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bookishlyhappy's review against another edition
4.0
This is the companion book to a TV series, but you can definitely read the book without watching the show. If you need both a refresher and an outlook on Mars exploration, this is a quick, easy read (or listen).
dancarey_404's review against another edition
4.0
As one might expect of something from National Geographic, this book is chock full of beautiful pictures supplemented by fact-rich text. Although putatively tied to the NatGeo Channel's "Mars" TV show, the book stands completely on its own. Its contents are quite up-to-the-minute current. Perhaps its weakest spots are where it tries to look into the far future. My favorite sections are its "Heroes": single-page bio/backgrounders that celebrate the work of those who have helped and are helping us reach for Mars.
arkron's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful pictures. Slightly outdated - from 2018: no Perseverance/Ingenuity, the old ridiculous dates from Elon Musk, a corrupt and bankrupted OneMars company.
adrianwelsh's review against another edition
5.0
This book is meant to be read alongside of watching the Mars TV show that aired on National Geographic. While, I do not like this concept too much (a buddy-buddy series or companion book), I really like the show and I like all the ideas and concepts displayed in the mini-series/book.
Each chapter in the book reflects an episode on the TV (six in total).
Stray thoughts (that correspond to each chapter):
1. It is interesting to think about the added challenges of landing on Mars. The moon is easier to land on due to its low gravity and zero atmosphere. Mars’ thin atmosphere and added gravity add a complication. Sending unmanned supplies and other probes/rovers are not really an issue, but when it comes to humans, you cannot be as rough for the landing.
2. The psyche of humans is something that I feel like really doesn’t come into play when talking about long missions in space. I mean, we see reality TV shows (like Real World and others) that have people living together for long periods of time but these aren’t as real as the TV makes them out to be. I feel like people would have to go into some kind of deep sleep just so that they won’t annoy the ever-living hell out of others for long periods of time with no escape. It is interesting to know that we have been conducting experiments on people, not only in space (like Scott Kelly), but in really remote areas like Antarctica and Devon Island (affectionately named Mars on Earth).
3. I would agree that finding something habitable about Mars would be pretty important. Turning CO2 into Oxygen sounds like it may be a little far-fetched, but we would need to do something. 3D printing is cool and I can see how it can be a huge-potential-problem-solver. It would be cool to employ some Asimovian principles in having robots come in before humans (to Mars) and do some excavating and other things to make for a more habitable landing and living area. The terms moon-huggers and Mars-huggers are pretty funny. (Why would Europe want to build a colony-type thing on the moon? Won’t that set back Mars-based exploration)?
4. “Finding life on Mars is a difficult task” is a quote from some scientist. Uh, yeah, it sure is. I like the idea of how human-based space craft (and humans) could start invasive species on Mars. We just ruin everything! Perchlorates will be a big problem. It sounds like we’ll need to get Bruce Willis and his crew of offshore oil drillers and go Armageddon on Mars in order to “find life”.
5. I wonder if the Space Race of the 1960’s helped space exploration or hindered it due to being too hasty and impulsive/competitive. It seems like in today’s world, we can “all get along” and help each other accomplish goals. Also, in the next five years, we should be seeing quite a few vessels on their way to Mars - including landing rovers and such. It should be exciting! It is interesting to see the thoughts and ideas of certain important people on whether we should pursue more moon-missions before Mars-missions. I guess I can see how more moon-missions could be important, but the moon seems like a completely different animal than Mars.
6. Considering cosmic radiation is something that I would think most humans would not think of as a big hazard for Mars travel and Mars exploration (solar radiation too). The thoughts towards “terraforming” Mars seem so sci-fi that they don’t even sound real. I mean, just ‘simply’ heating up the atmosphere and blasting it with water and microbes will supposedly simply do the trick. It’s just odd to think about how real this really is. I have a feeling that it is so much more complicated than this and so much more complicated that what scientists are saying (according to the books I have read). Why not terraform Venus? Just poke a big hole in the atmosphere, drain out the bad gasses, blow in some good gasses and voila! If sci-fi is as simple as it sounds for Mars, this should work too. So, it will only take roughly 100 years to increase the temperature of Mars to a somewhat-suitable level (I mean, just look at how humans have globally warmed our own planet, haha); and it will take 100,000 years to get the planet fully terraformed. Wow, that is just too long to even comprehend. Sci-fi was WAY off! The end of the last chapter started delving into what many sci-fi and space opera novels have already written about – the future of humanity on how Mars will eventually have its own ‘force’ and strong enough government to where they will separate themselves from Earth (political tensions, etc.). This is most notably recognized from The Expanse Series (starting with the book [b:Leviathan Wakes|8855321|Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1)|James S.A. Corey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411013134s/8855321.jpg|13730452]). And, one last thought, there is going to be a Mars-based theme park in Las Vegas (maybe as early as 2021) they will have 0.25 gravity and other Martian things. Should be interesting!
Audiobook narrator [a:Andrew Reilly|1138018|Andrew Reilly|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] rating: 3.5 stars
The narrator does an ok job of narrating this book. It is non-fiction and no dialogue so there isn’t much to rate. There is a ‘foreword’ by Ron Howard that is not narrated by Ron Howard. I feel like I am gipped a little because of this. I mean, come on Ron, what are you doing that makes you too busy to do this?
Also, because I have the Audible audio version of this book, I cannot see the nice pictures that supposedly accompany this book. Usually Audible has a PDF button you can click or so, but that does not exist in my library.
