More Information on "Mars Time"

Sources:

Kim Stanley Robinson

Thomas Gangale

Kent Joosten
NASA JSC

Martian Time Web Site
http://www.martiana.org/

Mars Pathfinder Web Site
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html

Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bantam, 1992.

Author notes:

A permanent human presence on Mars would require the use of a new Martian calendar based on the length of the Martian year rather than duration of the Earth year.

A good fictional book about Mars colonization is Red Mars, winner of science fiction's coveted Hugo Award in 1993. Throughout Robinson uses the 40-minute time slip as a "festival time," a kind of daily Mardi Gras when people can let their hair down. It can also be a time of mayhem - a major character is assassinated during the time slip, for example. Robinson borrowed the time slip concept from another author, Phillip K. Dick, who originated it in his novel Martian Time-Slip in 1964.

The Pathfinder/Viking system of consecutive numbering will likely be used by explorers on Mars, but it will have to be replaced when colonists arrive to live permanently on the planet. There are many martian calendar systems to choose from. These are described at the Martian Time Web Site see Sources, above.