Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World [Paperback]

Oliver Morton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 031242261X | ISBN-13: 978-0312422615 | Publication Date: September 1, 2003

How can you make sense of a world where no one has ever lived? Acclaimed science writer Oliver Morton tells the story of the heroic landscapes of Mars, now better mapped in some ways than the Earth itself. Mapping Mars introduces the reader to the nineteenth-century visionaries and spy-satellite pioneers, the petroleum geologists and science-fiction writers, the artists and Arctic explorers who have devoted themselves to the discovery of Mars. In doing so they have given a new world to the human imagination, a setting for our next great adventure.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As Oliver Morton shows in his superb new book, Mapping Mars, Mars has clouds, winds, and shorelines. It has river valleys, mountains, volcanoes, and even glaciers. Even were it lifeless, it could support life, albeit of an almost unimaginably marginal kind. What Mars lacks is places. There are no "theres" there, nor will there be--until our feet make an impact on its soil.

Oliver Morton has a sense of place and a hunger for Mars, and a thrilling manner of communicating both. His account of our nearest neighbor's history, geology, and human potential is exhaustive. Morton touches on just about everything, from soil composition to survival techniques; from Martians to maps (maps, above all: they are his abiding subject, metaphor, and organizing principle). His artistry is to hide his daunting range of interests under a passionate and gripping human narrative: this book is about what Mars has meant, means, and may one day mean for us. And he has a wide-ranging definition of who "we" are. Like a good military historian, Morton knows to pay attention to the foot soldiers of science, as well as to the achievements of their celebrated masters. He understands how different the sciences are from each other, and how rivalries between them arise. Further, Morton understands where these people and their institutions sit in the general culture. He understands the crossover between science and science fiction, between space advocates and space fans.

All of which makes Morton's book something more than just "the story of Mars." It is, in addition, an astute study of how we go about exploring our world. --Simon Ings --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Well-known British science writer Morton, a contributor to Wired, the New Yorker and Science, traces scientists' efforts to map and understand the surface of Mars. Because much of the planet's surface material is basalt, which is porous, Morton explains, it is very probable that water from Mars's now dry canyons long ago sank into underground aquifers and froze. Mars has often been regarded as the planet most similar to Earth, but the author describes graphically how startlingly different its topography is. Mars is a planet with mountains larger than whole American states and plains the size of Canada. Our Grand Canyon would be dwarfed by the massive erosion canyons that surprised us a decade ago with their implication that titanic floods once rushed across the planet's surface. Olympus Mons, its largest volcano, is taller than two Everests, contains more than four times the total volume of the Alps and has a circumference larger than the distance between the northern and southern tips of the home islands of Japan. Morton writes eloquently and displays a breadth of knowledge not often found in science writing. He summarizes how science fiction authors have imagined Mars as well as how pre-computer artists used airbrush techniques to depict Mars's monstrous contours. The book might have benefited from being more tightly focused, but astronomy and geology buffs will be sure to snap it up. 16 color photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Picador (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031242261X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312422615
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,447,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well balanced and engaging modern cultural history of Mars, January 21, 2003

By 

briw "briw" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World (Hardcover)

I bought this book on a whim after getting interested in Mars colonization after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, to which Dr. Morton's book is an excellent non-fiction counterpoint. Not only does he set forth a well-spoken, engaging exposition of the 20th century's cultural and scientific history of Mars, he balances this with a keen sense of the limitations of human knowledge, telling his story in the context of real, live human figures at the forefront of Mars exploration.

The central theme, of maps and how they relate to place - and furthermore, how we relate to those maps and places - sets off an easily read story of what Mars has meant to recent society, how scientists have shaped that understanding, and how that understanding is both formed and limited by our extended observers, the robot orbiters and landers that we've sent to our red neighbor.

Highly recommended reading both for historical and cultural interest.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking at the Face of a Neighbor, September 11, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World (Hardcover)

The one geographic feature of the planet Mars that most people can think of is the famous "Face on Mars," a huge rock formation which is, if the fringe interpreters have it right, a gigantic, one-generic-face Mount Rushmore, to be viewed by us humans as sculpted by esthetically inclined Martians. There is more to Martian geography than that, and _Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World_ (Picador) by Oliver Morton, barely mentions the Face, and does not stoop to debunk it. Once again, real science is shown to be much more fascinating than fringe science. _Mapping Mars_ provides a history of how we know what we know about the most nearly Earth-like neighbor, and shows how we are actively creating a world in our own image.

There have been generations of pre-rocketry astronomers who tried to make sense of our neighbor planet. Morton gives a history of the English astronomers who named features on Mars after Englishmen, and French, Frenchmen, as well as Percival Lowell's certainty that he could see canals the Martians had made. The detailed mapping, begun with the later powerful earthly telescopes, was not all done with photography. "The well-trained human eye could seize such brief impressions, understand what was seen in them, and remember it," allowing much more resolution than photographs, and the book is illustrated with examples of different artistic versions of maps and terrain. Many science fiction books have tried to take in our understanding of the terrain and the ecology. Movies, however, have not done a good job, disregarding science; "... the blatantly ignored scientific advisor on _Mission to Mars_ ... has been stoically bearing the ridicule of his colleagues ever since." The colors of the terrain and sky have become understood, after much haggling, but the status of water on the planet is still under debate. Morton covers the debate about going to Mars, and if we do, should we be thinking of hijacking its ecology to transform it into something we could traverse without pressure suits? Terraforming Mars, transforming it into something like home, sweet home, is on the minds of not just impractical visionaries, but geologists and chemists as well.

Morton has given a wonderful history of a very human enterprise, something we have accomplished and about which we can be truly proud. His summary of what we know about this mysterious planet may need updating after the next lander starts sending back data, but his book will remain an important description of how we got where we are now. He has a fine balance of a reporter's detachment and engagement with his subjects, and even the detailed scientific descriptions are clear. At heart, however, his book is an optimistic and inspiring look at how scientists, astrophysicists, and dreamers sustain Mars as the obsession which it will always be.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lucid and engaging gem of a book, February 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World (Hardcover)

Mapping Mars covers more ground than its title would suggest. Not only does it give an enjoyable account of the attempts to describe Mars' topography, it also tells of how scientists, artists, and authors have grappled with the red planet over the years. Mars seems to be dear to Morton's heart -- he turned down the opportunity to be a founding member of the Planetary Society -- but he provides a very balanced view of the sometimes abrasive personalities behind Mars exploration.