Growing up during the early days of the Space Age was exciting. Astronauts were walking on the Moon, spacecraft were flying past Venus and Mars, then Jupiter and Mercury, and one of them was orbiting Mars! Even a Grand Tour of four spacecraft flying past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto was being conceived. It was not hard to believe that there were even plans to have astronauts walk on Mars by 1985. The lure for Mars inspired many books, but I had one book that I checked out of the Kernan School library during my pre-high school years so much, I practically owned it. It is even more interesting that this book that I enjoyed reading with such passion, even the black and white pictures, was published in 1956, four years before I was born.

The Exploration of Mars was and still is my favorite book with its large size of 8 ½” by 11” in a hard cover format full of information, paintings, diagrams, and sketches. It was written by Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun with paintings by the famous artist, Chesley Bonestell. With names like these, no wonder I could not put the book down. No spacecraft had flown by Mars when this book was written, so it is heavily dependent on photos of Mars from observatories, sketches, and paintings. The book is richly illustrated throughout, and everything flows in logical order starting with historical observations. The following chapters deal with the characteristics of Mars with a chapter devoted to the two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Theories are discussed such as the wave of seasonal darkening, dust storms, ice caps, and canals. The canals were disproved long before this book was written, but it was still a mystery as to what Percival Lowell was seeing, theorized to be faults or valleys. A black and white painting clearly illustrates the concept showing astronauts on a high hill looking into a foggy valley below and beyond.

Exploring Mars is the main theme of the book and is what riveted me into reading it. The illustrations of sleek, upright, pointy rockets and rocket airplanes are numerous, which ignite the vision that we would someday walk on Mars. There is detailed reading on how such a mission could be undertaken and yet it is easy to grasp the concept with illustrations that make it easier to picture what is happening as the journey unfolds. Rocketry was young when this book was published as no country had yet put a satellite into orbit (that would take another year), so we are given an overview of what satellites would look like and what they would do, complete with beautiful paintings, especially one floating 200 miles above New York City. Additional chapters cover the construction of the Mars-bound spacecraft, its journey to Mars, historic landing, return home, and the human aspect. Beautiful colorful paintings by Chesley Bonestell highlight this part of the book showing the rocket ship touching down like an airplane on the endless reddish dunes and another colorful painting shows a huge dust storm nearly overtaking the camp and explorers with ominous, billowing, yellowish brown clouds. The best painting of the entire book is the two-page spread of the astronauts setting up base in a wide canyon with dunes and a towering mesa under a sunny, deep blue sky with a few stars visible. This is one of the most iconic paintings for which Chesley Bonestell is famous; it proudly hangs in many astronomy classrooms and museums, including the Smithsonian. Even though we now know that the Martian sky is not deep blue, but a dusty peach hue, it does not matter as this inspirational painting is the heart and soul of the book. It is deserving of its two-page spread as nothing was cropped. The book ends with six pages of data and statistics on the rocket ships and supplies.

The Exploration of Mars would slip away into memory after I graduated eighth grade until I purchased a book in 1983 called Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell. This time I owned a book where I could simply grab it off my bookshelf and admire his paintings of Mars and other worlds. The age of the internet finally fulfilled my dream with the era of eBay. I found a listing for the book The Exploration of Mars with a decent dust cover for about $85 plus shipping if I recall. I clicked “Buy It Now” and it was mine! It arrived a few weeks before Christmas back in 2006. Now I owned my very own copy! A lifetime mission was accomplished for me in my exploration of Mars!