Customer Reviews

The Hunt for Life on Mars

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I found it to being quite a good study on our current knowledge of the possibility of life on Mars.

The writer uses a court case allegory to discuss 'ALH84001' the Marian rock found by NASA to review the case.

Except for that atomic bomb thing back in the forties, the most important scientific news event of the twentieth century may have happened last summer, when NASA scientists announced circumstantial traces of life inside a meteorite believed to have originated from Mars. Astronomer-and-science-writer Donald Goldsmith competently reviews the evidence and reasoning on both sides of the controversy. His presentation is better than Time or Newsweek, without the annoying distractions of advertising and coverage of Dole's VP selection (which wasn't cosmically significant). Goldsmith's writing lacks the evocative imagery of Sagan, but he gets his facts straight with clarity and there is poetry in that. While being fair with practically everyone else, he does give short shrift to those who see Martian artifacts at Cydonia. As he points out, though, future space probes will soon resolve that issue as well as many others about just how far Martian life progressed. This book will prepare you for revelations to come

This is a good overview of the possibility of life on Mars, using the evidence found in the meteorite ALH84001 as a starting point. Goldsmith uses a legal trial as a somewhat overprecious analogy, but overall this book is a fair and detailed summary of the arguments both for and against life on Mars based on current evidence.

It also covers future missions to Mars and somewhat dates itself while doing so, since Pathfinder and Global Surveyor are presented in the future tense.

Still, this is a useful and interesting book.

This book, along with Zubrin's "The Case for Mars," makes an excellent bookend to a spate of recent fiction and non-fiction about the exploration and colonization of Mars. Recommended reading and timely with the announcment of possible microfossils found in a Martian meteorite. As regards the so called "artifacts" of Cydonia, the author obviously realizes that light, shadow and wind-sculpted mesas have fooled a lot of wishful New Agers into believing pyramids and giant faces have been carved on the Red Planet. The quaint notion of intelligent features on Mars died out with Percivall Lowell's Martians and their "canals."

A pretty good book, that clearly explains, one by one, all the evidence brought forward by the NASA team about the ALH84001 Martian meteorite. Totally objective, very precise, easy to read, it will definitly help you understand what it's all about.

Only in the end does the author expresses his personnal view on the subject, but at least, you are then able to judge by yourself.

This is the kind of book Benjamin Bratt (from the movie "Red Planet") should have read before saying "How do you know it's authentic? How do you know its not toxic, that's the bigger question.".

READ! And learn, before you say anything stupid...

I thoroughly enjoyed Donald Goldmith's book. His easy, flowing style made for comprehension and reflective thinking on my part on this very interesting subject. One of the things that was made so clear that I was very much unaware of in the scientific community is the unreasonableness of some people. It seems downright silly they expose their fears so readily. I don't know why I am surprised though because scientist are just a smaller microcosm of the world and so there you have it. The jury is still out for me on whether or not I believe but I'll tell you this.... the book did edge me over to the side of the believers though in that now I would say 60% maybe and 40% maybe not and before I was split down the middle. To let you know how well written this book is.... I gave it to my boyfriend who has the attention span of a gnat and he got through it and could discuss it. Need I say more?