Book ID: CBB001422612

Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars (2015)

unapi

Conway, Erik M. (Author)


Johns Hopkins University Press


Publication Date: 2015
Physical Details: viii + 405 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

Although the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has become synonymous with the United States' planetary exploration during the past half century, its most recent focus has been on Mars. Beginning in the 1990s and continuing through the Mars Phoenix mission of 2007, JPL led the way in engineering an impressive, rapidly evolving succession of Mars orbiters and landers, including roving robotic vehicles whose successful deployment onto the Martian surface posed some of the most complicated technical problems in space flight history. In Exploration and Engineering, Erik M. Conway reveals how JPL engineers' creative technological feats led to major Mars exploration breakthroughs. He takes readers into the heart of the lab's problem-solving approach and management structure, where talented scientists grappled with technical challenges while also coping, not always successfully, with funding shortfalls, unrealistic schedules, and managerial turmoil. Conway, JPL's historian, offers an insider's perspective into the changing goals of Mars exploration, the ways in which sophisticated computer simulations drove the design process, and the remarkable evolution of landing technologies over a thirty-year period.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Janet Vertesi (2016) Review of "Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 281-283). unapi

Review Benjamin D’Harlingue (June 2017) Review of "Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars". Transfers (pp. 140-141). unapi

Review Matthew Shindell (2017) Review of "Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars". Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science (p. 69). unapi

Review Lisa Messeri (July 2016) Review of "Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars". Technology and Culture (pp. 693-694). unapi

Review William R. Macauley (2017) Review of "Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 236-237). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422612/

Similar Citations

Book Vertesi, Janet Amelia; (2015)
Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars (/isis/citation/CBB001510006/)

Book Lambright, W. Henry; (2014)
Why Mars: NASA and the Politics of Space Exploration (/isis/citation/CBB001550039/)

Article Bell, Jim; (2003)
Once and Future Mars (/isis/citation/CBB000300381/)

Book Lisa Messeri; (2016)
Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds (/isis/citation/CBB151926948/)

Article C. P. Sonett; (1994)
Romancing the Solar System (/isis/citation/CBB931920918/)

Book Zara Mirmalek; (2020)
Making Time on Mars (/isis/citation/CBB714285733/)

Thesis Mirmalek, Zara Lenora; (2008)
Solar Discrepancies: Mars Exploration and the Curious Problem of Inter-Planetary Time (/isis/citation/CBB001561225/)

Article Norman F. Ness; (1996)
Pioneering the Swinging 1960s into the 1970s and 1980s (/isis/citation/CBB670109850/)

Thesis Vertesi, Janet Amelia; (2009)
“Seeing Like a Rover”: Images in Interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (/isis/citation/CBB001561212/)

Book Hubbard, Scott; (2011)
Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery (/isis/citation/CBB001251289/)

Article Volland, Nicolai; (2014)
Comment on “Let's Go to the Moon” (/isis/citation/CBB001214667/)

Book McMillen, Kelly R.; (2000)
The Case for Mars VI: Making Mars an Affordable Destination (/isis/citation/CBB000112079/)

Article Richard Tutton; (May 2018)
Multiplanetary Imaginaries and Utopia: The Case of Mars One (/isis/citation/CBB783094574/)

Book Christopher Gainor; Michele Ostovar; (2021)
Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations (/isis/citation/CBB744617492/)

Book Chris Gainor; (2001)
Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and the Space Race (/isis/citation/CBB503675113/)

Book Jörg Matthias Determann; (2018)
Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts, Observatories and Nationalism in the Middle East (/isis/citation/CBB074723221/)

Book Kathryn D. Sullivan; (2019)
Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention (/isis/citation/CBB905524834/)

Book Impey, Chris; Henry, Holly; (2013)
Dreams of Other Worlds: The Amazing Story of Unmanned Space Exploration (/isis/citation/CBB001213137/)

Authors & Contributors
Vertesi, Janet Amelia
Mirmalek, Zara Lenora
Gainor, Christopher
Ness, Norman F.
Sullivan, Kathryn D.
Sonett, C. P.
Concepts
Space research and exploration
Space travel; space flight
Mars
Space programs
Solar system; planets
Astronomy
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Middle and Near East
North Korea
Canada
Institutions
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mars Exploration Rover Mission (U.S.)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Hubble Space Telescope
Place
University of Arizona
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment