I was at a local used book store (Half-Price Books, they have a couple of stores here in the Twin Cities) the other day, and ran across the National Geographic Society book, "Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet," by Paul Raeburn and Matt Golombek. Paid $15 for it.

Overall, a quite good book -- but it just sort of jars, now, when I read a book on Mars that stops short of the MER landings. Like there are a bunch of missing chapters. But Raeburn basically interviewed Golombek extensively and put the book together from the interview tapes. It has a lot of nice details on MPF.

One nice thing about the book -- in a plastic pocket on the inside back cover, were not one but two pristine, never-used sets of anaglyph glasses. Granted, they're just front frames with no ear pieces, you have to hold them up in front of your eyes while using them. But they'll be very useful in viewing on-line anaglyphs.

-the other Doug

Trying to turn this topic into a 'new book releases' thread

Here's a low-cost new annual:
http://www.praxis-publishing.co.uk/view.as...amp;search=home

This excellent book appeared several years ago before MER, first in Hardcover and then in Paperback. Mine is kindly autographed by Matt. First published in 1998, there are detailed descriptions of the history of Mars and the Viking and Pathfinder projects with numerous glossy and very high quality LARGE image repoductions, both from orbit and the surface. Also a few foldouts, like the famous pan of twin peaks in 3-D.

Although it does jar a bit being pre-MER, thats also an advantage because it affords details of the previous missions. In fact MER was not on the NASA launch manifest at the time. Being pre-MPL, the 2005 launch opportunity described is the now long delayed Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. So its a look back to the then "future of mars exploration". Sadly, MSR is still ca. 10+ years in the future

HIghly recommended !

ken

.

More disappointing IMHO is the reissued "Patrick Moore on Mars", which has Pathfinder on the cover and not a single MER image. They're charging £15 for this book which was published on 10 Aug 2006. I wonder does Patrick even know it was reissued in such a dated form?

Just put some extra books at my Mars-literature blog
http://mars-literature.skynetblogs.be/

Another new book waiting to be picked up

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/786/1

Upcoming Cassini-Huygens titles:

http://www.springer.com/west/home/astronom...ENTER_ID=289499

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Captains-Log-Voyag...TF8&s=books

Received my " Encyclopedia of the Solar System - 2nd Edition " this morning and it's a jewel... Hardcover book ( 28 X 22 centimeters with 966 pages ) completely updated with MER photos (going to October 2006), Cassini-Huygens images of Saturn and Titan's surface, chapters by Alan Stern, Athena Coustenis, Carolyn Porco, James Burke, Matthew Golombek, Michael Carr, ...
Excellent, a 10 out of 10 and You won't need to buy another encyclopedia untill the 2015 Pluto encounter

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Solar...TF8&s=books

Robotic Exploration of the Solar System - Part 1
by well-known authors
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robotic-Exploratio...2306&sr=8-2

Yep. I happen to know one of them quite well for 36 years now

hmmm....if the golden age of solar system exploration stops at 1982...what is it we have now???

What about diamond age?
Seriously, the titles of the other two volumes (out in 2008 and 2009) should be:
"Hiatus and Renewal 1983-1996"
"The Modern Era 1996-2008"

For those interested in Astrobiology there's a new book out there: Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide, by Lewis Dartnell.
Really interesting piece of work spawning from the ingredients necessary for life, to exoplanetary hunt and planets orbiting red dwarfs (quite actual...), a lot of information in a quite comprehensive writing...
Editors were kind enough to send me a copy so you can read a review (I've never made one before...) about it at spacEurope.
I'm re-reading it!

Here's a new professional-level book that sounds pretty exciting:

"Planetary Landers and Entry Probes" (Cambridge University Press, 2007) (368 pages)
Authors: Andrew Ball, James Garry, Ralph Lorenz, Viktor Kerzhanovich

Table Of Contents: Part I. Engineering Issues Specific to Entry Probes, Landers or Penetrators: 1. Mission goals and system engineering; 2. Accomodation, launch, cruise and arrival from orbit or interplanetary trajectory; 3. Entering atmospheres; 4. Descent through an atmosphere; 5. Descent to an airless body; 6. Planetary balloons, aircraft, submarines and cryobots; 7. Arrival at a surface; 8. Thermal control of landers and entry probes; 9. Power systems; 10. Communication and tracking of entry probes; 11. Radiation environment; 12. Surface activities: arms, drills, moles and mobility; 13. Structures; 14. Contamination of spacecraft and planets; Part II.Previous Atmosphere/Surface Vehicles and Their Payloads: 15. Destructive impact probes; 16. Atmospheric entry probes; 17. Pod landers; 18. Legged landers; 19. Payload delivery penetrators; 20. Small body surface missions; Part III. 'Case Studies': 21. Surveyor landers; 22. Galileo probe; 23. Huygens; 24. Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner; 25. Deep Space 2 Mars microprobes; 26. Rosetta lander Philae; 27. Mars exploration rovers: Spirit and Opportunity; Appendix: Some key parameters for bodies in the Solar System; List of acronyms; Bibliography; References; Index.

