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On November 28, 1964 the U.S.A. launched the 'Mariner 4 'toward the planet
Mars. It flew by that desert, photographing for the first time, from an 8000 mile
range, its barren rockiness. 'Viking I was launched from Cape Canaveral on
August 20, 1975, arriving near Mars ten months later. Its lander touched down
on July 20, 1976... The lander's arm scratched the martian dust for samples and
removed some stones in search of signs of life.
In the Summer of 1982 , Ezra Orion contacted the Jet Propulsion Laboratories,
Pasadena, U.S.A. and met two scientists there.
He proposed to perform - using the lander's arm - a sculptural act: placing one
stone on top of another - vertically, and a sequence of simulations
of this act in a similar desert area in the U.S.A., to be a rehersal for that act.
A year later he proposed to the Jet Propulsion Laboratories to perform on Mars
a robotic sculptural stone - line by the vehicle 'Mars-Rover', now being developed
for the late nineties, and to run a series of simulations accordingly.
Valles Marineris is a canyon labyrinth splitting the equatorial of Mars along 4000
kms. It is the result of the powerful expansion - plate tectonics - forces in its
geological past. Along its northern edge stretches a huge cliff, 800 kms. long,
high above the canyon's floor. |
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He proposed on 1992 directing the 'Mars-Rover'to the edge of this cliff, performing
a geo-sculptural survey and laying a row of stones at a right angle to the
cliff's edge. The desert works, which Orion has carried out on the Tzin
cliffs in the, Negev desert, may serve as a model.
As the erosional processes on the Martian surface are as slow
As astronomical time, these geometrical works will disapear only after billions
of years - -
it is an extention of the human desert sculpture by hundreds
of millions of kilometers into the astro-abysses - - -
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