True tale of the DVD designed for Martians

Earth scientists greet the people of Mars

By Nury Vittachi

*

Scientists are sending a DVD to Mars. It is due to arrive on the surface of the Red Planet on May 25^th, which is next Sunday.

Now hang on a minute, I hear you ask.  What if Martians don’t have a DVD player?  What if they are still using video tapes? What if they haven’t progressed past Super 8 movie reels?

Well, scientists have taken that into account. The DVD is made of tough stuff that will make it playable for at least 500 years, which they reckon should be enough time even for the most primitive form of life, such as a single-cell bacterium or an American Idol judge, to build a DVD player.

Now I know you think I am making this up, but I’m not. They really have sent a DVD 680 million kilometres to Mars. Scientists spent months making the disk, which opens with a greeting to Martians.  “Let me introduce myself to you,” it says. “I am Peter Smith, the Principal Investigator of the Phoenix mission funded by NASA. My father, Hugh Smith, was born in 1902, an era when there was no radio or recorded music or television. “

I’m not exactly sure why it starts with this statement, but I suspect Mr Smith believes the sympathetic Martians will immediately use some form of Intergalactic Paypal to help with his funding challenges.

Mr. Smith then admits that Martians might not be able to understand the disk. “We will have no common language,” he says, in the language that they cannot understand. This reminds me of the safety card you get on airlines which says, “If you cannot read this, notify the flight attendant.”

Also on the disk is the radio version of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds, a story in which Martians try to take over the planet Earth, but are defeated. I can only deduce that this has been cleverly included to stop them trying to do the same thing again. “Curses!” the Martians will say. “Apparently we tried to invade them before but we failed.”

There are also messages from dead humans. There is an interview with my old friend the late Arthur C. Clarke, filmed at his home in Sri Lanka. And there’s a message from the late science writer Carl Sagan. He recorded it at his New York house, a beautiful home in Ithaca, New York, famed for its 200-foot (60 metre) waterfall. Mr Sagan greets the Martians and says:  “Maybe you can hear in the background, a 200-foot tall waterfall, which is probably, I would guess, a rarity on Mars.”

Mr Sagan is on pretty safe ground making such a claim, as there is no water on Mars. One wonders what was going through his mind when he chose to make this statement. “If people on earth are green with jealousy about my 200-foot waterfall, what about those poor schmucks on Mars, who don’t even have running water?!”

The latest space probes have reported that Mars is basically a large, icy plain, with virtually no signs of intelligent life.  No, wait, that’s Canada.

But Mars sounds pretty much the same as Canada, only with better nightlife.

Anyway, the DVD will arrive on the Red Planet at the weekend.

I suspect pirate copies will be on sale in most Asian cities by Friday night.

Comments

[Mukul Sharma]

Hi Sir,

I am regular reader of your blog. Must say, you have a real good sense of humour.

I have this link, which you might use while talking about Non-Smart thieves as you have done earlier.

http://truemors.com/?p=29159

And finally, Very nice post once again. I loved that line, "No, wait, that’s Canada."

Spare me if I have poor English.

Thanks a lot of writing up these brilliant posts.
Mukul

Hi Sir,

Sorry to bother you again. But I thought, you sure would want to read these.

Tomato Genetically Modified To Be More Expensive

http://elitecoder.livejournal.com/18927.html

and

Man leaves toddler in car while he visits stripclub
http://elitecoder.livejournal.com/18097.html

Enjoy!!

[Peter Emmett]

What baffles me is trying to get my head around the conversation that must ave preceded this project! Talk about thinking inside a small box.

I can only image that scientists with multiple PhDs, huge IQs and almost zero common sense getting together in a hot tub of lukewarm goat's milk, drinking margaritas and discussing how they hadn't wasted enough of the tax payers dollars and needed to prove that their existence was important.

What they should have done is in included a small portable (self-charging) DVD player that when opened automatically started to play "Gone with the Wind". After 3+ hours those Martians who hadn't committed suicide would have made a blood pact never to go near the planet.

As I said the scientists had no common sense otherwise this would have been an obvious solution

[Shanoners]

Right, Mister Emmett. The mere existence of this so called project and the people behind it who only have .oooooooooooo1 percent of common sense should be thrown out of the earth..as in right now.

And as to the more important things ..another salute to our beloved Nury :D just keep on putting smiles on the faces of your readers. Thanks!

[Anabela]

That was a great article, and so were the comments!

I sure hope the Martians or any hapless victims of the DVD don't possess any such petty human emotions such as greed and envy. They might actually feel sorry for themselves for not having that loud, splashing noise of the Waterfalls haunting their homes 24-7. For me that sounds like living next to a Sun Hung Kai construction site. In feeling sorry for themselves, they set out to invade that inane Planet Earth, whose inhabitants are so dumb that they consistently invade themselves. They also make weapons that destroy themselves.

And plus, these Earthlings reincarnate ad infinitum until they reach Enlightenment, learn their lessons, and live with compassionate understanding towards others. Earthlings are very repetitive. They never get bored by unnecessary drama. They always set themselves up for disaster and failure, and failing to see the truth, they numb themselves with drugs, gambling, sex, and the DVD.

See, the advantages and riches of Earth are beyond imagination.

Invade us, Martians! Save us from ourselves! Even your lowest amoeba is better than any Einstein of ours!

AS Peter said, perhaps NASA has superior diplomatic tact - they made such a DVD to deter any potential intelligent life form from coming near Earth... or Asia. But it's definitely possible that there are superior intelligent life forms who already came up with the DVD 500 billion years ago and will get really annoyed that they will now have to dig up their version of the BETA from their storage.

[Soutiman]

Hey, your blog is terrific. You have a wonderful sense of humour and its refreshing.

BTW I'm also a regular reader of MAD Magazine.

[Nury]

What depresses me is that the DVD shows such a complete lack of imagination. Summing up human life for an alien race (even if there is no alien race) is a fascinating exercise. There were so many clever, funny, thoughtful things they could have done with it---material that could have had an alternative life here on earth, even if no Martian ever saw it. Instead, they have a series of boring essays by scientists. On the other hand, perhaps that's why they are scientists--because they are left brain people, with little ability to step into their right brains and actually send an imaginative message to the Martians.

[Peter Emmett]

Nury, I think that they used up all of their imagination on coming up with the idea about the DVD in the first place.

For me, there are two scenes I would like to see on the DVD:

1. The argument sketch from Monty Python - this way the Martians would be under the impression that the only way to negotiate would be to lavish us with money and we could decide when the argument was over

2. The song "Always look on the bright side of life" also from Monty Python - this sums up the only way to survive living on this planet and if they believed it would surely make this world and better place to live in.

It may be interesting to canvas other people's ideas about what they wold want on the DVD and send the final list to NASA to see if they may consider sending another one up (hopefully Blue Ray disks would be available in NASA by then).

[Cally]

Good idea. Given Nuri's ability to get big organizations such as Booker and the Aussie Govt and the TDC to do his bidding he probably really could organize some sort of written collection that NASA would take on the next space mission to Mars. How about it Nur?

[Peter Emmett]

One last idea - maybe we could have a competition for the best idea to waste tax payers money. My idea to send a mission to Mars and Venus to prove if the theory that "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" is really true or not.

[Sara25]

Actually that's pretty funny.