About this item
With images never published before, many with surprising colors and landscapes that make you want to spend your next vacation on Mars, this is the one and only book written in consultation with NASA scientists that explains everything, detail by detail and moment by moment, about the most ambitious space expedition the human race has ever undertaken. Mars Up Close combines inside stories, fascinating facts, up-to-date maps, accessible science, eye-popping pictures, and visions of a future not that far away thanks to the groundbreaking success of NASA's Curiosity mission. Renowned science journalist Marc Kaufman spent two years embedded with the engineers and scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, cheering on the rover's spine-tingling landing, learning the backstory of anticipated findings, and witnessing the inescapable frustrations that come from operating a $2.
About the Author
To report "First Contact," I spent more than two years traveling the globe to meet and learn from the scientists at the cutting edge of the search for life beyond Earth. The world of ET had not been a major interest of mine over the years (though I certainly am a fan of "2001: A Space Odyssey") but I was pulled in during a science-religion fellowship, and had come to see the search as far more than a curiosity. In fact, I came to see the worldwide effort to learn extraterrestrial life as a kind of stealth Apollo program -- massive in scope yet hidden in plain view. As a reporter and editor for more than 30 years, mostly at The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer, I've been primed to jump on the big story, and that's what I saw in astrobiology. I am now a science writer and national editor at The Post, but I believe my years working as a foreign correspondent trained me best to write this book. Why? My task was again to learn and understand new languages and cultures, only this time of a scientific nature. I also needed to find the individuals who might best bring the work and the story to life, and then to translate their research for those without their depth of training and experience. It was the education of a lifetime for me, and hopefully will be eye-opening and compelling for you.
