Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet

One of the top space writers (Planetary Encounters, Shuttle and The Coattails of God made Powers a three-time winner of the Aviation Space Writers Association award) here projects our inevitableto him, at leastcolonization of Mars. Back in 1895, astronomer Percival Lowell spelled out the dream in a book that bears the same title as this one; Powers dedicates his book to Lowell and in further tribute develops a scenario for colonizing the so-called Red Planet. While Powers inescapably seems to be dealing with science fiction, his assessment of the problems to be overcome by the first Mars explorers is based soundly on what is already known of space travel, and of Mars itself, through the Viking landings and other studies. This is exciting reading, if outlandish in some aspects, as Powers describes Mars and the awesome loneliness the first colonizers will surely have to overcome before they can humanize their strange new world. Photos. (June 17)