FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS FROM OPEN ROAD: July 15, 2014
In Martian Summer: My Ninety Days with Interplanetary Pioneers, Temperamental Robots, and NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission (Open Road Media, $9.99, on sale: July 14, 2014) Andrew Kessler is your guide to 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, which will celebrate it’s second year on Mars on August 6th (on June 24 it completed its first Martian year on the planet).
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. It’s science fact that is every bit as entertaining and awe-inspiring as science fiction.
About the Author
Andrew Kessler is a writer living in Brooklyn. He holds a degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. Martian Summer is his first book about Mars—or any planet, for that matter.
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