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Arguably the single most successful scientific instrumentever built, the Hubble Space Telescope continues to dazzle us. Inrecent months it has been at the front lines of all the most pressingquestions in astrophysics. What is the age of the Universe? How arestars born? Are extrasolar planets similar to those in our galaxy?

In Hubble Revisited: New Images from the Discovery Machine, theauthors of the highly acclaimed Hubble: A New Window to the Universepresent a new atlas of the latest full-color images, complete witheasy-to-read explanatory text. This book provides readers with anexciting, detailed, and gorgeously illustrated account of Hubblesbreathtaking new discoveries. ... Read more

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Examines past and present efforts to explore outer space and speculates about future exploration. ... Read more

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Reviews the history of Earth's observation of the red planet since ancient times, and looks at the results of modern scientific studies carried out by telescope, satellite, and landing probe. ... Read more

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Discusses the nature of stars, how they are formed and change, and the different kinds. ... Read more

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Text and photographs examine the origins, geology, and exploration of Earth's nearest neighbor in space. ... Read more

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The Red Planet has been a beacon to every race of mankindsince the dawn of history. Today Mars stands as a symbol of the highfrontier the next logical step in our exploration of the universearound us.

In 1964 the United States of America launched Mariner 4 towards Marsin the hope that a handful of pictures returned by the spacecraftmight answer some age-old questions. Was there an ancient Martiancivilization? Would there be any signs of life? So began the firststep in a close examination of our neighboring planet.

Between Mariner 4 and Mars Global Surveyor in 1998 the United Stateshas sent a fleet of robots to Mars with wildly varying degrees ofsuccess. Thanks to these versatile probes we now know almost as muchabout Mars on a global scale as we do about our own Earth.

In Mars The NASA Mission Reports the triumphs and tribulations of theAmerican Mars program is gathered together in one place. Press Kitsand Mission Reports from every Mars mission are collected together forthe first time.

Reading these documents presented here in chronological order gives afascinating insight into how our understanding of the Red planet hasgrown over the past four decades. These robot voyages are the advanceguard, scouting out the path for the day when men will launch a mannedmission to Mars.

Includes: Windows CD-ROM featuring:The following complete NASA special publications: The DifficultRoad To Mars - Mars Exploration In The Soviet Union, On Mars1958-1978, Mariner Mars 1964 Final Project Report,Mariner 6 & 7 Pictures Of Mars, The New MarsTheDiscoveries Of Mariner 9, VikingMission To Mars,Viking Orbiter Views Of Mars, EMPIRE - Background &Initial Dual-Planet Mission StudiesNASA movies in MPG video format: Planet Mars, 19 MinutesTo Earth and Mars - The Search Begins.Also includes animations and a 360 Quicktime Panorama from MarsPathfinder as well as hundreds of pictures from every NASA Marsmission.The NASA Mission Reports is a series of books that will include all ofthe Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle, InternationalSpace Station and Selected Unmanned Missions.Amazon.com Review
Baseball fans have the Sporting News Register for getting theirstats fix, and farmer-types can turn to the time-honored Almanac. Soit's only fair that space-exploration junkies should have Robert Godwin'sdefinitive NASA Mission Reports, providing page after page of official data and diagrams, not to mention CD-ROMs packed with movies, pictures, and searchable NASA documents.

While most of Godwin's NASA books focus on a particular mission (e.g.,Apollo 13 and Gemini 6), the Mars bookchronologically surveys every single mission that's been mounted to the redplanet, from the 1964 launch of Mariner 4 to the more current Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor encounters. And it's this breadth that makes the book a standout even in this excellent series. Not only can you marvel at the 16K flight computer on 1975's Centaur and the much more impressive hardware on the MGS, but you can even see the quality of NASA's press materials evolve. (When's the last time you saw a diagram with a typewritten legend?)

With NASA press kits for all the probes and a choice assortment of the moreinteresting mission reports, Godwin has assembled an authoritative,blow-by-blow resource for serious space buffs. And good news on the"Windows" CD-ROM that's included: Since the files are primarily mpegs, jpegs, and html, readers can access the CD and its hour and a half of vintage video from just about any platform. --Paul Hughes ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Good book to catch up on earlier past NASA missions to Mars. Success and Failures
I concentrated my readings on space to manned missions. Later I became a life member of the Mars Society and realized I knew very little of NASA missions to Mars.

