Word: martian
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BURTON GOES FROM MARTIAN TO MERCHANT IVORY...
...from the audience. In 1938, he elevated radio drama by bringing the Mercury Theatre to the air and, on October 30th, offered a Mischief Night ad-aptation of "The War of the Worlds" - a sensation when thousands of listen-ers took fright, and flight, from the story of a Martian colonization of America. And in 1941, five days before Welles? 26th birthday, RKO released "Citizen Kane," a sensation that publisher William Randolph Hearst tried to stop because he believed it was a libel on his life. The film, a financial flop when released, is now commonly called the greatest ever...
...solar panels that power the 14 propellers that keep it aloft, and Tuesday it traveled higher (96,500 feet) than any other non-rocket-powered plane. The possible uses are twofold. NASA hopes that this test will help it to design aircraft that can fly in the thin Martian atmosphere. And some entrepreneurial sorts think that eventually a network of these high-flying birds could serve as low-cost alternatives to communications satellites...
...hence cooler. But it would take a lot of engineering to turn Mars' frozen, Gobi-like surface into a livable habitat. (Among proposals that have been floated: heating the planet with artificial greenhouse gases, deploying huge orbiting mirrors to catch sunlight and sprinkling heat-absorbing soot on the Martian icecaps.) Eventually, says Mars promoter Robert Zubrin, visitors wouldn't need spacesuits anymore...
...dashing intergalactic warriors go, the Butt-Ugly Martians have their shortcomings. There's the discipline thing - the Martians may have been sent by their evil ruler to conquer the earth, but they took the assignment so they could bliss out on the planet's junk food and video games. There's the brains thing - the Martian perspective on life can be dim, dumb and completely impervious to logic. And finally, there's the looks thing: the Butt-Uglies have blue skin, big teeth, and bulging, bug eyes...