A Mailbox on Mars

Chapter nine opens with Bradbury’s growing association with the 1976 success of the Viking Mars landers. He was featured in the JPL’s mission control center during the landing of Viking 1, meeting Wernher von Braun for the last time before von Braun’s passing. He returned to the JPL at Caltech to open the symposium on “The Search for Life in Our Solar System.” The chapter also surveys the growing momentum toward a film adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Although an option with Paramount failed, producer Peter Douglas and his father Kirk Douglas were able to keep momentum going as Bradbury and director Jack Clayton worked to improve and shorten Bradbury’s screenplay for the future.