This book is a great "catch up" of early NASA missions to Mars. Both NASA success and failure missions are listed. Nothing is sugar coated. We see massive amounts of information on Mariner 4,6,7, and 9. Lots of information on Viking 1 and 2 and the fact that the possibility of mars life was NOT proven or disproved. Also the highly successful Pathfinder mission, and the small rover. The fantastic Global Surveyor Mission is given in great detail( Great pictures...fascinating). The failure mission of the Mars Climate Polar Orbiter ( really dumb human error metric/inches in software differences causing spacecraft to crash into Mars. Worse no program to catch this really dumb error). The loss of the Polar Lander and the 2 small impact deep space probes is mentioned. Also proposed future missions and a mars manned landing is shown.

I realise that basic human errors occur. What really made me madwas not the metric/inches incompatibility in the Polar Orbiter software causing the spacecraft to crash into Mars but not having procedures in place to catch the mistake before hand and thus eliminating the mission failure.I realize that sending any spacecraft to Mars is highly risky and there have been many failures. However the science learned is well worth it and we must continue and we must send a manned mission to Mars soon.

I am not a rocket scientist so I appreciated there was no heavy math in the book. However LOTS of the book is extremely dry with massive amounts of specifications of the spacecraft, trajectories, and mission planning. Great color images are shown in the middle and back of the book. What really impressed me with the missions was the built in redundancy so if a part of the spacecraft failed another part could be used and the spacecrafts can keep in contact with mission control if temporary loss of signal using other systems/antennas. The times that the spacecraft would not be able to transmit back to Earth due to Mars being in the way is shown as well as the data holding capacities of the computers/chips are given.

So much new technology tried (air bag systems, lots of cameras, lasers, atmospheric measuring devices and lots more). Each later mission was based on the new knowledge learned from previous missions and mistakes learned and hopefully avoided.

This is a great book for those wanting detailed information about the various spacecraft that went to Mars. I read every word of the book. Be prepared for INMO some dry specification reading.

I really liked the DVD supplied with the book describing Mars. I liked the different images of Mars gullies, valleys, mountains etc. The quality of the mission people videos was only average as it was taken from old images. The audio was perfectly understandable.

A good book. With lots of great information. If you want to read every word be prepared for some very dry specification information. 4 stars

Martian Chronicles
This book is a collection of reports from every American Martian probe of the 2oth century, as well as coming attractions for the long running Mars Exploration rover, now known as Spirit and Opportunity.
In this age when we routinely receive High Definition pictures fromMars on a daily basis, it is sobering to see that it took the better part of a day to receive just onepicture from the early Mariner probes.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of Martian exploration. It is the history of Martian exploration.

On to Mars - Take the trip with Apogee Books!
Apogee Books once again strikes gold! This Mars book is one of the best written, because it deals specifically with the spacecraft and missions that went to the Red Planet.Original press kits and fact sheets for the first few Mariner missions (a rare find!) have the orbital calculations for the trans-Earth and trans-Mars trajectories - how many times have you seen estimated times for travel, but wondered "How did they get that?"

The data for the Viking missions are also interesting - they list the 3 main experiments that was going to solidify the "Life on Mars" argument. The data was inconclusive, and I can't quite remember if the press kits covered the results - however, the fact that the experimental procedures and equipment were listed is amazing.

Apogee Books have a high "geek" factor built in and this book does no less than the rest of the series. If you're one of those who needs to know how it works or the 'rest of the story' then Mars: The Nasa Mission Reports, Vol. 1 & 2 are for your library.

A great reference
This book pulls together a ton of publicly available information on the unmanned Mars probes from the United States, tracking the changes in our understanding of the Red Planed.The bonus CD has, among other things, a cool short film starring Carl Sagan, showing the experiments on the Viking landers that were to show whether there is life on Mars.

