There is a great science fiction book that I just finished reading. It is called “Mars,” and the author is Ben Bova, one of my favorite authors. So let me take a few minutes to tell you all about this wonderful book about the first human expedition to Mars.
Twenty-five astronauts on the International Mars Mission travel to Mars in two ships: Mars 1 and Mars 2. The landers touch down and the base dome is inflated, and the work begins. About 30 sols into the 50 sol mission, the crew finds a mysterious rock formation at Tithonium Chasma, and one of the astronauts, Jamie Waterman, thinks it is an ancient Martian cliff dwelling where intelligent Martians once lived.
So about five astronauts take off in a rover to explore Tithonium Chasma, and to see if the cliff dwelling is artificial, and not a natural formation, which most of the crew believes it to be. On the way there, they get unbearable sick, and discover while they are down in the canyon that they have caught scurvy, because their Vitamin C pills were exposed to pure oxygen during a meteor strike, and another three people back at the dome head out in a spare rover head out to find the others and bring them back to the dome.
But they have to come back—before the astronauts leave Mars without them, leaving them to die. Oh, and I forgot to work in that astronauts Joanna Brumado and Ilona Malater find a Martian bug in the valley, an actual living Martian organism.
So please buy this book or take a trip to your local library to find this book and read it. You won’t reget it, I promise. Just to wrap it up, the book in a nutshell is about the first human expedition to Mars that gets in trouble on a traverse out to Tithonium Chasma when they all get scurvy.
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