The Red Planet: A Survey of Mars is a 40-slide set that illustrates many different kinds of
geologic features, including tectonic structures, volcanos, impact craters, landslides, and features formed
or modified by ice and water. Although humans have not yet sampled them in situ, scientists
believe that rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth. These rocks, known as the SNC meteorites, are also
featured, as are the two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. Compiled by Walter S. Kiefer, Allan H.
Treiman, and Stephen M. Clifford, the set includes a booklet with an introduction and overview, a locater
map, captions for each slide, suggested further reading, and a glossary. $20.00 from LPI; see Order Form
in this Bulletin.
The first 45 CD-ROM volumes of the 88-volume Clementine Raw Image Archive Collection are
now available at NSSDC. The CDs contain all imaging data from the five imaging sensors onboard the
Clementine spacecraft, arranged by orbit number. More information on these CD-ROMs, including
ordering information, is available on the World-Wide Web at:http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/clemcd.html
Additional information on the Clementine mission is available at:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/clementine.html
Contact: National Space Science Data Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD 20771. Phone: 301-286-4136; fax: 301-286-1771.
Internet: towheed@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
WWW: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
REVIEW
DANGER! WARNING! This video is not as advertised, and is (in my opinion) of minimal educational value for the target 6-12-year age group. Despite the 1992 copyright date on the video and the Voyager Saturn mosaic on the jacket, the two film cuts were individually copyrighted in 1974 and 1970! Even then, they were woefully out of date. Nor do the films contain ". . .outstanding nature footage. . ." as the jacket claims; they contain artists' conceptions rather than real images of the solar system.
The most obvious flaw in the films is the lack of current images of planets and the universe (despite the Voyager Saturn mosaic on the video jacket). Since the 1970 and 1974 publication dates, we have visible- light images of the universe from Mariner 10, Pioneer Saturn, Viking, Voyager 1 and 2, Magellan, Hubble, Clementine, and Galileo; we have had enormous strides in Earth-based telescopic observations; and we have incredible new data and imagery from other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. None of these advances in knowledge are, or could be, seen in this video.
Even worse, the films in this video did not use images current in their publication years, 1970 and 1974! Instead of images, films rely on paintings of planetary and astronomical scenes, with some simple animations. Between them, the videos contain only one real photo or image of a planet, Earth as seen from Apollo 8. There are no real images of the Moon, neither telescopic from Earth nor spacecraft from Luna, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, or Apollo. Rather, the videos contain paintings of the Moon's disk and a crude, unrealistic model of the Moon's surface. Mars is shown in Bonestell-like paintings, ignoring the availability of excellent telescopic images of the disk and Mariner views of the surface. Jupiter and Saturn appear only as paintings (including a few from Bonestell). Given time lags in production, perhaps the first films can be forgiven the lack of using the Pioneer images of Jupiter (1973).
Nor was the script up to date, even in 1970 and 1974. It was amusing and pathetic to learn that soil on the Moon is very much like that on Earth, and to hear Mars described without mention of volcanos, the Valles Marineris, polar ice, or flood channels.
Many good, current videos and CDs are available with stunning, real images of planets and the universe. Buy one of them rather than this historical relic. (Even the music is historical--I caught a few riffs from The Who's Teenage Wasteland. A wasteland indeed!)
--Allan Treiman
(Dr. Treiman is a staff scientist at LPI and a contributor to education and outreach projects at the Institute.)