In a few weeks, on a massive site outside Interlaken in Switzerland, Von Daniken's Mystery Park - containing recreations of major 'extra-terrestrial works' that include Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Mayan temples, and others - will open to visitors at a cost of £22 a head.
But how do these "civilian" space efforts complement their terrestrial nuclear work?
But what is probably his most famous paper is a grand overview of how terrestrial ecosystems work, published in 1960 and still so widely discussed that it has become known by several nicknames.
In acknowledgment of the crucial role of terrestrial field work in planetary geomorphology and of the BGS tradition, the symposium began with a field trip to the Appalachian Mountains, followed by a dinner talk of recent results from the Mars Surface Laboratory.
This first chapter, with its palpable longing for terrestrial sensation, may work for some readers.
Some terrestrial positioning systems work in a similar way, but replace the orbiting metronomes used by GPS with fixed transmitter beacons installed at precisely known locations.
Others explained the concept of "dowsing" for extra-terrestrial activity, which works in much the same way as dowsing for water, only you point your sticks at stuff that's supposedly been in the presence of aliens rather than dry ground that might be hiding a water reserve.
Mycosporine-glycine might increase fitness under terrestrial conditions by working both as a sunscreen and as an antioxidant.
Simonyi's terrestrial passions include collecting works by modern artist Roy Lichtenstein.
For example, the Raman spectra of three test minerals, calcite, aragonite and baryte, showed identifiable Raman peaks with Raman shift values within ± 1 cm−1 of those reported in previous works under terrestrial conditions.
