In its eerie likeness to Earth, Mars has long captured our imaginations,both as a destination for humankind and as a possible home to extraterrestrial life. It is our twenty-first century New World its explorers robots, shipped 350 million miles from Earth to uncover the distant planet's secrets.Its most recent scout is Curiosity,a one-ton, Jeep-sized nuclear-powered space labouratory,which is now roving the Martian surface to determine whether the red planet has ever been physically capable of supporting life. In Red Rover , geochemist Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for the ChemCam laser instrument on the rover and veteran of numerous robotic NASA missions, tells the unlikely story of his involvement in sending sophisticated hardware into space, culminating in the Curiosity rover's amazing journey to Mars.In so doing, Wiens paints the portrait of one of the most exciting scientific stories of our time: the new era of robotic space exploration. Starting with NASA's introduction of the Discovery Program in 1992, scrappier, more nimble missions became the order of the day, as manned missions were confined to Earth orbit, and behemoth projects went extinct. This strategic shift presented huge scientific opportunities, but tight budgets meant that success depended more than ever on creative engineering and human ingenuity. Beginning with the Genesis mission that launched his career, Wiens describes the competitive, DIY spirit of these robotic enterprises, from conception to construction, from launch to heart-stopping crashes and smooth landings.An inspiring account of the real-life challenges of space exploration, Red Rover vividly narrates what goes into answering the question: is there life elsewhere in the universe?

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built - the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world's first real spaceship. On board were men with the Right Stuff. The Shuttle's Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle's development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission. Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen's spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing. Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified. To help, the NRO would attempt something that had never been done before. Success would require skill, pinpoint timing and luck ... Drawing on brand new interviews with astronauts and engineers, archive material and newly declassified documents, Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607, has pieced together the dramatic untold story of the mission for the first time. Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight. *With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly* 'Beautifully researched and written, Into the Black tells the true, complete story of the Space Shuttle better than it's ever been told before.' Colonel Chris Hadfield, former Astronaut and Space Station Commander 'Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission ... Once read, not forgotten.' Clive Cussler

Unless they research the subject for themselves, many people do not realise that the origins and development of the human entity are largely an unresolved mystery. Before the Author's own research, he was among them. He found that he also had been subtly indoctrinated with such remarks 'cousins' and 'relatives' with regard to the apes and assumed like most others, that all the facts where in. When you read the work, you will find that this is simply not true. So begins 'The Human Enigma', a truly epic enquiry into the origins of our world and the creatures that walk upon. In particular, it examines the human brain as a uniquely wonderful creation which can be viewed as a gift from God (or was it the gods?) besides Darwinian evolution and Biblical creation. This book explores the fanatic proposition that mankind's rapid development with regard to the human brain may have been influenced by extra terrestrial sources. This work refers to, and draws together the previous work of respected scientists and looks at the future scenarios that the latest genetic and environmental sciences are pointing towards.

Your interest is bound to be held by the contents of this work and the amazing characters, their achievements and the other topics dealt with herein. A search team was formed to find any remains of the Ark of Noah. They recorded on tape, the amazing account by an elderly Armenian living in the USA who had climbed onto the petrified hulk of the Holy Ark, when his uncle took him up Mount Ararat as a boy. His recorded account was subjected to the P.S.E Test (Lie Test)and it passed. Read the amazing account of the incredible Count St Germain, philosopher, alchemist and linguist, who could manufacture diamonds and transmute gold and was friend of Louis XV. Voltaire said to him He is a man who knows everything and never dies. He discovered the elixir of youth. Various nobles and dignitaries met him over the decades and he always looked the same. Read about N.D.E's (near death experiences) ghosts, spirits and the paranormal, the Atlantis myth, the story of Noah and more. The title given to this work will now be obvious to all.