the last interview - for this project - maybe

Final Interview
Yesterday I interviewed Martyn Fogg – a leading researcher into planet formation and teraforming – the science of turning a barren empty planet into one fit for human habitation.

Apparently by simply raising the temperature of Mars by about 4 degrees you could unlock the atmosphere stored in its rocks and it would become a much more hospitable place within a couple of hundred years. After that, you’d still need to find some way of getting oxygen into the air before you could breath it, but it would become a lot easier to work on… the favourite way of raising the temperature is with giant orbital mirrors. Not immediately practical, but not out of the question in a few years.

Anyway, the interview went well, and he was even able to fill in the gaps in some of the other areas of the programme, so with any luck, this will be the last interview for this programme.

In any case, I can start editing on Monday, so I’ve spent today capturing all the footage. It’s beginning to feel like a workable programme…. By the end of next week I hope to be able to see the whole project a lot more clearly. I’ll know what needs to be shot, rendered, bought in and scripted.

The whole thing will be coming together by this time next week.

I hope.

The Natural History Museum
I met up with Raoul at the Natural History Museum last night. He seems to be working very hard at trying to find a way in for me so I can have access to some of their scientists and collections for future programmes.

I really don’t know how this will go – there’s a lot of internal politics and I’ll have to see.

Meanwhile, scientists are getting back to me from all over the country about the new projects I’m proposing. Most of the programme ideas are beginning to come together and it’s only those at the NHM that have problems with getting involved. To be fair, I think they’re all keen, but it’s the politics that’s getting in their way.

The one programme that I’m having difficulty getting experts for is the one on ungulates. Basically just after the dinosaurs got wiped out, a little tree dwelling raccoon like animal appeared. It was pretty unremarkable in itself, but its decedents basically took over the world: the horses, the rhinos, the elephants, the deer, the camels, the hippos, the antelope, the pigs, and even, bizarrely the whales all descended from this one animal. It’s such a wide range that I’m not even sure it’s one programme – it could be four. In any case, I’m having real trouble finding anyone in the UK who studies the evolution of the mammals. I’m sure they’re out there, but I don’t know where to look….