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

New York: Riverhead Books, 2000. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. [12], 355, [1] pages. Select Bibliography. Index. Review copy, publisher's ephemera laid in. Laurence Bergreen (born February 4, 1950) is an American historian and biographer. After graduating from Harvard University in 1972, Bergreen worked in journalism, academia and broadcasting. Bergreen has written books on historical subjects, such as Voyage to Mars: NASA's Search for Life Beyond Earth, a narrative of NASA's exploration of Mars, and Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. Bergreen has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek and Esquire. A frequent lecturer at major universities and symposiums, and, on occasion, aboard cruise ships, he has served as a Featured Historian for the History Channel. In 2007, Bergreen was asked by NASA to name some geological features surrounding the Victoria crater on Mars, based on places Ferdinand Magellan visited. Bergreen was a keynote speaker at NASA's 50th anniversary event in Washington, D.C.. Bergreen is a member of PEN American Center, The Explorers Club, the Authors Guild, and the Board of Trustees of the New York Society Library. Voyage to Mars is the story of a group of visionary Mars scientists and what drives their passionate search for life in the universe. Bergreen takes us inside the minds of the world's last great explorers as they change our understanding of the nature of the universe and ourselves. Derived from a Kirkus review: In the darkest days of the Cold War, interest in the red planet had a distinctly political dimension: Mars was a gem in the sky that one or the other superpower was bound to get to one day, and both the US and the USSR wanted to get there first. When the Cold War ended, so, it seemed, did NASA’s interest in sending spacecraft to that faraway planet. Interest in matters Martian heated briefly in 1999, when several American scholars—the heroes of Bergreen’s narrative—announced that they had identified carbonates in Martian rocks that could have been formed only in the presence of water. The press excitedly reported that this was proof-positive that life had to have existed there. The problem was that the matter of life on Mars was far more complicated than all that. The author's reporting on the bitter arguments between several noted space scientists is a highlight of the story. A solid work of science journalism. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: NASA, Mario Acuna, ALH 84001, Extraterrestrial, Jim Garvin, Astronauts, Dan Goldin, Space Exploration, Mars, Red Planet, MGS, Mars Global Surveyor, Polar Lander, Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, MOLA, Carl Sagan, Sean Solomon, Maria Zuber

ISBN: 157322166X

[Book #20325]

Price: $45.00

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