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Destination Mars by Rod Pyle has an admirable goal: to convince readers that Mars exploration is worth investment. If only it weren’t so boring

NASA’S Mars programme is in crisis. The US agency’s proposed budget for 2013 slashed funds for planetary science, forcing it to pull out of a mission with Europe to send a rover to the Red Planet in 2018.

In an atmosphere of barely suppressed panic about the future of the US programme, Destination Mars has a clear and admirable goal: to convince readers that Mars exploration is worth an investment by showing off previous successes. If only the plea for funds were not so obvious, or the book so boring.

Humanity’s fascination with Mars is a naturally fascinating subject. Rod Pyle (also author of Destination Moon) tours through centuries of speculation, from the Babylonians through American astronomer Percival Lowell – who at the start of the 20th century popularised the idea that Mars is streaked with canals built by advanced civilisations – right up to the moment in 1965 when the first images revealed a barren, lifeless surface.

Pyle alternates between the robotic missions and the human characters. Too often, the robot chapters feel like lists of scientific instruments, and the stories fall short of conveying the drama and excitement the research surely inspired in those seeing it unfold. In one anecdote, he builds tension by describing how the Viking 1 lander’s sample-collecting robot arm got stuck. But he doesn’t describe how the problem was fixed – just that engineers on Earth “were able to come up with a solution”. (The arm jammed because a locking pin should have fallen out after landing, but didn’t. The rover stretched its arm a bit farther to shake the pin free.)

Meanwhile, the human chapters feel like barely edited interview transcripts, with huge block quotes that run on for paragraphs. That has the benefit of preserving the speaker’s voice, but makes for very dull reading.

The obvious financial appeals come in one of the final chapters. Pyle echoes the laments of the US planetary science community: NASA is at risk of losing its dominance in space exploration, and the tentative steps the agency has already taken on the Red Planet may be its last.

It is a dismal picture of NASA’s future. There are many good reasons to continue exploring other planets, including inspiring the next generation of scientists and answering big questions such as how life began and whether other planets are inhabited. I applaud what Pyle was trying to do with Destination Mars. I only wish he had done it better.