{"id":27879,"date":"2025-09-05T10:35:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/mars-mania-how-america-became-obsessed-with-mars\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T10:35:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:35:43","slug":"mars-mania-how-america-became-obsessed-with-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/mars-mania-how-america-became-obsessed-with-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Mars Mania: How America Became Obsessed with Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today, we usually associate Martians with sci-fi \u2014 from vintage depictions of \u201clittle green men,\u201d to images of Matt Damon growing potatoes on the surface of Mars. But a little over a century ago, Martians existed in a very different way in the public imagination \u2014 as not only real, but as intelligent beings who\u2019d created a sophisticated civilization. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMars Mania\u201d was sweeping the country, with prominent scientists claiming to have seen evidence of Martian architecture, and newspapers like The New York Times proclaiming \u201cThere is Life on Planet Mars!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On this episode, we talk with science writer David Baron about his new book, \u201cThe Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America.\u201d We hear about why life on Mars became a nationwide obsession, the astronomer who pushed the idea, and what happened when other scientists realized he was wrong. Also, we listen back to the story of Mars One \u2014 how a Dutch entrepreneur convinced thousands of people to volunteer for a one-way mission to colonize Mars.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>ALSO HEARD:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2012, a Dutch entrepreneur named Bas Landorp announced that he was launching a privately funded effort to colonize Mars within the next 13 years. The project, known as Mars One, earned plenty of skepticism \u2014 but it also captured the imaginations of thousands of people around the world, eager to become the first humans to settle the Red Planet. Reporter Liz Tung talked with some of the applicants about the application process, and why they were excited to end their lives on a distant planet far away from Earth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, we usually associate Martians with sci-fi \u2014 from vintage depictions of \u201clittle green men,\u201d to images of Matt Damon growing potatoes on the surface of Mars. But a little over a century ago, Martians existed in a very different way in the public imagination \u2014 as not only real, but as intelligent beings who\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[7,14,14390,2090,1622,13470],"class_list":["post-27879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-when-i-discover-who-i-am","tag-america","tag-mania","tag-mars","tag-obsessed","tag-the-pulse"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Percival-Lowell-map-of-Mars1200_800.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/category\/philadelphia-breaking-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Today, we usually associate Martians with sci-fi \u2014 from vintage depictions of \u201clittle green men,\u201d to images of Matt Damon growing potatoes on the surface of Mars. But a little over a century ago, Martians existed in a very different way in the public imagination \u2014 as not only real, but as intelligent beings who\u2019d&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27881,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27879\/revisions\/27881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}