Either way, I guess I am a sucker for these relatively short non-fiction books that involve space travel to Mars! I really enjoyed this book and hope to find others like it.
Each chapter in the book reflects an episode on the TV (six in total).
Stray thoughts (that correspond to each chapter):
1. It is interesting to think about the added challenges of landing on Mars. The moon is easier to land on due to its low gravity and zero atmosphere. Mars’ thin atmosphere and added gravity add a complication. Sending unmanned supplies and other probes/rovers are not really an issue, but when it comes to humans, you cannot be as rough for the landing.
2. The psyche of humans is something that I feel like really doesn’t come into play when talking about long missions in space. I mean, we see reality TV shows (like Real World and others) that have people living together for long periods of time but these aren’t as real as the TV makes them out to be. I feel like people would have to go into some kind of deep sleep just so that they won’t annoy the ever-living hell out of others for long periods of time with no escape. It is interesting to know that we have been conducting experiments on people, not only in space (like Scott Kelly), but in really remote areas like Antarctica and Devon Island (affectionately named Mars on Earth).
3. I would agree that finding something habitable about Mars would be pretty important. Turning CO2 into Oxygen sounds like it may be a little far-fetched, but we would need to do something. 3D printing is cool and I can see how it can be a huge-potential-problem-solver. It would be cool to employ some Asimovian principles in having robots come in before humans (to Mars) and do some excavating and other things to make for a more habitable landing and living area. The terms moon-huggers and Mars-huggers are pretty funny. (Why would Europe want to build a colony-type thing on the moon? Won’t that set back Mars-based exploration)?
4. “Finding life on Mars is a difficult task” is a quote from some scientist. Uh, yeah, it sure is. I like the idea of how human-based space craft (and humans) could start invasive species on Mars. We just ruin everything! Perchlorates will be a big problem. It sounds like we’ll need to get Bruce Willis and his crew of offshore oil drillers and go Armageddon on Mars in order to “find life”.
5. I wonder if the Space Race of the 1960’s helped space exploration or hindered it due to being too hasty and impulsive/competitive. It seems like in today’s world, we can “all get along” and help each other accomplish goals. Also, in the next five years, we should be seeing quite a few vessels on their way to Mars - including landing rovers and such. It should be exciting! It is interesting to see the thoughts and ideas of certain important people on whether we should pursue more moon-missions before Mars-missions. I guess I can see how more moon-missions could be important, but the moon seems like a completely different animal than Mars.
6. Considering cosmic radiation is something that I would think most humans would not think of as a big hazard for Mars travel and Mars exploration (solar radiation too). The thoughts towards “terraforming” Mars seem so sci-fi that they don’t even sound real. I mean, just ‘simply’ heating up the atmosphere and blasting it with water and microbes will supposedly simply do the trick. It’s just odd to think about how real this really is. I have a feeling that it is so much more complicated than this and so much more complicated that what scientists are saying (according to the books I have read). Why not terraform Venus? Just poke a big hole in the atmosphere, drain out the bad gasses, blow in some good gasses and voila! If sci-fi is as simple as it sounds for Mars, this should work too. So, it will only take roughly 100 years to increase the temperature of Mars to a somewhat-suitable level (I mean, just look at how humans have globally warmed our own planet, haha); and it will take 100,000 years to get the planet fully terraformed. Wow, that is just too long to even comprehend. Sci-fi was WAY off! The end of the last chapter started delving into what many sci-fi and space opera novels have already written about – the future of humanity on how Mars will eventually have its own ‘force’ and strong enough government to where they will separate themselves from Earth (political tensions, etc.). This is most notably recognized from The Expanse Series (starting with the book [b:Leviathan Wakes|8855321|Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1)|James S.A. Corey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411013134s/8855321.jpg|13730452]). And, one last thought, there is going to be a Mars-based theme park in Las Vegas (maybe as early as 2021) they will have 0.25 gravity and other Martian things. Should be interesting!
Audiobook narrator [a:Andrew Reilly|1138018|Andrew Reilly|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] rating: 3.5 stars
The narrator does an ok job of narrating this book. It is non-fiction and no dialogue so there isn’t much to rate. There is a ‘foreword’ by Ron Howard that is not narrated by Ron Howard. I feel like I am gipped a little because of this. I mean, come on Ron, what are you doing that makes you too busy to do this?
Also, because I have the Audible audio version of this book, I cannot see the nice pictures that supposedly accompany this book. Usually Audible has a PDF button you can click or so, but that does not exist in my library.
Either way, I guess I am a sucker for these relatively short non-fiction books that involve space travel to Mars! I really enjoyed this book and hope to find others like it.
saphirablue's review against another edition
4.0
I really like it.
At first, I somehow got the impression, that it's a companion to the TV show "Mars" and there are some things of the show mentioned in it but there is so much more to it.
It has such gorgeous pictures of Mars - real ones and imaginations of artists.
It give a concise overview what has to happen so that people can go to Mars and live there - maybe even settle there for ever.
It's science-y without being too science-y (lay people can understand it).
It profiles some "heroes" of the effort to go to Mars.
I really enjoyed reading it. :)
At first, I somehow got the impression, that it's a companion to the TV show "Mars" and there are some things of the show mentioned in it but there is so much more to it.
It has such gorgeous pictures of Mars - real ones and imaginations of artists.
It give a concise overview what has to happen so that people can go to Mars and live there - maybe even settle there for ever.
It's science-y without being too science-y (lay people can understand it).
It profiles some "heroes" of the effort to go to Mars.
I really enjoyed reading it. :)
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