Donna Shirley's 35-year career as an aerospace engineer reached a jubilant pinnacle in July 1997 when Sojourner--the solar-powered, self-guided, microwave-oven-sized rover--was seen exploring the Martian landscape in Pathfinder's spectacular images from the surface of the red planet. The event marked a milestone in space, but for Donna Shirley, the leader of the mostly male team that designed and built Sojourner--and the first woman ever to manage a NASA program--it marked a triumph of another kind. Managing Martians is Shirley's captivating memoir of a life and career spent reaching for the stars. From her seemingly outlandish aspiration at age ten to build aircraft, to abandoning high school Home Ec in favor of mechanical drawing, and, at sixteen, becoming a licensed pilot, Shirley defied expectations from the beginning. In a vivid narrative, rich with anecdotes and thrilling turning points, Shirley recounts the intense battles she waged to defend her vision and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of her committed team. Her moment-by-cliffhanging-moment account of Pathfinder's landing and Sojourner's first tentative foray across the sands of Mars brilliantly captures the fulfillment of a lifelong dream as it heralds a brave new era of space exploration.

Now in paperback--the extraordinary story of a woman's lifelong quest to "get to Mars"--and of the team behind the space robot that captured the world's imagination. 8-page photo insert.

For millenia humans have considered Mars the most fascinating planet in our solar system. We’ve watched this Earth-like world first with the naked eye, then using telescopes, and, most recently, through robotic orbiters and landers and rovers on the surface. Historian William Sheehan and astronomer and planetary scientist Jim Bell combine their talents to tell a unique story of what we’ve learned by studying Mars through evolving technologies. What the eye sees as a mysterious red dot wandering through the sky becomes a blurry mirage of apparent seas, continents, and canals as viewed through Earth-based telescopes. Beginning with the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and 1970s, space-based instruments and monitoring systems have flooded scientists with data on Mars’s meteorology and geology, and have even sought evidence of possible existence of life-forms on or beneath the surface. This knowledge has transformed our perception of the Red Planet and has provided clues for better understanding our own blue world. Discovering Mars vividly conveys the way our understanding of this other planet has grown from earliest times to the present. The story is epic in scope—an Iliad or Odyssey for our time, at least so far largely without the folly, greed, lust, and tragedy of those ancient stories. Instead, the narrative of our quest for the Red Planet has showcased some of our species’ most hopeful attributes: curiosity, cooperation, exploration, and the restless drive to understand our place in the larger universe. Sheehan and Bell have written an ambitious first draft of that narrative even as the latest chapters continue to be added both by researchers on Earth and our robotic emissaries on and around Mars, including the latest: the Perseverance rover and its Ingenuity helicopter drone, which set down in Mars’s Jezero Crater in February 2021.

The memoir of Marina von Neumann Whitman

Project Management: The Managerial Process 6e

Profiles eleven notable scientists in the field of robotics, discussing their research, accomplishments, ethical and professional obstacles, and contributions. Includes photographs, illustrations, chronology of notable events, and a list of resources.

“This excellent summary of an important part of NASA’s history is recommended for all readers.” —Choice In Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program, Howard E. McCurdy examines NASA’s recent efforts to save money while improving mission frequency and performance. McCurdy details sixteen missions undertaken as the twentieth century drew to a close—including an orbit of the moon, deployment of three space telescopes, four Earth-orbiting satellites, two rendezvous with comets and asteroids, and a test of an ion propulsion engine—which cost less than the sum traditionally spent on a single, conventionally planned planetary mission. He shows how these missions employed smaller spacecraft and cheaper technology to undertake less complex and more specific tasks in outer space. While the technological innovation and space exploration approach that McCurdy describes is still controversial, the historical perspective on its disappointments and triumphs points to ways of developing “faster, better, and cheaper” as a management manifesto. “Readers interested in either the management or economics of complex organizations will find a wealth of material in this well-written exposition. Fans of space travel, like the author himself, will also enjoy the behind-the-scenes look at NASA’s operation.” —Enterprise and Society

"Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. Its vivid color and visibility to the naked eye, its geologic kinship with Earth, its potential as our best hope for settlement-Mars embodies everything that inspires us about space and space exploration. In this book, National Air and Space Museum Curator Matthew Shindell captures the majesty of the red planet and the work done by people on Earth to explore it. He connects our current period of human exploration of Mars to the work done through the centuries and across cultures by asking how the quest to understand Mars has shaped our knowledge of ourselves, our own planet, our solar system, and beyond. For the Love of Mars reveals why Mars has piqued scientists' interest for centuries. It brings to light how difficult and sometimes flawed martian discoveries could be for earth-bound planetary explorers and, by focusing on the human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we have come to know and love, shows how Mars exploration became more sophisticated through the years in ways that helped expand knowledge about other facets of space and the universe. A must read for everyone curious about Curiosity and the Red Planet"--

divIn the decades since the mid-1970s, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has led the quest to explore the farthest reaches of the solar system. JPL spacecraft—Voyager, Magellan, Galileo, the Mars rovers, and others—have brought the planets into close view. JPL satellites and instruments also shed new light on the structure and dynamics of earth itself, while their orbiting observatories opened new vistas on the cosmos. This comprehensive book recounts the extraordinary story of the lab's accomplishments, failures, and evolution from 1976 to the present day. This history of JPL encompasses far more than the story of the events and individuals that have shaped the institution. It also engages wider questions about relations between civilian and military space programs, the place of science and technology in American politics, and the impact of the work at JPL on the way we imagine the place of humankind in the universe./DIV