A Traveler’s Guide to Mars
Things have been very space focused lately, both at work (as usual) and in my personal life. Many of my new friends are somehow involved in the space program or in space politics, so I have been immersed in their culture. Even my reading list has shifted in this direction, and one book in particular has really stood out: A Traveler’s Guide to Mars.
The book is written by William Hartmann, a planetary scientist and member of the Mars Global Surveyor team. He has been involved in Mars science since he was a grad student during the first Mariner flyby misisons around 1970, so he has been there to see the entire saga unfold. On top of that, Hartmann is a good storyteller, and his choice of the “traveller’s guide” format makes this a very unique, rare kind of book. It’s full of fold-out maps, colorful pictures, and short excepts with historical perspective and some of Hartmann’s own experiences from various stages in his career. Furthermore, it is not watered down like many popular science books. My eyes did not glaze over once while trying to process the details of the geologic and hydrologic discoveries he describes; he keeps it interesting and relevent to the reader with examples, stories, and references to other related discoveries. The book progresses like a novel — new discoveries and conclusions flow naturally from chapter to chapter and things flow in rough chronological order as he proceeds from Mars of 6 billion years ago to Mars today. I daresay that this was an exciting read, which is not something you can say of many science books!
I very surprised to find that many of my assumptions about the basic nature of the planet were incorrect. I’m not sure where I got the idea, but I had thought that the planet was pretty barren and uninteresting, and mostly devoid of water. I guess that I had taken the press releases that said that the MER rovers had discovered evidence of water to mean that this was the first such proof. The truth is that there is tremendous evidence in orbital photgraphy of substantial water on Mars; possibly even enough that there was an ocean during some periods in the planet’s history. Many of the landforms were sculpted by water (I imagine that hiking in the Martian terrain would be very majestic, much like hiking in the American Southwest), and there is continuing evidence of tiny amounts of running water on the martian surface, even today. The locations of the landed mission were chosen to target areas observed from orbit where water had obviously flowed in the past (outflow channels, ancient ocean beds, and collapsed craters where there may have been lakes), and this book gave me a fairly good idea how and why landing sites are chosen for these missions.
Finally, I would also say that this book gives a fairly accurate portrayal of what planetary science is all about, and I would recommend it to anyone who is considering that as a career.
If you pick up a copy and you like it, let me know!
