NASA Missions to Mars: A Visual History of Our Quest to Explore the Red Planet by Piers Bizony
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve been a space nerd for a while, and Mars has always seemed extra special. A planet so close and yet so far, a place where we haven’t yet set foot on despite that tantalizing proximity. Sign me up for the next Mars mission, I say — I can grow space potatoes no worse than Mark Watney in Andy Weir’s The Martian!
Until then at least I have this book, and it’s gorgeous. Big and glossy and even, if I dare say, sexy in its large squareness, it’s full of beautiful Mars photos courtesy of past and present Mars missions as well as a few artistic renderings, movie stills, book illustrations and posters.
“The Mariner and Viking missions really did teach us that the only way to approach Mars is on its own terms. This is not an Earthlike world.”
A wonderful essay by space journalist Andrew Chaikin opens the book, and short introductory essays preface all the chapters in this book — “Red Planet Visions” (fictional imaginings of Mars, Barsoom to Bradbury), “First Contact” (Mariner and Voyager missions), “Robot Explorers” (Mars rovers missions – Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, Perseverance — and possibility of life on Mars) and “Human Martians” (the ideas behind Mars habitats and spacesuits that can help humans explore Mars).
“A final “faster, better, cheaper” mission, the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter, failed to reach orbit in September 1999 because of a muddle between metric and imperial measurements in the navigation software.”
Beautiful visual Mars journey, definitely worth it.
5 stars.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Motorbooks for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
(Unfortunately the ARC got archived because apparently I don’t pay enough attention to deadlines, but I liked what I saw enough to shell out $$ for a lovely hardback copy, and I don’t regret it in the slightest).
books are life 