A History of Mars Exploration: Beginner's Exploration From the First Flybys to Search for Life

A History of Mars Exploration traces humanity's sixty-year journey to understand the Red Planet - from the 21 grainy photographs returned by Mariner 4 in 1965, which shattered romantic visions of Martian canals and civilizations, to the sophisticated rovers and orbiters operating on and around Mars today. Told mission by mission, this book follows the Soviet failures and American breakthroughs of the 1960s, the volcanic and canyon revelations of Mariner 9, Viking's haunting and still-contested search for life, the dramatic return to Mars with Pathfinder and Global Surveyor, and the flood of water evidence that transformed scientific understanding in the 2000s. It covers the extraordinary journeys of Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity's confirmation of ancient habitable environments, and Perseverance's ongoing collection of samples that may one day answer the oldest question in science: did life ever exist beyond Earth? Written for curious adults with no background in planetary science, this is the complete story of how a featureless red dot in the night sky became the most explored world beyond our own.