More than a century ago, many respected scientists believed intelligent life populated Mars and that communication between our planets could be possible. While these ideas sound outlandish today, they kept the Red Planet in the public consciousness and inspired future generations of scientists. Soon, the intelligent life on Mars will be us. In this session, I’ll discuss the amazing history of Mars and how creative thinking and an insatiable sense of wonder have been critical to our offworld exploration.

Marc Hartzman is the author of The Big Book of Mars and We Are Not Alone (both from Quirk Books) as well as eight other books. He’s written articles for Mental Floss, HuffPost, AOL Weird News, AllThingsInteresting.com, and his own site, WeirdHistorian.com, and has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, History Channel’s The UnXplained, Xploration Outer Space, and the Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum. Hartzman was also a panelist at PlanetFest ’21 and a speaker at the Explore Mars Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, DC, in 2022.

Outside of writing books and articles, he earns a living as an award-winning advertising creative director. Hartzman’s 25-year career includes BMW’s 2015 Super Bowl ad (which CBS recently ranked as #17 in its Top 50 of all-time list) and the IBM Moon Walk interactive experience created in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.