Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet

Many people think you have to be a secret agent, a rock star or a billionaire with her or his own television show in order to live an exciting, adventuresome life. Wrong! In Roving Mars, Professor Squyres shows that scientists and engineers can have astonishing adventures as they push back the boundaries of ignorance all around the universe. He was a typical junior in college when a chance happening led to joining a graduate seminar based on the new photos from the Viking lander in 1977. Looking at the images, he was struck that water had probably once been abundant on Mars. That quick epiphany led to an astonishing journey to becoming the principal investigator for the most successful Mars project ever, The Mars Exploration Rover mission. Has there been lots of water on Mars? You bet. The Rover mission proved that and raised even more intriguing questions about the potential to find fossils on Mars. The scientists and engineers spoil us sometimes. We see the results of years of effort by thousands of people working almost flawlessly. That makes it look easy. Behind the scenes, the story is quite different. There's lots of blood, sweat, tears and frustration as astonishing goals are turned into reality. If you know a youngster who thinks he or she might want to work on planetary science or exploration, you need to give that youngster a copy of this book. You will probably chance a life in the same way that the Viking images changed Professor Squyres' life. Although there's lots of science and engineering in the book, anyone with a couple of years of high school should be able to follow the discussion. Professor Squyres has a common touch that you'll find irresistible. When you are done enjoying the book, go to the NASA Web site where you can see the latest updates on the mission. The two rovers are as busy as ever adding to our knowledge of Mars. My hat is off to Professor Squyres and all those who helped make this remarkable mission possible!

+++++ CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING: (1) Decision by NASA to go ahead with the Mars Exploration Rover mission: late July 2000. (2) Principal Investigator: Dr. Steve Squyres, scientist and astronomy professor at Cornell University. (The principal investigator is the leader of a science team.) (3) Purpose of mission: "the water story." That is, did Mars ever have water in its past? If so, we want "to learn whether or not [Mars] ever could have supported life." (4) Plan: "Two rockets, two landers, two rovers, two of everything. Launch them both [from Earth] in 2003. Land them both [on Mars] and operate them both in 2004." (The rovers are the identical mechanical robots that roam the planet, image what they see and do geologic tests, and transmit their images and data back to Earth.) (5) Names of rovers: Spirit (S) and Opportunity (O). (6) Rover landing sites on Mars: Gusev Crater (S) and Meridiani Planum (O). (These sites are located on opposite sides of the planet.) (7) Launch from Earth: early June 2003 (S); early July 2003 (O). (Mars is on average about 80 million kilometers or 50 million miles from Earth.) (8) Landing on Mars: early January 2004 (S); late January 2004 (O). (9) Final cost of mission: $800 million. (10) Final length of mission: "As I [S. Squyres] write [these acknowledgements to my book on April 4, 2005], we are now 445 days into our 90-day mission [on] Mars." (The mission is still going as of the date I posted this review.) These are some of the facts in this book written by Principal Investigator Dr. Steve Squyres. This easy to read book effectively tells us the human drama behind this mission with all its ups, downs, triumphs, tensions, dead ends, technical problems, politics, and just plain confusion. The book is divided into 3 parts. To briefly summarize, the first part begins, of all places, in Moscow in 1987. This part concludes with the decision by NASA to go ahead with the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The second part deals with the technical development of the mission. It concludes with the launch of the rovers from Earth to Mars. Finally, the last part tells us about the successful landing of the rovers on Mars and their early discoveries. This part contains much more science than the previous two parts. The narrative for the third part when the rovers were near and on Mars is in the form of log entries (selected days only). The first long entry for Spirit is dated December 28, 2003 and the final entry is for Sol 21. (A "sol" is a Martian day, about 24.5 hours.) For Opportunity, the first log entry is dated January 24, 2004 and the final entry is for Sol 48. Then there are log entries combining both rover activities starting April 12, 2004 and ending June 28, 2004. A concluding entry is dated September 12, 2004. The above summary does not convey the overall excitement of the mission and how Squyres and his team overcame numerous odds in order to reach their objectives. There are numerou

Squyres gets across the nuts and bolts -- and the emotional roller-coaster -- of planetary probe science and engineering: submitting and revising proposal after proposal, putting together the team, racing against a launch window while swatting bugs in testing, holding your breath for launch and landing, and conducting rover operations. It's not the place to read about the scientific results from Spirit and Opportunity, but you won't find a better (or better-written) account of everything that went into getting those results (and why it cost $800M). Nor will you find a more eloquent resolution of tired manned-vs-unmanned squabbles than the book's closing lines: "There are many things I could wish for our rovers, but in the end, there's only one that matters. What I really want, more than anything else, is boot prints in our wheel tracks at Eagle Crater."

Squyres is smart, dynamic and articulate, and gives the inside story not only of the construction and operation of the rovers, but also all the politics that led to the project in the first place. It's a pretty gripping read, and makes the personalities involved come to life, as well as the rovers themselves. Tech fans will not be disappointed with the details of software, grounding, parachute design and all of the nitty-gritty problems that had to be fixed. I loved it.

For fans of Spirit and Opportunity and the team that made them what they are, some of this book will be familiar - like Dr. Squyres' quotes about the launches, landings and images - but fans will still want to have it for all the other goodies. Dr. Squyres answers questions we didn't see in media interviews - like: -who is that EDL guy who looks like Elvis' younger brother? -what does Dr. Steve hope for the Rovers centuries from now? -how was beer involved in the MER project? -how do smart, strong, stubborn people come together to do something so challenging? Technical details abound - including stories about getting the airbags right, making it to the launchpad, and the INIT_CRIPPLED command that saved the day. The technical details remind me a bit of Tracey Kidder's Soul of the New Machine. So, I think it would be a fun read for fans of Kidder's book. There are some press release images in the two sets of mostly color pictures, but there are also some fun surprises. There is also an Appendix listing over 4,000 names - the best effort to name the entire MER team - wow.