Martian Summer
Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days With the Phoenix Mars Mission
by Andrew Kessler
Mem. Ed. $8.99
Pub. Ed. $27.95
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Martian Summer
Have you ever wanted to hang out at Mission Control as NASA operates a spacecraft on the surface of a distant world? Andrew Kessler did—and he got his wish. In Martian Summer, he offers a lighthearted memoir of three months spent with 130 top scientists as they oversee the Phoenix Mars mission on the red planet.
Launched in August 2007, Phoenix touched down on Mars’s north pole in May 2008. It was the first man-made probe ever sent to the Martian arctic, and was designed to find out how climate change can turn a warm, wet world into a cold, barren desert. During its mission, it discovered a giant frozen ocean trapped beneath the Martian north pole—a breakthrough with major implications for the possibility of life.
Although Kessler explains the science engagingly, this is just as much a “warts-and-all” study of the human side of space exploration. Kessler, the first outsider ever granted unfettered access to such an event, recounts the struggle to adjust to long days (and nights) at the Tucson facility from which the craft is being maneuvered. He squabbles with a NASA security official who seems to begrudge his presence, and reports the up-and-down moods of a variety of researchers including mission leader Peter Smith. When NASA headquarters begins dictating operating procedure in the wake of a minor mishap with the spacecraft, the mood of the assembled scientists is understandably dour. As well, we witness how one mission scientist, Nilton Renno, is jeered after proffering the bold conjecture that liquid might exist today on the surface of the red planet. Through it all, Kessler maintains his sense of perspective—and humor—in this detailed and unique first-person narrative.
Reading Martian Summer is the next best thing to standing on Mars.
Hardcover : 352 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books, Inc. ( April 15, 2011 )
Item #: 13-379848
ISBN: 9781605981765
Product Dimensions: 6.0 x 9.0 inches
Product Weight: 19.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
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