Bradbury interjects small vignettes in between his short stories to summarize the patterns of human expansion on Mars. What struck me about these short segments is the compressed time-frame of Bradbury's settlement of Mars. Within thirty years, the humans have virtually obliterated the societies of both Mars and Earth.
The first stages of travel are documented: in The Taxpayer, a man demands permission to travel to Mars, while the advent of interplanetary travel is seen in Rocket Summer. After initial exploration, Bradbury describes the descent of settlers on Mars like a swarm of locusts. The short Interim gives the harrowing image of a "twister of Oz-like proportions (that) had carried the entire town off to Mars and set it down without a bump," that hearkens back to the third expedition, where the entire crew is slaughtered by Martians who imitate a middle-American small town.
Again, the idea seems to be that the alien image is contained in our own, and our image in it. Humanity's diseases destroy the martians, and human weapons destroy human civilizations on Mars and on Earth. The martians' madness causes them to emulate us, and Bradbury seems to make the point that we would be mad to continue acting the way we do.
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