Customer Reviews

Mars Beckons: The Mysteries, the Challenges, the Expectations of Our Next Great Adventure in Space

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The hard part of doing research on science and technology is that books tend to go way out of date quickly so you don't know if even a used copy is worth it. As I write this is it the tail end of September 2010 and yes, this book is still worth the money.

It was released in 1990 so the rule of thumb is that the work was done starting around 1988. Throughout the book there are mentions of activities up through 1988 so the thumbrule fits. This was before the rovers landed and even before their missions had been set in stone and apparently even prior to their assembly, so you will not find information about them (or obviously the Pheonix lander).

However, you will find significant and important information about the politics of Mars mission planning (and Space planning in general). Important and still relevant because Space work, alas, takes far too long to happen and so you will find useful information about missions that took flight years after the writing.

As for the readability, the book appears targetted at the general reader, meaning it is fully understandable without a handbook of acronyms and is perfect for not only those who have other books under their belts but also as a first book on the Space Industry in general and Mars missions in particular.

I dont think that the above paragraph should turn away folks, like me, who have read a lot of related material. Yes, about the whole the first half is based on the legends and spirit of Lowell and how the canals and chances of intelligent life were both ridiculed and taken as a new gospel and influenced most all later missions and goals. But, even that is re-readable.

The author has a very easy going style that makes fast work of it all and also, due to its release date, slips in a very solid amount of quotes and information form people in the industry in the 80s; things that have been condensed in later works and so might be losing their context. For example, Carl Sagan was alive and kicking when this book came out and there are a number of quotes and bits from him that I'd not seen in later works and seeing them here put some meat on their drying bones... even if you are not a Sagan fan, as I am not, there are things here that make his attitude more understandable and even make him more upbeat for regular people. (It was a small eye opener but worth the used-book cost by itself).

Round about the middle of the book the meat I was looking for kicked in. This is where you start getting contemporary information about the Soviet Phobos missions and the genesis of the current Russian space industry. It puts a lot into perspective, even today. I think I found this information most useful of all, probably because it was written as detante was fading into glastnost you get a real you-are-there impression and, again, see more clearly things that now are yellowed and faded into readers digest versions. As noted, because Space tech changes soooooooooooooo slowly having this perspective is fully useful, if not more useful than you would have thought, even now.

Yes, you will cringe a bit at the mentions of potential missions loosely planned for 1998 and even 2008 but take the bullet and note that they are not stated as hard and fast targets. With today's hindsight on historical events the plans and general timelines still do fit. These passages are good learning materials on the politics and business of Space.

So, not a hard hard technical tome and not a kiddie book. A the used prices it is worth it. It is a relatively fast read (I did it in four nights) and the style is paced well so even if you "know it all" those parts move along well so that you won't find yourself robotically skimming and missing anything.

Hope that helps.