Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World

"Their world is a dramatic one. On Mars the volcano Ascraeus Mons climbs to more than twice the height of Everest; the impact basin Hellas, as wide as Western Europe, plunges deeper than the Pacific; the canyons of Valles Marineris form a scar as broad as a continent. Our maps fill the emptiness with the names of ancient and imagined lands - Olympus, Arcadia, Hesperia - and departed friends - H. G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan." "Only on Mars does Utopia have a latitude and longitude. This is the story of how its measure was taken, and of the men and women inspired to explore it and, eventually, to bring it to life."--BOOK JACKET.