From: monte.davis@verizon.net   
      
   I've just finished Steve Squyres' _Roving Mars_, and can't recommend   
   it highly enough. It really gets across the nuts and bolts -- and the   
   emotional roller-coaster -- of planetary probe science and   
   engineering: submitting and revising proposal after proposal, putting   
   together the team, racing against a launch window while swatting bugs   
   in testing, holding your breath for launch and landing, and conducting   
   rover operations.   
      
   It's not the place to read about the scientific results from Spirit   
   and Opportunity, but you won't find a better (or better-written)   
   account of everything that went into getting those results (and why it   
   cost $800M). Nor will you find a more eloquent resolution of tired   
   manned-vs-unmanned squabbles than the book's closing lines:   
      
   "There are many things I could wish for our rovers, but in the end,   
   there's only one that matters. What I really want, more than anything   
   else, is boot prints in our wheel tracks at Eagle Crater."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)