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Ray Bradbury's The Third Expedition From The Martian Chronicles

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Sci/Tech Background Europa Report (2013) focuses on a team of scientists and astronauts that are on a mission to explore and report on Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon with a surface of water theorized to be possibly able to support life. From the earliest known times when space was observed, “cosmological speculations” about life and the details thereof have been highly debated from the earliest of times (Beck 5). With technology exponentially developing, the search for life continues to attract attention and is commonly a topic of media, leaving film producers like those of Europa Report to fill in many of the gaps about life that just haven’t been discovered yet. The possibility of life out there was on the minds of ancient thinkers …show more content…

After a successful landing for the crew, the men “held to each other’s elbows, suddenly unable to breathe, it seemed. Their faces grew pale.” (Bradbury 33). The men were filled with fear as to what they saw: Mars looked exactly like the old town on Earth they all grew up in. This portrayal of setting develops the fear of the unknown because it is the exact opposite of what Mars was believed to look like. Bradbury goes on to set this expedition in context chronologically with the previous two mission. Some of the men believed that “Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel York and his partner.” would be able to justify how they had landed in an Earthly town, but Captain Black pointed out “the York expedition was only a year ago, while Captain Williams and his men landed here some time during last August.” and “William and his men, as well as York, landed on the opposite side of Mars.” (34). The men were looking for a justification as to why Mars was so Earthlike, but Bradbury brilliantly counters all points through explicitly detailing the setting as one that could not overlap with the present. This exudes fear of the unknown as there is no given solution as to what lies ahead of Captain Black and his

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