Ray Bradbury has written the foreward for a recent issue of National Geographic, fans of The Martian Chronicles will apreciate his sublimely poetic enthusiasm for space exploration:
I like to think of the cosmos as a theater, yet a theater cannot exist without an audience, to witness and to celebrate. Robot craft and mighty telescopes will continue to show us unimaginable wonders. But when humans return to the moon and put a base there and prepare to go to Mars and become true Martians, we—the audience—literally enter the cosmic theater. Will we finally reach the stars?
Also check out the accompanying art by Michael Whelan.