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Title: Postcards from Mars: The First Photographer on the Red Planet
ISBN: 0525949852
Author:
Jim Bell
Publicate Date: 2006-11-16
Publish: 2006-11-16
List Price: $50.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $19.99
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.43
Amazon Merchant Price: $31.50
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Amazing photos, very good words, too.
I expected the photos to be great, but I was surprised to find the accompanying writings (by a project scientist) to be so interesting and informative.
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2: Photos from Mars are extraordinary!
This book is wonderful! I can't really add anything to what others have said. I just hope we get a second edition of additional photos when the two rovers have completed their epic adventures. When I was growing up in the 50s, the planets were just fuzzy blobs in the best telescopic photos. I'm glad I've lived to see these extraordinary "postcards."
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3: Feels Like You're There
Postcards From Mars is the definitive coffee table book of images from the two rovers which landed on Mars in 2004. Jim Bell goes through all the stages of the missions, from conception, spacecraft assembly, their launch and cruise to Mars, landings, and their adventures and discoveries on the planet. He does this in layman's terms and from the perspective of someone who was working on the missions. These missions are still continuing today in 2008, and he should write another edition when the missions are completed.
But the real stars of the book are the many images of the Martian surface taken by the rovers. These are shown to (almost) full advantage in this large-format book with many gatefold panoramas. (A few of the pictures are printed rather dark.) The one thing lacking is in the captions of the images. Only a few words are said about each image.--These historic images deserve to have more said about them. You can find many of these same images on the various NASA websites, and they certainly have more detailed captions there. Also, the captions in this book are very small and hard to read. The brief captions are the only reason why I give this book four stars instead of five.
A good companion to this book is The Martian Landscape, another large-format book, this one filled with images from the two Viking Landers which landed on Mars in 1976. The captions in this book go into exhaustive detail.
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4: Had some damage
A beautiful book for a good price. However, the book came with a damaged corner that was not related to the packing. It should have been rated at a lower level.
In fact, this has been the only book I have ever received with this kind of damage.
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5: So, who is profiting from this great book!
This book is simply fantastic! The photos are "out of this world". However, my only concern is that as a tax payer, who funded these missions to Mars, how is it that someone is profiting from these photos taken by United States of America vehicles? Why isn't the money from this book going to the USA to offset the cost of the mission?
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