num_pages: 439
description: In this new edition, the story is unchanged, as is the length of the book, but there is a significant improvement in how the tale is told in the beginning chapters.In Chapter One of the old edition, the scene was a Congressional hearing, where we find out only indirectly about the catastrophe on Mars. In the new Chapter One, the scene is the NASA landing site, where we directly experience the horror and anguish of the two survivors as they deal with the disaster and its aftermath.This edition also has three maps, and minor updates to reflect the latest Mars science and geology. The tale continues to be set on an accurate Mars, and lays the foundation for the very different struggle in Book Two of the Series, Give Us This Mars (2003), and finally the Great Martian War in Book Three, Give Us This Mars (2005).The story begins in February 2038, the year of an attractive window for a manned mission to Mars. The first manned missions have landed-an American/European NASA mission in Kasei Valley, and a small Japanese mission in Ares Valley, some 1700 miles to the east.The Japanese mission arrived first, but was crippled by the loss of its farm building. An elderly scientist who is also a Zen master is the only one still alive-facing starvation.The large thirteen-member NASA mission landed later. There were originally fourteen, but one was lost on the journey to Mars. Except for this, the mission is a success initially. On the morning the story opens, however, in February 2038, a catastrophe strikes the NASA mission. The landing site is practically obliterated, and eleven astronauts are killed instantly.But that morning, an American engineer, John Erway, and a French doctor, Denise Lavoisier, are away on a rover expedition. They come back to wrecked landing site, but manage to get a message to Mission Control.A hearing on the disaster takes place in Washington next day. It turns out that the stranded pair have food for only two weeks. The NASA mission's seventh lander is due to arrive in ten days, however, carrying enough food to keep the pair alive for three years.There is shock in government when the NASA chief reveals that rescuing the two survivors would cost about as much as the original Mars mission:$400 billion dollars! A conspiracy is hatched, without NASA's knowledge, and the CIA sabotages the seventh lander's antenna. NASA loses control, and can't send the lander the commands needed to prevent it from burning up in the Martian atmosphere. There is now no hope for the stranded pair, and they break off contact with Earth, to die in private.But John Erway has figured out the CIA plot, so that the two do realize they are being sacrificed, to conserve hundreds of billions of dollars for social programs that could save many lives.They are not prepared to endure a death of slow starvation, however, and prefer an easier way. John goes first. He takes sleeping pills, and gets in his grave one evening, to die in his sleep when his air runs out. But then, as Denise sits sobbing, waiting for him to die, an event takes place that nobody could have anticipated.This unexpected event triggers the story in the book, converting the initial tragic drama to a tale of high adventure and heroic deeds, and a true Martian saga.
language: English
title: As It Is On Mars
titlecomplete: As It Is On Mars
ratings_count: 12
publisher: Tharsis Books