Voyage to Mars: NASA's Search for Life Beyond Earth

by Laurence Bergreen

Book Overview

Voyage to Mars is the gripping story of an elite group of visionary scientists and their passionate quest to explore our closest cousin in the solar system. Acclaimed biographer Laurence Bergreen... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157322166X
• ISBN13: 9781573221665
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The Human Story of Late-1990s Robotic Mars Exploration

As an engineer who has engaged in Mars exploration projects, this book hits close to home. It is flattering to find that a writer from outside the industry has taken such an interest in learning about the field and talking to so many of the people with whom I've interacted over the years. The book is a fun read, especially if you are looking for the "human" story behind robotic Mars exploration. From the perspective of an engineer, at times the book seems a bit flowery in its style (and, like previous reviewers, I noticed occasional technical errors); however, the book is not intended for Mars exploration engineers as much as it is intended for people who don't know about the topic yet. If you're looking for the coherent, inspirational human story behind NASA's late-1990s Mars exploration program, this book is for you!

A Behind the Scenes Book about Mars Exploration

While Laurence Bergreen's book "Voyage to Mars" does contain some information about Mars space missions, robotic probes, and scientific study of Mars, it is primarily about the scientists, both men and women, who study Mars and design experiments for NASA robotic explorers and how they dedicated their lives to the study and exploration of this planet. Most of the book covers the people involved in Mars research since the Mars Observer failure in 1992.This book follows the lives (personal and professional) of several NASA scientists who study Mars, whether they're off in some remote location studying geology that's similar to Mars or designing an experiment for a robotic exploration mission. The book includes the many battles that each one fights, whether is with NASA bureaucracy, their personal lives, with each other for experiments to be flown on an upcoming Mars spacecraft, or dealing with each other's conflicting theories on Martian geological history. One of the things that I gleaned from reading this book is that while each of the people maybe specialized in a given area, they all have a board background in planetary sciences and spacecraft design. Also, there seems to be a lot jealously between scientists, especially for those people who worked on the "Life on Mars" Rock. It was also nice to see that a good portion of the people that NASA employs are women.Since I've known several of the people involved in Mars research who are described in this book for over a decade, I can definitely say that the stories presented are true and I found the personal descriptions of various individuals to be dead on as well as those of NASA facilities. The book could, however, benefit from some photos and illustrations instead of the detailed of various Martian geological features. It also would have been nice to some parts of the book devoted to the engineers who help make these missions possible, but that might be an inappropriate topic for this book.

Excellent look inside a science team...

Bergreen's book is a very intimate look at how science really works. In successive chapters, he takes us inside four groups of men and women: the team of scientists that worked on the Martian meteorite ALH84001; the Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner team, the team in charge of the Mars Global Surveyor's laser altimeter, and finally, inside Dan Goldin's NASA. What we see is a far cry from the polished interviews on TV, or the neatly written articles in Nature or Science. The truth is that scientists rarely agree on anything other than very broad assumptions, and often not even on those. Instead, scientists, even those working together on the same project, can heatedly disagree with one another's assumptions or interpretations, making it difficult to agree on the best way data should be released to the public.An example from the MGS laser altimeter team (specifically the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter or MOLA). This instrument shoots blasts of laser light from the orbiting spacecraft to the surface of Mars, and times their return to the sensor. By doing so, an incredibly accurate topographical relief map of Mars can be created. However, Mars has no absolute altitude marker like Earth (sea-level). Therefore, the scientists have to agree on an altitude reference against which all other measurements are compared. The specific reference chosen is critical because it will be used in all subsequent analyses of MOLA data. Any error could potentially be a spoiler for generations of future reserachers. Bergreen was there when they discussed whether they were ready to commit to an altitude reference and start releasing data (many team members argued "yes!") or whether more data and study were needed before the team published such critical information (other team members said "wait!").Also typical was the conflict in choosing a landing site for the Mars Polar Lander. Scientists pour over the data from MGS and pick a site that is geologically interesting. Engineers pour over the MGS data and pick a site that is safe. The two goals are often at direct odds with one another. The engineers want stastical rock-counts so that they can ensure their craft won't topple over a boulder. Scientists argue that the sites chosen by the engineers will nullify all the science objectives of the mission. Such discussions can quickly become personal as emotions boil over and passionate beliefs give way to shouting contests.Bergreen's book is in many ways reminiscent of Overbye's Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, only directed at Planetary scientists instead of cosmologists. This book will be of extreme interest to Marsophiles, but will also be enlightening to those who want an inside look at Dan Goldin's NASA, or at the process actually followed by scientists in the trenches. I recommend this book highly to these two groups as well as anyone else who hasn't updated their knowledge of Mars exploration since Viking.

In many ways, this book was not really about Mars!

Although on the surface this is a book about the recent robotic missions to Mars, the book is really an exploration of the culture of the project scientists at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Bergreen paints very full portraits of many key people involved in NASA, JPL, etc including the scientists, graduate students, industry representatives, etc. The book reminded me very much of Jim Watson's excellent account of his work to elucidate the structure of DNA, "The Race for the Double Helix" in that it showed the human side of science. Jim Garvin, Jim Head, Sean Solomon, and the other scientists in this book seek good and solid data, but also (understandably) seek publications in prestigious journals to advance their careers. They worry openly about funding and grant support. Jim Garvin has what sounds like a strained relationship with his wife, who does not really seem to understand her husband's passion and dedication. Some of the investigators don't like each other, and show this openly. These sorts of interludes were very interesting as many books about science and scientists are sterile and portray scientists as absent-minded-professor types who are not grounded in the real world (which is only very rarely the case). The book is very readable and well written. My only complaint is that the book would have benefited from some illustrations. The images from the Mars Orbiter were discussed ad nauseum, but no representative images were between the covers of the book! Also, I would have liked to have seen a few photos of some of the hardware and researchers discussed.

Mars: A Personal Odyssey

Travelers often opine that the experience of a trip itself, the way stations and characters encountered, rather than the final destination, is the most exciting aspect of a journey. After reading Laurence Bergreen's latest offering, VOYAGE TO MARS: NASA'S SEARCH FOR LIFE BEYOND EARTH (hardcover edition), one may reasonably conclude that the peripatetic author is as fascinated with the personas and psyches of the various individuals he encounters along the way as he is with the ostensible subject of the book: Mars. Indeed, a glance at Bergreen's previous books, works covering the gamut from Al Capone to Louis Armstrong to Irving Berlin, shows that the author is a keen observer and no stranger to character studies; his most recent book is no exception.Bergreen's tour, which starts on Surtsey, a volcanic island off the Icelandic coast, eventually ends on Mars. Throughout, he manages to weave an interesting narrative, replete with detailed personal observations of the scientists and engineers he encounters along the way, which is interspersed with some fairly decent Mars science written in layspeak. The author recounts the often-rancorous Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) team meetings and the clash of egos between scientists pushing their own competing theories and hypotheses about Mars. He encounters scientists in the nascent astrobiology community, some of who are veterans from the Viking mission to Mars of the mid-1970's, and who have bittersweet memories of the main finding from that mission, namely that Mars was a lifeless world. He smoothly segues into the modern view (based on more recent analyses) that the question of life on Mars, either extant or extinct, may not be a closed issue. The reader is caught up in the excitement and the glimpses into the inner sanctum, which is made all the more fascinating because the subject is the Red Planet. The reading is pleasurable (I read the entire book in two sittings) and insightful, but there are a few problems. As a scientist, I am trained to be alert to what is termed "observational bias", which, upon careful reading, appears to raise its head in the pages of the book. It is almost axiomatic that scientists, as well as science teams, tend to be very competitive. So it is not surprising that Bergreen appears to view the world primarily through the prism of the MOLA team. Indeed, he seems to accept their characterizations of others (especially competitors on the other MGS science teams); an interesting parallel to Stockholm syndrome. Additionally, given that Bergreen is really not a "participant" in the normal sense of the word, there are the inevitable factual errors (mostly minor) that are sprinkled throughout the book. Without wanting to appear as a nitpicker, I'll list a few that came to my attention:Page 104: "...the same moment in 1993 when Mars Observer slipped behind Mars and never resumed contact with Earth." Fact: The failed Mars Observer spacecr