On the western end of the north wall is the publicity poster for the 1979 NBC Martian Chronicles television mini-series, and next to it are two composite landscapes of Mars taken by the Spirit rover (2006). To the right of these NASA images is an autographed print by American surrealist painter Robert Watson in blue; you can see the dust jacket for the 1958 re-issue of “The Martian Chronicles” just below it screened in red. Ray Bradbury loved the painting but said that for the book jacket, “it must be in red, Mars is the red planet.” To the right of it, you see another Bradbury favorite of Watson’s titled, “The Road to Jericho.” Even though it is not about Mars, the Bradburys loved the picture.
On the end of the north wall are four objects that have come from, or have been in outer space. One of these is a “Mars” flag that went to the International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2006. The Center also has a packet of seeds which were part of the SEEDS Project prepared by scientists from the Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service. This packet orbited the Earth on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) Satellite which was retrieved after six years by NASA. The packet of seeds was launched on the Space Shuttle Challenger on April 6, 1984 and returned to earth on Space Shuttle Columbia in January 1990. Both shuttles were lost with astronauts on board during later missions, a very sobering reminder of the sacrifices that have been made to advance the exploration of outer space.
To the right of the Mars flag is a Planetary Society picture of Ray Bradbury, Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek and Buzz Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon. The flag was presented to Ray Bradbury by Bruce Murray, planetary-scientist and former director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Bradbury also received the 3-D plaque of the Valles Marineris, the “Grand Canyon” of Mars; this massive feature is almost four times larger than Earth’s Grand Canyon (1860 miles long and 5 miles deep). One of the deepest parts of the canyon has been unofficially dubbed “The Bradbury Abyss.”
Heading north toward the Bradbury office museum. The three low bookcases to your left (just in front of the Planetary Society’s Mars awards) contain Bradbury’s author’s copies of his books. To your right, along the east wall opposite the short bookcases, you will see lateral file cabinets that contain hundreds of Bradbury artifacts, awards, and mementos, including many comic strip scrap books that he assembled (and even hand-colored) as a boy in the early 1930s; above these cabinets, starting on the far right of the east wall, is an early Lunar orbital shot of “Copernicus Crater,” one of the most prominent landmarks on the moon; the photograph was taken in 1965, and it was known for a time as a “photograph of the century.”
To the left of the lunar image is NASA’s Thermal Imaging Project for Mars. This image of the polar region of Mars was specifically targeted by Ray Bradbury during one of his visits to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Next to the left is JPL’s thanks to Mr. Bradbury for inspiring and publicizing the 2006 landings of the “Spirit” and “Opportunity” rovers, which landed on opposite hemispheres of Mars. This image was taken by “Spirit” and was enlarged and given to Bradbury by the Rover team’s Lead Geologist, Dr. Jim Rice, in 2007; the photograph was signed by members of the JPL Rover team. There is a group of rocks in the picture that Dr. Rice named “Martian Chronicles.”
Further to the left is a memento of the Viking landings in 1976; Vikings 1 and 2 were the first successful landers to touch down on Mars. These pictures show the landing sites and one of the first photos of the Martian surface. This composite memento was presented to Bradbury by NASA’s Langley Research Center in appreciation for Ray Bradbury’s participation on the NASA Panel, “Why Man Explores,” which became a book. Explorer Jacques Cousteau and author James A. Michener were also on the Panel.
Continuing north, you’ll find tall bookshelves to your right along the east wall. These bookshelves contain Bradbury’s author’s copies of his own books, which he kept on shelves in the garages of his homes in Los Angeles and Palm Springs. To the right above these book cases you will see artwork by Doug Wildey, which was created for the 1972 Los Angeles Times graphic adaptation of a Martian Chronicles story-chapter titled “Mars is Heaven.” The painting you see is an unused panel that falls between the two pages of the published adaptation.