Search for Mars
This book is a nice handy reference of robotic exploration of Mars (Mariner IV to Mars Polar Lander).The information is detailed enough to give you an understanding of the mission objectives and the spacecraft design.The level of detail varies for each mission, but in most cases gives the reader a starting point.Before this book was available I spent many hours trying to compile this information myself and was never fully able to obtain a complete collection.So I would recommend this book because of it's completeness (at least to Mars Polar Lander) and for the insight it does provide into each mission.May there be many more volumes to come. ... Read more

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This full-color book assembles a fabulous collection of images of astronautics and rocketry. The pictures, both imagined and real, extend from the 16th century to the eve of the Space Age in the late 1950s. Collector Fred Ordway, one of America's first rocket scientists in the post–World War II era, has been a pioneer in making the dreams of spaceflight come true. This realm is populated by heroes and scientists, dreamers and trailblazers. Images abound of square-jawed astronauts maneuvering their craft near Mars and of fantastic vehicles with propulsion ranging from dewdrops (17th century) to antigravity (19th century). Visions of Spaceflight is a compelling mix of the intentionally fantastic and the rigorously scientific. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Interesting Quest
I have been trying to get my hands on this book for years and finally, bought it used via Amazon.It has been well worth the time and effort.The two highlights for me are:
1) Ordway's recollections of searching obscure foreign bookstores for even more obscure books depicting stories of space travel, and
2) the reprints and recreations of the famous Collier's space travel series artwork from the 1950's.
This is a very satisfying book for someone fascinated with early visions of how man would explore space.

Fine reproductions of pre-Space Age images
This large-format book brings together paintings, etchings and other visual images of how humans envisioned travel to the moon and the planets from early Renaissance times to the 1950's.Most were illustrations accompanying published works of fiction.These images, collected by Ordway, are very well reproduced and have useful captions.

Until the second half of the nineteenth century, these depictions of space vehicles, other worlds, and their possible inhabitants were wildly fanciful.After Jules Verne, improved astronomical observations and better engineering made these visions increasingly recognizable for those who grew up with the Space Age.The book, which includes photographs of early rocket experiments, ends with an extensive section on the 1950's, covering the ideas of Wernher von Braun and illustrated withpaintings by Chesley Bonestell and Fred Freeman.

Readers may wonder why there are no visions from non-western cultures; were none sufficiently interesting, or do they really not exist? The foreword by Arthur C.Clarke is disappointingly flippant.

Well done
Beautiful "coffee table" book. The author's love for the pictorial material in his collection and this book shows at every page. The author is at his best with the "post-Goddard" material and 20th century representations of space flight. Being the proud owner of some of the original, older material, I did notice that a couple of captions for Flammarion and Terzi are wrong but I am just being picky... Enjoy!

Excellent Historical Collection
All of the paintings in this volume are dated, the paintings are for the most part not accurate as we see spaceflight today, but their historical value is immense. For example, early paintings of the lunar surface often exhibit sharp peaks on mountains, of course we now know eons of cosmic bombardment smoothly rounded most features. Text at the beginning of this book explain how these paintings were collected over many years, they date from before the 1600's to the 1950's, a fascinating story in itself, and there is also a foreword by Arthur C. Clarke. Each painting is accompanied by a caption in this large-format book.

From our perspective today many of these paintings look very quaint, though when they were first published they must have appeared very futuristic. Buy this book for it's historical and art value, not for scientific accuracy.

Five centuries of spaceflight images are presented here
Author Ordway's absorption with rockets and spaceflight began before NASA even existed: he was one of the first to work in the space industry and assembled a beautiful collection of images relating to astronautics and rockets. Five centuries of spaceflight images are presented here, in a stunning collection of both real rockets and illustrations of imagined creations. Many a science buff as well as science fiction fans will find Visions Of Spaceflight fascinating. ... Read more

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With its subtle light illuminating the night sky, the Moon has always been an object of fascination, from its phoenixlike cycle of birth and death to its association with the female body and fertility. Jules Cashford explores the myths, symbols, and poetic images of the Moon throughout history, starting from early Paleolithic markings on horn and bone, up to present-day poetry. This captivating book traces our customs and secular events back to their sacred lunar source explaining how we have evolved to think in some of the ways that we do and why. Accompanied by 175 beautiful illustrations, The Moon investigates how the lunar image helped shape our mind, and more importantly, it examines what these myths and images tell us about our own consciousness. This is the most comprehensive and in-depth look at the moon and its vast influence on the structure and function of mythology, religion, and consciousness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Moon:Myth and Image
The book I saw elsewhere before I bought this book was (as it turns out) the Cassell's edition, which has colour illustration.This 4 Walls 8 Windows version only has black and white illustrations, though well printed.I would have preferred the colour.

The Story of US
Here is the book I have been waiting for; so rich in meaning and knowledge I had never tapped into before. The Moon Book (My Moon book) gives cultural and psychological awareness to absolutely everything around, above and below us. It is like an MRI that reveals all embracing levels from all cultures from all times andall at the same time. Jules Cashford has managed to transform and unravel new realities every day as I pick up the pages a little at a time. This is the story of US. Simply amaizing.
A very grateful New York reader.

The history of us.
Here is the book i have been waiting for; so rich in meaning and knowledge I had never tapped into before. The "moon book" (my moon book) gives cultural and psychological awareness to absolutely everything around and above and below us. It is like an MRIthat reveals all embracing levels from all cultures at the same time. Jules cashford has managed to transform and unravel a new reality everyday as I pick up the pages a little at a time.This is the story of Us. Simply amazing. ... Read more

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This title offers a magnificently illustrated journey through the history of man's fascination with the stars. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's invention of the telescope, the United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of the Astronomy. Since the dawn of time, man has been fascinated by the night sky and the heavenly bodies that inhabit it. In 1609, Galileo Galilei created an instrument that would change the way the world looked at the heavens forever - the telescope. "Galileo: Images of the Universe" is a magnificently illustrated volume that takes readers on a journey via the works of artists great and small, known and unknown, from the mystical and poetic visions of the heavens held in Egypt and Mesopotamia, through the Greek cosmogonies and the planetary architecture of Ptolemy, to the heliocentric theories of Copernicus that inspired the likes of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton to create the modern concept of the universe.Featuring full-colour images throughout - including works by Botticelli and Rubens, the monumental astrological tapestry of Toledo, and, of course, Galileo's telescope - this is a must-have for anyone interested in the visual journey of how mankind has looked at the stars. ... Read more

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Powerful photography, specially commissioned artworks, and informative text work together to tell the amazing story of life on earth. ... Read more

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Images of the Universe is a special collection of essays written to celebrate astronomy and the inauguration of the British Astronomical Association. Colin Ronan opens the book with a fascinating account of developments over the past hundred years.Next, the solar system is explored by Richard Baum, John Rogers, Richard McKim, and Patrick Moore.Comets and meteors are explained by David Hughes.The stars, birthplace of the elements, are examined by Jacqueline Mitton and John Isles. Paul Murdin gives an account of the brightest supernova to be seen from Earth since 1604.Iain Nicolson explores G2, the single dwarf called the Sun. Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest look at the Milky Way, the hazy band of light that is the edge on view of our galaxy.Malcolm Longair looks beyond our own galaxy into the deep sky.Paul Davies gives an account of the first one second of the existence of our expanding Universe.How did it all happen?Martin Rees, the cosmologist, speculates on the origin of the Universe. The ensuing narrative by many famous astronomers and science writers is written at a general level and will be accessible to anyone with a passing interest in the astronomical wonders of our universe.Carole Stott is the author of The Greenwich Guide to Stargazing (1990), and The Greenwich Guide to Astronomy in Action (1990). ... Read more

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The beautiful images in this book are chosen to energize and delight youthful minds of all ages with the joy of science.A magnificent gift or keepsake for anyone interested in astronomy, the moon, or simply in colour itself. ... Read more

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Government agencies have tended to attempt to project favorable public images of themselves as a method of building the public support they need to survive, all the more so in times of increasingly sophisticated communications and decreasingly available financial resources. This study analyzes NASA's efforts to build political support through its public image. Throughout its tumultuous history, the space agency has carefully tailored its use of basic images: nationalism (during the Mercury era), romanticism (during the Apollo era), and pragmatism (during the Shuttle era)--to fit its prevailing political circumstances. This in-depth study will be of keen interest to scholars in political science and political communication. ... Read more

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The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global (IMAGE) satellitewas launched in March 2000. As the first space mission dedicated toimaging the Earth's magnetosphere, IMAGE carries a comprehensivepayload designed to image the major ion populations of the innermagnetosphere (out to distances of approximately 10 Earth radii).

The scientific objective of the mission is to determine the globalresponse of the magnetosphere to variations in the solar wind. Thisbook, which should be of interest to researchers on the global aspectsof magnetospheric physics, describes the latest results of themission. Included are discoveries of many new aspects of the dynamicsof the plasma sheet, ring current, plasmasphere, and proton aurora,which reveal a much more direct connection of the inner magnetosphereto the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field than waspreviously considered. ... Read more