web ignoramuses aside, we have a history of WANTING to find life on Mars. We aren’t even pursuing more likely places to find life, like the oceanic moons of Jupiter and Saturn. That really says something. Beneath its icy crust, Jupiter’s moon Europa has more liquid water than we have on Earth; Saturn’s moon Enceladus is similar, and there may be similar water worlds orbiting the two gas giants. Even Saturn’s cryogenically cold moon Titan, with its blue skies and liquid methane rainstorms and lakes and rivers, seems to have a thick water layer beneath its surface, kept liquid by internal heat and pressure.
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Our Earth reckonings tell us that water is essential for life. Mars is too dry and too cold, with atmospheric pressure insufficient to enable liquid water to stick around on its surface. So we get excited every time we find evidence of water, past or present, anywhere on Mars.
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But do we REALLY want to find life on Mars?
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If we find life there, is it safe and ethical to keep going back?
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Safe and ethical are different, with an overlap. “Safe” includes preventing contact with organisms that may be toxic to one another. They could kill us – or we, them.
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Despite deadly solar and cosmic radiation reaching its surface through a thin atmosphere and lack of a protective magnetic field, of all the planets of the Solar System, Mars is the only world besides our own that offers an obvious home for human settlement.
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Still, colonizing Mars would be fraught with constant challenges and risks. It’s far worse than not going outside without your sunscreen. It’s much worse than anything Woody Guthrie experienced in the Dustbowl, since Martian dust storms last for months and the blown dust is ten times finer than talcum powder. Particles that tiny could wreck every kind of equipment and pressure seal and penetrate and short-out microcircuits. It’s a brutal environment.
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Overcoming those challenges often comes down to one grand idea: there is very active advocacy for terraforming Mars – to make it hospitable and Earth-like.
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A greenhouse effect, so disastrous if increased here, is just what Mars needs, and we certainly know how to induce it. Mars’ gravity, about one-third Earth’s, is sufficient to hold onto an atmosphere made thick enough to get future settlers out of pressurized space suits. The expected volumes of frozen water beneath the surface could sustain Earthlike life, eventually enabling clouds and rain. Dry lake and ocean basins might again hold water. And there are ideas about how to shield the surface from all that radiation.
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If the Red Planet is a dead planet, sterile like the Moon, then why not? Imagine the travel posters your great-great-great grandkids could see: Ski Olympus Mons, the Solar System’s highest mountain! Vacation on the red-sand beaches of the Martian Riviera! Red Planet Red Wine, on the Tholian Orchards Taste Tour…
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But what if we find life there?
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That’s where ethics become the inescapable absolute.
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Put the shoe on the other foot. Would we consider bringing alien life to Earth if it was toxic to our planet’s indigenously evolved life forms? Even if not toxic, would it affect life here? Even with assurances that technology could enable biological containment to keep it out of our ecosystem, could we justify the risk?
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If there is life on Mars, however primitive, even as a faint coloration on the underside of a rock, can we introduce our own alien life to its environment, where it developed, where it lives? Are we arrogant enough to believe that Mars is a dying world, and whatever may be hanging-on is simply a diminishing remnant of a planetary ecosystem that is on its way out, anyway?
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There is evidence that Mars experiences warmer, wetter cycles and colder, drier ones, all on a scale of millions of years. Dare we risk altering or destroying the evolution of life on Mars?
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Once again, art got there first. It’s what Gene Roddenberry identified as Star Trek’s Prime Directive: you don’t mess with other life, elsewhere, unless it invites you to come in.
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Even visiting risks contamination. At the end of their missions, the first Apollo astronauts exited their spacecraft in BIGs – Biological Isolation Garments – and spent time in a hermetically-sealed Airstream trailer, all to protect the rest of us from any “bugs” they may have brought back from the airless moon.
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Travel times to and from Mars are from six months to a year, each way. Presumably, astronauts would be the first to know if something from Mars had made them sick. But who is to know if something from Earth had infected Mars?
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It’s relatively easy to sterilize robotic spacecraft before we launch them.
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But when humans go, it’s tricky and risky and uncertain. And the scale of cosmic history makes it mysterious. There are even hypotheses that say life from Mars may have “seeded” Earth. That was the premise of the classic 1967 science-fiction movie, “5 Million Years to Earth,” and it reappeared in “Mission to Mars,” a film that made $110 million in 2000. Scientists envision any cosmic Johnny Appleseed incidents as something far less dramatic than either film. Still, the spread of life across space is a field of scientific inquiry, called panspermia.
