Natural SciencesAstronomyPlanetary AstronomyPlanetary GeologyPlanetary ScienceMartian GeologyPlanetary ExplorationPlanetary GeochemistryPlanetary HabitabilitySpace ExplorationMartian PetrologyPlanetary InstrumentationReal-time Processing
The book is part of a NASA history series and notes a privately published picture book that offers similar immediacy but less scholarly depth. The authors examined archival documents and conducted extensive interviews with Mars exploration scientists, engineers, and technicians over the past two decades. The collected interviews and quotations provide immediacy and authenticity that distinguish this work from most other historical studies. The referenced picture book, *The Vikings of 76*, was published in 1977 and is available from the author at 175 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA.
This volume is one of a series of studies related to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) history. The authors have researched the available documents in detail and have conducted extensive interviews with scientists, engineers, and technicians who participated in the exploration of Mars during the last 20 years. Interviews and quotations from these participants give immediacy and authenticity to this work that are absent from most other historical studies. A small picture book that was privately published by Hans‐Peter Biemann, the son of the Viking lander mass spectrometer team leader, has the same immediacy but is less scholarly and complete. It, too, has a fine authentic flavor because it was done virtually in real time ( The Vikings of 76 , published by the author, Westford, Mass., 1977; available from the author, 175 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138).