Mars: The NASA Mission Reports: Apogee Books Space Series 10 (Includes CDROM: Mars Movies and Images)
Baseball fans have theSporting News Registerfor getting their stats fix, and farmer-types can turn to the time-honoredAlmanac. So it's only fair that space-exploration junkies should have Robert Godwin's definitive NASA Mission Reports, providing page after page of official data and diagrams, not to mention CD-ROMs packed with movies, pictures, and searchable NASA documents.While most of Godwin's NASA books focus on a particular mission (e.g.,Apollo 13andGemini 6), the Mars book chronologically surveys every single mission that's been mounted to the red planet, from the 1964 launch ofMariner 4to the more currentPathfinderandMars Global Surveyorencounters. And it's this breadth that makes the book a standout even in this excellent series. Not only can you marvel at the 16K flight computer on 1975'sCentaurand the much more impressive hardware on theMGS, but you can even see the quality of NASA's press materials evolve. (When's the last time you saw a diagram with a typewritten legend?)With NASA press kits for all the probes and a choice assortment of the more interesting mission reports, Godwin has assembled an authoritative, blow-by-blow resource for serious space buffs. And good news on the "Windows" CD-ROM that's included: Since the files are primarily mpegs, jpegs, and html, readers can access the CD and its hour and a half of vintage video from just about any platform.--Paul Hughes