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The famous “Martian Meteorite,” ALH 84001, found on the ice in Antarctica, is unquestionably from the Red Planet, determined by its chemical signature. It contains organic molecules and maybe fossils of life. In the earlier solar system, lots of things were bumping into each other, and materials were exchanged rather freely. If Mars had developed life at that time – it had oceans in its past – then the questions become profound.
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Perhaps material blasted into space from a meteor or asteroid impact on Mars could have brought not just chunks of Martian rock, but the building blocks of life, or even simple cellular organisms, to Earth. Could life here have originated out there? Specifically, next door, on Mars? Scientists take that question seriously.
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Okay, so nature may have cross-pollinated the planets.
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But is it okay for us to do it?
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It’s a question for all of humanity. For an all-too-brief time in the mid-00s, it appeared a new U.S.-Russian space race was taking shape, aimed at Mars. Russian space company Energia is developing Hnunep – “Clipper” – a minimalist space shuttle with stubby wings and plenty of shielding from radiation. Though designed for earth orbit, its builders envision going farther, as the essential crew vehicle to take cosmonauts to Mars and return them to Earth.
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In America, the plug has been pulled on development of manned space vehicles with that kind of capability. Space X currently leads a small field of competitors vying for NASA contracts to privately transport astronauts to the International Space Station. No prize money has been offered to the private sector even to take us back to the Moon, much less to Mars.
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But that’s not the whole story. The European Space Agency (ESA) is still funding technology to develop a crew-carrying Mars spacecraft. And the Chinese, anxious to gain world prominence following the darkness of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, have announced their intention of building a lunar base and going to Mars, both on a rapid timetable.
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Will Mars be “Claimed,” and what would that mean for life on Mars?
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In 1967, when no one knew who would win the space race to the Moon, an international treaty prohibited any nation from claiming the Moon for itself. It was signed by the US, the USSR, and the UK, but not by China. The treaty language is supposed to apply to “any celestial body,” to prevent the kind of thing that happened with sovereign colonial empires in the Americas after 1492. But no specific treaty exists for Mars. Could the first ones there plant a flag and claim it as part of their national territory? Supposedly not, but it remains uncertain and may depend on who gets there first.
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In 1997, three Yemenis sued NASA for trespassing on Mars with the “Sojourner” / “Pathfinder” mission lander. But that crazy claim was based on the assertion by the plaintiffs that they had inherited Mars 3,000 years earlier.
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If claiming Mars, or a piece of it, deteriorates to the level of courts and lawyers, the ethical absolutes are gone. It will just be a question of how much toxic interaction will occur and how many alien species will be recklessly altered or exterminated, not whether it will be prevented.
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Moreover, there’s Robert Zubrin, everybody’s favorite advocate for making us Martians. He says in his landmark 1996 book, “The Case for Mars,” that we should be selling Martian real estate as a means of financing exploration. There’s as much land on Mars as the amount of land not covered by water on Earth.
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Even at $10 an acre, selling Martian land would raise $358 billion, enough for several missions with crewed landings, says Zubrin. It wouldn’t be the first time that people spent lavishly on questionable “property” – just look at the rush and rancor over the IPO for Facebook stock, pieces of an ethereal entity that doesn’t actually exist in any real sense.
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Zubrin is the guy most likely to be taken seriously. He formulated the plan for “Mars Direct,” an approach that held up to ridicule NASA’s needlessly lavish, horrendously expensive, Bush-41-era “sometime-next-century” mission profile.
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Much of the thinking about Mars spacecraft recently attributed to filmmaker James Cameron originated with Zubrin. And in the absence of a clear set of national space priorities, innovative thinkers like those two are prominent. And there are the Rutan brothers with their Scaled Composites company’s “Spaceship One” that won the X Prize for the first privately-funded space flight in 2004 (the editor was there). More recently, factor-in spacecraft manufacturers like Elon Musk of Space X, who has docked his new cargo ship at the International Space Station, and there’s Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, whose energy is boundless. These are the ones who may drive the agenda from a sense of entrepreneurial adventure capitalism, rather than cautious science. That’s new, and engenders new implications.
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Given our society, our economic system, and the way things work, how cautious can we afford to be? The reason people are not on the way to Mars right now is not technological. It is financial and political.
