Going to Mars
The Stories of the People Behind NASA's Mars Missions Past, Present, and Future
Written by the leader of the Mars Pathfinder program, Brian Muirhead, and the acclaimed science fiction writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Going to Mars is more than a dry compendium of facts about our sister planet. In it, the authors reveal the human side of space exploration, detailing the never-before-told stories of personal triumphs and tragedies, the complex drama of powerful personalities in collision, and the behind-the-scenes conflicts that threatened to derail one of the most remarkable technological achievements of our time.
The groundbreaking Mars Pathfinder mission inaugurated an entirely new approach to space exploration. No longer the exclusive domain of male scientists with crew cuts, white shirts, and billion-dollar budgets, this team was one of the most unusual and youngest assortments of scientists and engineers ever assembled at NASA. Going to Mars is their story.
The book is enriched by special sections that provide complete, detailed, and easy-to-follow guides to the intricacies of space science. It also looks at the history of our culture's interaction with the Red Planet, from Hollywood versions of Mars exploration to the first Viking missions, and to the future. The book presents the best predictions of science fiction and science fact (as well as the most humorous and least plausible), and offers a detailed examination of NASA's developing plans that might one day lead us from the first human footprint on Mars to the first self-sustaining habitat. Illustrated with hundreds of photographs, drawings, cartoons, and computer-generated images, most never published before, and many from the personal collections of the people whose story this is, Going to Mars is the insider's guide to humanity's ultimate adventure.
Pocket (December 21, 2004)
