Mars

Mar 10 2017 12 ep. 5.8k

Mars Podcast artwork

A season of programmes from Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra exploring the Red Planet of our dreams and, maybe, our futures...

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

A Trip Around Mars with Kevin Fong

Mar 10 2017 28 mins

The planet Mars boasts the most dramatic landscapes in our solar system. In a programme first broadcast in March, 2013, Kevin Fong embarks on a grand tour around the planet with scientists, artists and writers who know its special places intimately - through their probes, roving robots and imaginations. As we roam Mars' beauty spots, Kevin considers why the Red Planet grips so many

Following the Martian Invasion: Episode 5

Mar 10 2017 14 mins

Francis Spufford moves through an eerily silent London from Exhibition Road, where Wells had eagerly attended the lectures of biologist Thomas Huxley, onto the outskirts of Primrose Hill: the last staging post of the Martians who meet their microbial end overlooking the ruined city as Victorian's count their biological blessings.Joining Francis are the science fiction writers Ian M

Cells and Celluloid: Aliens on Film

Mar 10 2017 57 mins

With Francien Stock and Adam Rutherford.

Following the Martian Invasion: Episode 4

Mar 09 2017 14 mins

Red weed floats down the Thames by Kew Bridge. The Martians are busy aero-forming Earth to make it more like their dying Martian home. The South East lies in ruins and London is abandoned.Meanwhile in a house in Mortlake, Francis Spufford is joined by Professor Sally Shuttleworth (St Annes, Oxford) and space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock to consider Martian evolution and appearanc

Following the Martian Invasion: Episode 3

Mar 08 2017 14 mins

The inexorable progress of the Martian War machines meets an attempt at organized military response at Shepperton. It is desperate and doomed yet not without limited success.Joining Francis along the banks of the Thames to consider a desperate, workable strategy against alien invasion is General Sir Rupert Smith, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander. Meanwhile in London and along

We Are The Martians: Start Up Planet

Mar 08 2017 42 mins

For Radio 4's Mars series, Kevin Fong asks: what future do we have on Mars when we finally get there? He talks to scientists and writers about their visions of a human presence and purpose on the Red Planet. This is the third part on this series on our relationship with Mars.The American space agency NASA aims to get the first human crew to Mars sometime in the 2040's. It is likely

Moving to the Red Planet

Mar 07 2017 28 mins

As we dream of sending humans to Mars, the psychological problems of a mission loom large. As part of Radio 4's Mars season. Claudia Hammond investigates the mind-set behind the desire of those of us who want to colonise the red planet. What does it take to survive the confines of a 9 month journey and the enclosed pod-like environments that mission leaders envisage will be the hou

Following the Martian Invasion: Episode 2

Mar 07 2017 14 mins

Francis Spufford wheels his bicycle along Maybury Road and through Woking to consider the delight which HG Wells took in destroying a place he had only just recently arrived at. Woking, the land of the dead, where the Necropolis railway deposited its cargo in Europe's largest cemetery.Wells would mount his new technological wonder – a tandem with his "wife" in the front – and w

We Are the Martians: A New Red World

Mar 07 2017 42 mins

Ken Hollings continues the series that revels in the Mars of imagination, history and science.Feminists, Christians, peace loving druids, vegetarian fruitarian dwarves, Bolsheviks and big science terraformers have all offered up their versions of Martian utopia.Both the astronomer Flammarion and the Russian mystic and Cosmist Nikolai Fyodorov dreamed of the dead resurrected on Mars

Following the Martian Invasion: Episode 1

Mar 07 2017 14 mins

Francis Spufford begins his journey following H.G. Wells' Martian invaders at the Basingstoke Canal that runs through Woking. Here Wells canoed with his lover amidst the wild vegetation and dreamed about Mars, at the time widely believed to be criss-crossed by vast canals created by an ancient and dying race.Wells wrote his book at the height of Martian Fever when the work of astro