Product Description
teve Squyres is the face and voice of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. Squyres dreamed up the mission in 1987, saw it through from conception in 1995 to a successful landing in 2004, and serves as the principal scientist of its $400 million payload. He has gained a rare inside look at what it took for rovers Spirit and Opportunity to land on the red planet in January 2004-and knows firsthand their findings.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 34 reviews)

American technical ingenuity at its most exhilarating

"We see it! We see it! We see it! We're in lock. We're in lock." - Voice of Entry, Descent, Landing Telecom, Cruise Mission Support Area, Jet Propulsion Lab, January 4, 2004 on acquiring signals from Spirit lander after its touchdown on Mars.

On June 10 and July 7 of 2003, NASA and Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) launched the twin Martian landers, Spirit and Opportunity respectively. They touched down on the Red Planet on January 4 and January 24 of 2004, the first mobile robotic explorers to do so since Pathfinder/Sojourner in 1997. ROVING MARS is their story as told by Steve Squyres.

Squyres, a geologist by profession, was the Principal Investigator, i.e. science team leader, for the Spirit and Opportunity projects representing JPL. He recounts earlier years and unsuccessful attempts to get a lander proposal approved by NASA. Then, against the backdrop of NASA's latest failures at Mars exploration, Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998, Steve shares the anxiety, frustration, doubts and hard work involved in getting eventual conceptual approval for the 2003 missions, followed by the months of design, construction, testing failures and successes, nearly insurmountable problems, budget overruns, and final nail-biting reviews by NASA before the rovers could be encapsulated in their landers and placed atop their Delta II rockets at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for their launches, which themselves involved maddening delays. Following relatively uneventful flights to Mars, Squyres again picks up the rovers' stories to describe their landings, deployment, and treks of discovery. The goal of the dual mission - to discover in Martian rocks evidence for a watery past.

The reader will perhaps stand amazed that Spirit and Opportunity ever overcame multiple obstacles to get launched at all. There are two excellent sections of color photographs within the book, one of which images shows Squyres reaching for the sky in supreme exaltation as Spirit's deployment on Martian soil is confirmed by telemetry. Steve recalls that as one of the best moments of his life. And, when arriving at that point in the narrative recounting the tense moments of Spirit's landing, the (American) reader can perhaps be forgiven for letting out a yell of proud victory, "YES!" This was, after all, an American red, white and blue accomplishment told via the author's clear, informative and non-technical prose.

The Spirit and Opportunity rovers had projected operational lifespans of 90 sols, each "sol" being a Martian day of 24 hours 39 minutes. By the end of the narrative in mid-September 2004, Spirit had reached 248 sols and Opportunity 227. Squyres expected the vehicles to die in months, perhaps a year at the outside, the buildup of dust on the rovers' energizing solar panels being the determining factor.

If you go to JPL's website, you'll find that as of 2008 both Spirit and Opportunity, albeit somewhat worse for wear, are still operational on the Red Planet transmitting back pictures and data. Amidst all the planning and pre-mission speculation, nobody imagined that the rovers' solar panels would be cleaned by ... dust devils. You can't even get that service for your windshield at the gas station anymore.

Despite its semi-technical nature, ROVING MARS was a book I couldn't put down, something I can't say about most of the trashy fiction novels I read. Honor to Squyres and his scientific and engineering team is due. (More than 4,000 names are listed at the end of the book.) At 59 jaded years, it makes me particularly proud to be a citizen of the US of A.
February 07, 2008

i also want boot prints on rover wheel tracks!

one of the best science stories I've ever heard!
I am a astronomy aficionado and this story has made me be part of the MER team in my own way. I felt that I was in Mars and also in the JPL.
I laughed at the witty comments of Steve and specially about the "WHAAAAT??!?!?"'s... and I cried so hard when Spirit landed... ha! I felt really overwhelmed.... I guess I can say that Steve Squyres made me feel like I was part of the story... Thank you for that!

and I couldn't agree more... I also want boot prints over the wheel tracks!!!! :')
November 27, 2007

A must read for anyone who has worked on a space project

I bought this book solely out of vanity, wanting to see my name in print at the back of the book among the thousands who worked on Spirit and Opportunity. Alas, I was among the handful that were omitted (no big surprise given my squiggly signature). I did however thoroughly enjoy every page. Steve is not only a great scientist but a talented writer, and has done an excellent job of illustrating the emotional roller coaster of building space hardware. Just as he learned about the blood sweat and tears that go into building the hardware, his book educates us on the challenges, setbacks and ultimate triumphs of getting a mission funded - and keeping it from getting cancelled. Steve keeps the reader on edge through every step of his nine year journey from pipedream to paydirt.
November 16, 2007

mars

this is a very informative book...it follows the lead scientist for the mars'rovers(which are incredible machines)before he became lead scientist.the difficulty of getting nasa to finance this mission while trying to keep key instruments from being cut from the mission is fasinating.we're talking years of failures to get his dream mission off the ground.we're talking years of frustrating drawbacks and budget cuts.i can partially sympathise with him...i'm just an amateurs' amateur.that is to say,i'm not good enough to be considered a real amateur.but that doesn't keep me from wondering what it would be like to work for nasa...can you imagine what it must be like to go to work every day and work with some of the greatest minds in america?all in all,this is a very good read.
November 07, 2007

Going to Mars takes patience . . . lots of patience

Roving Mars is the "biography" of the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. It was written by the most appropriate of all persons -- Steve Squyeres, the "principal investigator" for the rover project. As Dr. Squyers was the principal investigator, the book is, by necessity, autobiogrpahical as well.

Dr. Squyers does not over-dramatize, instead he meticulously, and clearly describes the many, many setbacks, problems, cost-overruns, delays, etc. involved in the Mars rover project. He showed tremendous patience in overcoming these obstacles. Others would have quit.

Also, Dr. Squyers graciously and repeatedly gave his graditute to the skills and contributions of the other scientists and technicians involed in the project. In short, NASA not only hired the right scientist, but hired a scientist with good manners.

For the lay reader, it was sometimes is difficult to follow what instrument is doing what and why on Mars, but if the book had been "dumded down" much would have been lost. My only criticism is that the ending was a little flat. The author tried for some drama and reflection, but the telling of the end of the story was weak.

November 05, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

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The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must
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