I’ve been rummaging through the depths of my hard-drive and found a few things I’d forgotten about. Here’s one of them, from 2006 I see, a presentation on the contemporary archaeology of Mars.

The reason I’ve pulled it up is I might want to go back and think this over again. I’m not happy with it, which is why it was left on the drive, but it might have potential.

The Archaeology Of Mars View more presentations from Alun Salt.

The slide on the 1980s probes is intentionally blank, because there were hardly any probes sent in the 1980s to Mars. The reason is that the competition between the major powers has moved to Earth Orbit, with the USA building the Shuttle and the USSR building long-term space stations. Recent events have highlighted a couple of reasons why it’s worth looking at this again. One is the registration of lunar heritage by California, which is grabbing headlines for something that Alice Gorman and Beth O’Leary have been saying for a while. The other is Obama’s cancellation of the return to the Moon.

It could be a scientific re-prioritisation, but like the Mars gap in the 1980s, it could also be due to politics. The More >