Exploring Mars

Although it isn't exactly what its title suggests (it's more Navigating Washington than Exploring Mars), this first-person narrative provides an interesting perspective on the logistical issues—technical, scientific, and political—that Hubbard (aeronautics and astronautics, Stanford Univ.) faced as NASA's "Mars Czar" during a reorganization of its Mars Exploration Program. Covering the period between the disappearances of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander late in 1999 and the launch of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft in April 2001, Hubbard details the excruciating process of simultaneous planning and approval seeking for multiple missions as far as a decade in advance. He focuses on how program goals emerged, including the basic strategy to "follow the water," the programmatic shorthand of the "ladder to Mars," and the "seek, in situ, and sample" approach.