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Physical Description:406 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm print
Publisher:Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2001.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
pt. 1. Pale red dot -- 1. Lilac dawn -- 2. Mars in the solar system -- 3. Wanderers and wonderers -- 4. The untrackable star -- 5. The war with Mars -- pt. 2. A swelling orb -- 6. The sails of imagination -- 7. Mappers of strange seas -- 8. "A less difficult and bloody conquest" -- Sidebar : a color-blind astronomer -- "Mars," excerpt of a poem by Percival Lowell -- 9. Lowell's Mars -- 10. La Grande Lunette -- Sidebar : the canals of Mars -- pt. 3. The Mars of romance -- 11. Invaders from Mars -- 12. War of the worlds -- pt. 4. Marsfall -- 13. Water, water anywhere? -- 14. Woodstock Mars -- 15. The brave new world of Mariner 9 -- pt. 5. The abode of life? -- 16. Paradise lost? -- 17. If stones could talk.
Summary, etc.:
"Of all the planets in the solar system apart from Earth, Mars has always been regarded as the most likely to have nurtured life. Even nineteenth-century astronomers were obsessed with the possibility of life on the red planet. Recent discoveries have only added to the mystery. Was Mars once warmer and wetter than it is now? What was the source of the water that once ran rampant over the surface? Where did all the water go? Is it possible that the planet once harbored - or may still harbor - life?" "In this account of human-kind's love affair with the red planet, William Sheehan and Stephen James O'Meara trace the history of our fascination with Earth's neighbor in the solar system and look at the prospects for human spaceflight to Mars in this century. The authors portray the history of our explorations of Mars through the eyes of the dreamers and achievers who have made the planet such an integral part of the human psyche. They reveal the discoverers' hardships, their strength in the face of criticisms, and the glories of their successes."--Jacket.
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