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President Obama set a challenge to get astronauts to Mars by 2030, but it simply isn’t credible. No money has been appropriated to get things started.
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In American government, long-term planning is four years. Try anything beyond that, and paralysis sets-in. Want to mine untold riches from the asteroid belt? Okay, if you can outsource construction of the spacecraft to built it cheap, then get there and bring back the goods in the first quarter of FY 2013. Huge bonus and stock options if you can, ostracism and permanent unemployment if you fail.
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The objective dangers of interplanetary space exploration don’t even enter the discussion. Musk and Branson aside, the dialog, where there is one, is only about a costs-benefits analysis on a strict timeline, with exorbitant returns for investors and obscene bonuses and early bailout packages for executives – and building the hardware wherever it can be cheaply outsourced.
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If you advocate spending to go somewhere, results better be forthcoming. That has specific implications. Our system does not look promising for protecting indigenous alien life. Similarly, if the Chinese decide to go to Mars, they are in part motivated by a national ego that will demand fulfillment of stated goals.
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It’s all crazy, because we could be developing and building spacecraft instead of military hardware, employing our math and science grads and encouraging others to study those majors, and employing an industrial manufacturing base once again. Plus, civilian space technology, by law, spins-off across the economy, instead of being classified like military tech.
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All those are strong economic arguments. They could take the driver’s seat, even if we start interfering with alien life.
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Perhaps we, as a species, are not evolved enough ethically and morally to take our problems to other worlds. Or perhaps, as in Arthur C. Clarke’s visionary “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the evolution of humans from apes to astronauts to angelic beings is impossible unless we go.
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If “Curiosity,” the final and most advanced and capable Mars probe we have ever sent, finds life out there after it lands August 5th, all these questions will instantly become the most profound ones we have ever faced as a species. And no doubt, it will take the artists to make society face the ethical issues the politicians and private sector capitalists will rush to ignore.
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So, what’s the best outcome? How about this: NASA’s Volkswagen-sized robotic “Curiosity” rover picks up a rock, turns it over, and finds a beautiful, textbook-specimen fossil impression. Something like a three-inch-long fish. The perfect image is consistent from many camera angles and in different light. No question it’s a fossil. Aquatic vertebrate, a creature that had obvious means of locomotion, eyes to see, and a mouth to eat whatever else was once there.
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Then, another rock is overturned, and there’s a perfect fossilized plant, something akin to a small palm frond. Maybe it grew underwater. Maybe it ingested the carbon dioxide atmosphere and swayed in the breeze along the shore.
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But sample after sample – soil, sand, rock, dust, red, orange, white, black – is processed in the on-board lab, and there is nothing alive on Mars. Zip. Nada.
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Of course, discoveries of dramatic fossils on Mars beyond the inconclusive ALH 84001 meteorite would provoke the creative imagination, and Congress would finally fund a real Mars program to beat everyone else there. And then (we hope) mission after mission continues to dig-up abundant fossils and absolutely nothing still alive.
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That what would enable us to send people and to stay. Only the certainty that nothing is alive on Mars would make it okay to send our own life forms there, to stay and become spacefarers.
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Best of all, this scenario would teach us that it’s possible for a planet with abundant, flourishing life to die. That would give us pause. That would make us appreciate this fragile blue ball on which we dwell. It would give us the evolved perspective to go forth elsewhere while being more thoughtful, more responsible, stewards here. That would be beautiful.
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It’s not a casual flight of fantasy. We need that kind of perspective before we land on Jupiter’s moons. We need it before we bore through the ice crust of Europa for a submarine voyage in its vast ocean, before we meet whatever calls that salt sea its home, and hear it sing its sea chanteys and voice its longings, and share our songs of the green, terrestrial Earth.
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~+~+~+~+~
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There’s a lot available online about NASA’s Curiosity lander that touches-down at 10:31 pm (Pacific) on August 5. It’s recommended you download now, because the server will likely be overloaded as the landing time approaches. You can even download a landing simulation game for X-Box.
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Here are some key urls:
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Info on a variety of activities, including virtual landing programs, are at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate.
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You can follow the mission on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marscuriosity
and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.
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A very full version of ways to play Martian is available at www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-205&cid=release_2012-205.
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And the new NASA 3-D app that gives you the ability to experience robotic space travel is at www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-202&cid=release_2012-202.
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UPDATES to the Venue Directory are currently undereway. Meanwhile, the 2011 edition of our VENUE DIRECTORY is available at

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