NASA Missions to Mars: A Visual History of Our Quest to Explore the Red Planet

205 Pages·2022·86.775 MB·English

by  Piers Bizony

MARS
NASA MISSIONS TO

A visual history of our quest to explore the Red Planet
© 2022 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Text © 2022 Piers Bizony
First Published in 2022 by Motorbooks, an imprint of The Quarto Group,
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ISBN: 978-0-7603-7314-9
Digital edition published in 2022
eISBN: 978-0-7603-7315-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Digital edition published in 2022
eISBN: 978-0-7603-7315-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bizony, Piers, author.
Title: NASA missions to Mars : a visual history of our quest to explore the
Red Planet / by Piers Bizony ; introduction by Andrew Chaikin
Description: Beverly, Massachusetts : The Quarto Group, 2022. | Includes
index. | Summary: “With authoritative text and NASA photography and
artworks, NASA Missions to Mars tells the story of NASA’s programs to
explore the Red Planet-from the first tentative flybys to the
present-and offers a glimpse into the future of Mars exploration”--
Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021048296 | ISBN 9780760373149 (hardcover) | ISBN
9780760373156 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Space flight to Mars. | Mars probes. | Mars
(Planet)--Exploration. | National Association of Student Anthropologists
(U.S.)
Classification: LCC TL799.M3 B59 2022 | DDC 629.45/53--dc23/eng/20211001
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048296
Design and Page Layout: Piers Bizony
Jacket Cover Images: NASA/JPL
Board Cover Images: James Vaughan (front), NASA/JPL (rear)
Printed in China
MARS
NASA MISSIONS TO

A visual history of our quest to explore the Red Planet
Piers Bizony
Introduction by Andrew Chaikin

CONTENTS

Preface
Piers Bizony vi
Introduction to Mars
A special essay by Andy Chaikin 8

1 RED PLANET VISIONS
Aliens, empires, and invasions 16

2 FIRST CONTACT
Discovering Mars as it really is 34

3 ROBOT EXPLORERS
Searching for life, past or present 62

4 HUMAN MARTIANS
Strategies to settle a new world 134

Fold-out map of Mars 190

Index 195

Acknowledgments & credits 198
Preface
I am a child of the Space Age. By the time of my tenth birthday, the astronauts
of Apollo were about to set foot on the Moon—and there was much talk from
NASA of a follow-on project, a crewed mission to Mars, with an anticipated
landing date of 1984. Throughout the 1970s, as NASA developed its winged
space shuttle, the dream of a grand mission to Mars persisted. In Earth orbit
we would assemble a giant spacecraft out of smaller pieces carried aloft by
shuttles. Then the intricate alliance of astronauts, propulsion systems, and
habitation modules would fire up its engines and and head for Mars . . .
Now I am no longer a child and Mars still awaits human visitors. But I am
not dismayed. Our generation has seen so many wonders in terms of space
exploration and we should not be ungrateful. Mars just happens to be one of
many targets that has not yet been fully explored. Some years ago, the British
science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke told me never to be dismayed by the
apparently slow pace of human interplanetary exploration. “We will eventually
return to the Moon,” he insisted, “And then journey to the planets and beyond.
It is inevitable. Historians in the distant future will, no doubt, regard the current
half-century delay in our plans for space as nothing more than temporary, a brief
hiccup in the greater span of events.”
It’s frustrating for me that the “half-century delay” happens to have
coincided with much of my adult life—but I am very much still alive and so is
the dream of reaching Mars. In fact the dream seems more on the verge of
realization than ever before, not least because of the development of new
technologies and new ways of approaching the financial and entrepreneurial
aspects of space flight.
Anyway, in a very real sense, we already have reached Mars—repeatedly—
by means of the amazingly smart robotic explorers who are even now scouring
the ancient sands and soils of this mysterious planet for signs of life, past or
present. Their high-resolution cameras give us the overwhelming impression
that Mars is just next door, so close we can almost touch it . . . even if only with
robotic arms and tools for now.
This book is a family-friendly, nonacademic, almost purely visual celebration
of what we have achieved in terms of Martian exploration and what we might
yet achieve in years to come. My purpose here is simple: to make a book full
of inspirational images that just might play some infinitessimaly minor role in
encourging a future team of astronauts, engineers, and mission controllers
to reach for the Red Planet. On a somewhat smaller scale, it also takes a
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