Product Description

CD-ROM and Book. The Red Planet has been a beacon to every race of mankind since the dawn of history. Today Mars stands as a symbol of the high frontier the next logical step in our exploration of the universe around us. In 1964 the United States of America launched Mariner 4 towards Mars in the hope that a handful of pictures returned by the spacecraft might answer some age-old questions. Was there an ancient Martian civilisation? Would there be any signs of life? So began the first step in a close examination of our neighbouring planet. Between Mariner 4 and Mars Global Surveyor in 1988 the United States has sent a fleet of robots to Mars with wildly varying degrees of success. Thanks to these versatile probes we now know almost as much about Mars on a global scale as we do about our own Earth. In this book the triumphs and tribulations of the American Mars programme is gathered together in one place. Press Kits and Mission Reports from every Mars mission are collected together for the first time. Reading these documents presented here in chronological order gives a fascinating insight into how our understanding of the Red Planet has grown over the past four decades. These robot voyages are the advance guard, scouting out the path for the day when men will launch a manned mission to Mars.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #908284 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Baseball fans have the Sporting News Register for getting their stats fix, and farmer-types can turn to the time-honoured Almanac--so it's only fair that space-exploration junkies should have Robert Godwin's definitive NASA Mission Reports , providing page after page of official data and diagrams not to mention CD-ROMs packed with movies, pictures, and searchable NASA documents.

While most of Godwin's NASA books focus on a particular mission (e.g., Apollo 13 and Gemini 6), the Mars book chronologically surveys every single mission that's been mounted to the red planet, from the 1964 launch of Mariner 4 to the more current Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor encounters. And it's this breadth that makes the book a stand-out even in this excellent series. Not only can you marvel at the 16K flight computer on 1975's Centaur and the much more impressive hardware on the MGS, but you can even see the quality of NASA's press materials evolve. (When's the last time you saw a diagram with a typewritten legend?)

With NASA press kits for all the probes and a choice assortment of the more interesting mission reports, Godwin has assembled an authoritative, blow-by-blow resource for serious space buffs. And good news on the included "Windows" CD-ROM that's included: Since the files are primarily mpegs, jpegs, and html, readers can access the CD and its hour-and-a-half-plus of vintage video from just about any platform. --Paul Hughes

Review
"A mine of useful information and well worth getting..." -- Astronomy Now, September 2001. "A well-conceived book which those interested in planetary exploration cannot afford to miss..." -- Spaceflight, November 2000.

Customer Reviews

A Comprehensive Review Of Past Efforts
I expect that most people who buy this book will have done so on the back of the other volumes that Godwin has already published following the same format.

The big difference in the excitement factor (at least for me!) is of course the subject matter as this obviously is a book with no (human)heroes in it.

It was nonetheless very absorbing and informative, especiallly in the section dealing with what could have been if Von Braun`s next step from Apollo Saturn had been developed - sadly, as we know, the US had got rather bored with space once they had beaten the Russians to the moon.

Godwin must really be admired for the thoroughness of his researching once more. There are more volumes to come (I think one on the X-15 project is in the wings) which I shall look forward to eagerly.

A good info source and additon to any space-junkie`s bookshelf, especially for the low price.