such a lonely world

And yet the general public was learning almost nothing of these great happenings. The press was largely inattentive;television ignored the mission almost altogether. When it became clear that a definitive answer on whether there is life on Mars would not be forthcoming, interest dwindled still further. There was little tolerance for ambiguity. When we found the sky of Mars to be akind of pinkish-yellow rather than the blue which had erroneously first been reported, theannouncement was greeted by a chorus of good-natured boos from the assembled reporters they wanted Mars to be, even in this respect, like the Earth. They believed that theiraudiences would be progressively disinterested as Mars was revealed to be less and lesslike the Earth.