



Red Rover
Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity
-
- USD 17.99
-
- USD 17.99
Descripción editorial
For centuries humankind has fantasized about life on Mars, whether it’s intelligent Martian life invading our planet (immortalized in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds) or humanity colonizing Mars (the late Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles). The Red Planet’s proximity and likeness to Earth make it a magnet for our collective imagination. Yet the question of whether life exists on Mars—or has ever existed there—remains an open one. Science has not caught up to science fiction—at least not yet.
This summer we will be one step closer to finding the answer. On August 5th, Curiosity—a one-ton, Mini Cooper-sized nuclear-powered rover—is scheduled to land on Mars, with the primary mission of determining whether the red planet has ever been physically capable of supporting life. In Getting to Mars, Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for the ChemCam instrument on the rover—the main tool for measuring Mars’s past habitability—will tell the unlikely story of the development of this payload and rover now blasting towards a planet 354 million miles from Earth.
ChemCam (short for Chemistry and Camera) is an instrument onboard the Curiosity designed to vaporize and measure the chemical makeup of Martian rocks. Different elements give off uniquely colored light when zapped with a laser; the light is then read by the instrument’s spectrometer and identified. The idea is to use ChemCam to detect life-supporting elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to evaluate whether conditions on Mars have ever been favorable for microbial life.
This is not only an inside story about sending fantastic lasers to Mars, however. It’s the story of a new era in space exploration. Starting with NASA’s introduction of the Discovery Program in 1992, smaller, scrappier, more nimble missions won out as behemoth manned projects went extinct. This strategic shift presented huge opportunities—but also presented huge risks for shutdown and failure. And as Wiens recounts, his project came close to being closed down on numerous occasions. Getting to Mars is the inspiring account of how Wiens and his team overcame incredible challenges—logistical, financial, and political—to successfully launch a rover in an effort to answer the eternal question: is there life on Mars?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This entertaining insider account of Wiens's work on two groundbreaking robotic space explorers the Genesis and Curiosity rovers captures all the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of modern space science. An early fascination with all things intergalactic led Wiens from a childhood of model rockets to a career at NASA after the Challenger disaster. Under the leadership of administrator Dan Goldin, the rattled agency focused its efforts on discovery missions: small, specialized, and relatively cheap robotic programs. Wiens's Genesis project a probe that would collect samples of solar wind and return them to Earth made the cut and launched in 2001 after years of planning. Despite an unexpected crash landing, Genesis vindicated itself by delivering valuable data intact. Wiens's next pitch persuaded NASA to add the ChemCam, a device that uses a laser to burn minerals to reveal their composition, to a Mars rover, but everything from forest fires and funding issues to lab closures and the loss of the Columbia in 2003 kept ChemCam Earthbound until Curiosity launched in 2011. Wiens brings his work to life, candidly addressing the inevitable technological and bureaucratic obstacles and failures that compose the frustrating prelude to scientific victory. 16 b&w images.