Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.73 (792 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0465055982 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-08-05 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In its eerie likeness to Earth, Mars has long captured our imaginationsboth as a destination for humankind and as a possible home to extraterrestrial life. It is our twenty-first century New World; its explorers robots, shipped 350 million miles from Earth to uncover the distant planet’s secrets.Its most recent scout is Curiositya one-ton, Jeep-sized nuclear-powered space laboratorywhich is now roving the Martian surface to determine whether the red planet has ever been physically capable of supporting life. Starting with NASA’s introduction of the Discovery Program in 1992, scrappier, more nimble missions became the order of the day, as manned missions were confined to Earth orbit, and behemoth projects went extinct. Beginning with the Genesis mission that launched his career, Wiens describes the competitive, DIY spirit of these robotic enterprises, from conception to construction, from launch to heart-stopping crashes and smooth landings.An inspiring account of the real-life challenges of space exploration, Red Rover vividly narrates what goes into answering the question: is there life elsewhere in the universe?. This strategic shift presented huge scientific opportunities, but tight budgets meant that success depended more than ever on creative engineering and human ingenuity. In Red Rover, geochemist Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for the ChemCam laser instrument on the rover and veteran of numerous robotic NASA missions, te
From Booklist Launched in late November 2011, the Curiosity rover was the most expensive, elaborate robotic device to touch the Martian surface since NASA began sending landers to the Red Planet in 1975 with Viking I. Here Wiens uses his involvement with this latest Martian venture as a springboard for an engaging history of robotic space exploration from the Genesis project that initiated his career to the unique problems he and his team faced with the one ton, jeep-sized Curiosity. Along with fascinating anecdotes about the bureaucratic challenges and equipment snafus he needed to overcome to get ChemCam loaded onto the rover, Wiens also describes the feats of engineering that produced Genesis in 2004, a probe designed to capture solar wind. A remarkable memoir and testament to the ingenuity of the space program’s many scientists who build the tools needed
Now I know what it takes for these Mars missions to happen. Although this book can be slow and robotic (no pun intended OK, maybe it was intended), this book is incredibly valuable to get an in depth understanding of the complex and political environment scientists and engineers navigate to not only get a mission pushed through, but to be a part of one of the many. Bob Buddy said READ THIS BEFORE BUYING. This book is a frustratingly mixed bag. It has lots of really interesting tech info, including Curiosity's ChemCam, the laser-spectroscope that zaps rocks and reads their composition. But I was expecting diagrams and other pictorial aids and there are none. All text, with just READ THIS BEFORE BUYING Bob Buddy This book is a frustratingly mixed bag. It has lots of really interesting tech info, including Curiosity's ChemCam, the laser-spectroscope that zaps rocks and reads their composition. But I was expecting diagrams and other pictorial aids and there are none. All text, with just 4 glossy color pages of publ. glossy color pages of publ. "Worthy of 5 stars" according to James. I love all types of science books. This book however illuminated the practical application of science and gave a behind the scenes look at NASA and space exploration. It is well written and worthy of your time.