Space is a seductive place. That’s why Colin Pillinger, professor of
planetary and space sciences at Britain’s Open University, revels in it pretty
much all his waking hours. When not working on Beagle 2, ESA’s Mars lander
project due to launch in 2003, he spends a lot of time reading about space
exploration—in fiction as well as fact. He is looking forward to Stephen
Baxter’s Icebones, (Gollancz, 2001) a sci-fi story set on Mars which
the author has dedicated to the Beagle 2 team. He enjoyed Baxter’s previous
book, Voyage (HarperCollins, 1997), which envisages how NASA’s Mars
exploration programme…
Who's reading what
15 September 2001
