Martian Summer : My Ninety Days with Interplanetary Pioneers, Temperamental Robots, and NASA''s Phoenix Mars Mission

Get up close and personal with science as Andrew Kessler narrates his hilarious journey inside NASA's Phoenix Mars mission--a historic enterprise manned by a motley crew of rocket scientists The Phoenix Mars mission was the first man-made probe ever sent to the Martian arctic. Its purpose was to find out how climate change could turn a warm, wet planet (read: Earth) into a cold, barren desert (read: Mars). Along the way, Phoenix discovered a giant frozen ocean trapped beneath the north pole of Mars, exotic food for aliens, and liquid water, and laid the foundation for NASA's current exploration of Mars using the Curiosity rover. This is not science fiction. It's fact. And for the luckiest fanboy in fandom, it was the best vacation ever. Andrew Kessler spent the summer of 2008 in NASA's mission control with one hundred thirty of the world's best planetary scientists and engineers as they carried out this ambitious operation. He came back with a story of human drama about modern-day pioneers battling NASA politics, temperamental robots, and the bizarre world of daily life in mission control Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Author''s Note Part I: The Phoenix of Tucson Chapter One: First-Day Jitters Chapter Two: The Clod Chapter Three: Control Room Chapter Four: Cloddy with a Chance of Sprinkles Chapter Five: Red Haze Chapter Six: Special Mars Pill Chapter Seven: Wonderland Chapter Eight: The Lost Day Chapter Nine: Missing Pieces Part II: Red Planet Blues Chapter Ten: I, For One, Welcome Our Nasa Overlords Chapter Eleven: Arm Up. Stand Down. Chapter Twelve: All the Landers, Independent Chapter Thirteen: Down and Out in the Soc. Chapter Fourteen: In a ScrapeChapter Fifteen: Powers of Ten Chapter Sixteen: Nilton''s Nodules Chapter Seventeen: An Enemy Among Us Chapter Eighteen: Nilton''s Nodules (Round II) Chapter Nineteen: Feel My Rasp Chapter Twenty: Martian Colds Chapter Twenty-One: There is No Try Chapter Twenty-Two: Don''t be a Rasp Hole Chapter Twenty-Three: Ice Delivery, Take Two Chapter Twenty-Four: Mars Man Forever Chapter Twenty-Five: The Third Time Chapter Twenty-Six: Press Conference Part III: It''s Dry Freeze Chapter Twenty-Seven: Tinfoil Hats Chapter Twenty-Eight: Oy Covault. Chapter Twenty-Nine: Full ReleaseChapter Thirty: Shove the Regolith Back in the Lander Chapter Thirty-One: That''s the Planet I Saw on TV Chapter Thirty-Two: Forty Minutes Back Chapter Thirty-Three: Scooped Chapter Thirty-Four: Two Days Forward, One Sol Back Chapter Thirty-Five: Paralyzed Ops Chapter Thirty-Six: The Dude Abides Chapter Thirty-Seven: Stiff Joints Chapter Thirty-Eight: Salty Liquid Water Tears Chapter Thirty-Nine: Sol Searching Index Acknowledgments About the Author. A space enthusiast goes inside mission control with a motley crew of rocket scientists in this “fascinating journey of discovery peppered with humor” ( Publishers Weekly ). The Phoenix Mars mission was the first man-made probe ever sent to the Martian arctic. Its purpose was to find out how climate change could turn a warm, wet planet (read: Earth) into a cold, barren desert (read: Mars). Along the way, Phoenix discovered a giant frozen ocean trapped beneath the north pole of Mars, exotic food for aliens, and liquid water, and laid the foundation for NASA’s current exploration of Mars using the Curiosity rover. This is not science fiction. It’s fact. And for the luckiest fanboy in fandom, it was the best vacation ever. Andrew Kessler spent the summer of 2008 in NASA’s mission control with one hundred thirty of the world’s best planetary scientists and engineers as they carried out this ambitious operation. He came back with a story of human drama about modern-day pioneers battling NASA politics, temperamental robots, and the bizarre world of daily life in mission control. The author chronicles the three months he spent in Mission Control for NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission, a project that lead to the discovery of liquid water on Mars, as well as a giant frozen ocean trapped beneath the planet's north pole. "Author's note. This is a book about Mars and the humans that make rocket science possible. This is not the most accurate account of this NASA mission. For that, you'll want to review the science papers or other Mars-related literature. Instead, this is an account of winning the nerd lottery: The luckiest fanboy in fandom gets a shot to spend three months with unfettered access to Mission Control. It's just your average summer trying to capture the story of 130 of the world's best planetary scientists and engineers exploring the north pole of Mars. It's a warts-and-all look at the Phoenix Mars mission from a regular guy who loves space."--Page ix.