All this and detailed illustrations. I've seen prices ranging from about $130 to $150.

Dear all,
You can find the index of Robotic Exploration here http://www.geocities.com/p_ulivi/index.pdf
We have almost finished the final correction and we can confirm that the book will be ready for printing by the second half of August.
Paolo

Just picked up two books:


A History of the Kennedy Space Center by Kenneth Lipartito and Orville R. Butler

and


Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976-2004 by Peter J. Westwick

Just want to point out 2 superb books:

Encyclopedia of the Solar System: 2nd edition
(McFadden Weismann Johnson - ISBN 978-0-12-088589-3) (Academic Press - Elsevier) Updated to New Horizons!

The illustrated Atlas of the Universe
(Garlick Tirion - ISBN 9-781-740-893770) (Fog City Press)

This is the book I'm waiting for to be updated.

Great book. I have read last July

Amazon.co.uk just shipped my copie of Paolo Ulivi's "Robotic Exploration of the Solar System".
First impression is great, some rare Mariner Mars era photos, good glossary and appendix on celestial mechanics primer (transfer orbits and gravity slingshots).

Lucky guy! My author's copy have not arrived yet!

Paolo, just read Your Foreword + Author's Preface + Acknowledgements ... In the latter You even mentioned UnmannedSpaceflight.com

Meanwhile, at the 50th anniversary of the first space mission, I received my copie of:
Touching Space - The Story of Project Manhigh
A must-have book for spaceflight buffs, about the USAF Balloon projects with Pre-astronauts such as David Simons, Clifton McClure, Joe Kittinger and the crew of the StratoLab High V gondola (Malcolm Ross & Victor Prather).
Softcover by Gregory P Kennedy with 134 glossy pages and lots of B&W and color photos. (ISBN 978-0-7643-2788-9)

Got my copies, at last!

Anyone has this already: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planetary-Landers-...6456&sr=8-1

O.K. as ther was no reply I've bought it myself
Planetary Landers and Entry Probes is an excellent book with 340 glossy pages filled with technical drawings of unmanned spacecraft and the Apollo Lunar Module.
Chapters include: Engineering issues specific to entry probes, landers or penetrators (1), Previous atmosphere/surface vehicles and their payloads (2), Case studies (3) and an extensive bibliography on engineering, planetary science and historical books on the subject. The technical drawings are excellent. These include the complete spacecraft and specific drawings of the landers or penetrators of: Surveyor, Martian aerobot, Venera series, Vega, Pioneer Venus, Galileo and Jupiter probe, Cassini-Huygens and Titan probe, Ranger, Luna series, Russian Mars series, Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner, Beagle 2, Mars Exploration Rovers, Lunokhod, Apollo LM and manned Soviet LK lander, Viking landers, Mars Polar Lander, Phoenix, Deep Space 2 Mars microprobes, Lunar-A penetrators, Phobos DAS, Rosetta lander Philae, MINERVA on Hayabusa, ...
Excellent!

I have been researching that book. From what I can tell it has lots of simple line drawings.
If you have that book, can you tell me ...how many color photos or black and white photos it has of any of the Veneras or Pioneer Venus Probes?
Anything different than what we can find on the web everywhere over and over?
Thanks
steve

Not too many photos in this excellent book full of technical line drawings.
(Black&White photos include Mylar Balloon, DS2 Microprobe Mars Polar Lander)
For Soviet Russian spacecraft, consider:
Russian Planetary Exploration: History, Development, Legacy and Prospects (Brian Harvey)
And
Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration (Brian Harvey)
Philip

Hardly simple line drawings..... James Garry who did the artwork INSISTED on redrawing
EVERY line drawing of EVERY spacecraft to make them all the same format. And you will
see that e.g. the differences in the antenna design of the various Veneras are captured in
nothing short of religious detail.

This artwork is exquisitely instructive and you wont find it anywhere on the web.

You won't find the stuff on heatshields, planetary protection, airbags, parachutes, retrorockets
etc. in the other spacecraft engineering texts either

This looks promising: