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5+ Works 96 Membros 4 Críticas

Obras por Rob Manning

Associated Works

Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to the River Kingdoms (2010) — Contribuidor — 26 exemplares

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Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
male

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Críticas

Rob Manning was associated with the development of the Curiosity rover in several different capacities, but most notably as the project's chief engineer. And, as the title suggests, this is his account of the rover's development. I can't say the writing is inherently compelling or anything, but the accomplishment certainly is, and Manning and his co-author do a good job of being quite detailed without ever being overwhelmingly technical. Detailed enough, in fact, that I think this is something you have to be very interested in the subject matter to enjoy, but I am definitely part of that particular niche audience, and I certainly found it interesting.

And I'm genuinely impressed by Manning's ego-free candidness in talking about all the difficulties and uncertainties and problems that the project faced, which resulted in it coming in over-budget and missing its initial planned launch window. I also can't help but think there's something that feels very familiar about the process he talks about, in which they'd deal with one problem and it would result in a change that would cause another problem somewhere else that would then need to be dealt with, whereupon that fix would cause still more problems. I think anybody who's worked on any kind of big, complicated project can relate, but at least ours don't usually have to go and work on Mars.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
bragan | 3 outras críticas | Jun 18, 2019 |
Millions of Americans as well as people around the world have followed the adventures and the fascinating findings of the the Mars Rover Curiosity. For the scientists and engineers working on the project, much of the excitement, adventure, and stress came before arrival on Mars, and even well before take-off for Mars.

It was the largest rover ever sent to Mars. It carried an unprecedented number of scientific instruments. Its size and weight required a whole new landing method. Whole new methods, techniques, software had to be created--and every penny of cost had to be justified every step of the way, as other projects and scientists competed for their share of the underfunded NASA budget.

Rob Manning was Curiosity's chief engineer, and this is his account of how Curiosity got from "neat idea" to its "space crane" touchdown on Mars and the start of its exploration of the planet. Along the way, the earlier rovers, Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity, provided vital information on how to proceed and what they would face. Yet they were also obstacles to overcome, as the Curiosity team was challenged to explain why their rover was so much more expensive than the (cheaper, smaller, less scientifically capable) rovers. They solve major technological challenges while fighting attempts to divert their funding to exploration of the outer planets.

It's a great story, well-told, full of its own variety of chills and thrills. And it's all true.

Recommended.

I bought this book.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
LisCarey | 3 outras críticas | Sep 19, 2018 |
I haven't been very good about writing reviews in a timely manner for the past few weeks (months?). This is one of those that I should have reviewed soon after I finished it, and I just...didn't. At least I'm finally getting around to it, I guess.

Anyway, I checked this out via my library's Overdrive service. I have to admit that I didn't really know much about Curiosity before listening to this. I knew that it existed, I knew a few fun things related to it (pictures, it singing itself Happy Birthday, etc.), and I knew that it continues to function well past its 2-year mission. Recent(ish) news about things like the Juno mission and the Philae lander, plus my enjoyment of Andy Weir's The Martian, led to me wanting to read space-related nonfiction, and this book looked like a good one.

Now, let's see if I can remember what topics were covered. The book didn't actually start with Curiosity, but rather with an earlier project Manning worked on, the Sojourner Rover. This allowed him to compare and contrast the thought processes that went into Sojourner with the ones that went into Curiosity, a much larger and heavier rover with a different set of scientific instruments. I found it all fascinating, and Manning did a great job of describing the problems and most of the solutions in a way I was able to understand.

I really liked this book when it was covering the problems that needed to be solved to get a rover safely to Mars and make sure it could function in extreme cold. I also liked a lot of the stuff on Curiosity's (and its instruments') capabilities, as well as the team management stuff. However, I winced a bit during Manning's repeated mentions of budget issues. Even the “cheaper, faster” mission budgets seemed enormous to me.

I tend to be really bad about starting to read nonfiction books and then never finishing them, so it's usually audio or nothing for me. However, audio nonfiction doesn't always work well. Mars Rover Curiosity was doing fine, up until the list of all of Curiosity's scientific instruments. It made for very dry listening, and I imagine I'd have skimmed that part if I had been reading a paper version of the book instead. The narration itself was okay – not terribly exciting, but Bronson Pinchot's voice fit the text well enough that, since I didn't know what Manning sounded like, it was easy to forget that it wasn't Manning himself narrating the book.

All in all, this was an interesting look at the work, planning, testing, and, at times, politics that went into Curiosity.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
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Assinalado
Familiar_Diversions | 3 outras críticas | Dec 19, 2016 |
I've read half a dozen memoirs by NASA engineers who have worked on spaceships and I can't say the genre is full of gold. Nevertheless this one is probably the best of the bunch so far. Manning knows how to communicate the ups and downs of engineering a 10-year long project and keeps it interesting. It's not too technical but captures the amount of work indeed the near impossibility of the task. There are time pressures, money pressures, engineering difficulties, politics, bureaucracy. Making a single rover is so difficult I wonder how we will ever colonize Mars much less the Moon. Something has to change, maybe Elon Musk is on to something with private ventures working fast and cheap with off the shelf and reusable parts. It's a model that threatens NASA's entire existence and mandate. I admire Manning and the engineers who made Curiosity but I can't admire the system they work under. But then maybe I am being naive, time will tell.… (mais)
½
1 vote
Assinalado
Stbalbach | 3 outras críticas | Jun 8, 2015 |

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Obras
5
Also by
1
Membros
96
Popularidade
#196,089
Avaliação
3.9
Críticas
4
ISBN
13

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