A highly informative and entertaining look at how hard it is going to be to put humans on Mars and return them safely to Earth. It takes the form a dialogue between an aspiring astronaut and a knowledgable space advocate -- both women of color -- as they hike through some rough terrain on Earth that morphs as their discussion wanders from the International Space Station to Mars itself.The mentor is very realistic about the challenges to be surmounted and how a mission to Mars will build upon wha...

This was an interesting read even though the first two chapters or so were a slogged to get through, due to the math and physics involve. After that part, it got to be more interesting and went by faster. When we got to reality about the possibility of getting to Mars and ideas on how to do it, my thinking was we need to get creative and think differently. To paraphrase/quote Big Hero 6, we need to come from a different angle. When it comes to ships to get us to Mars, my thinking is to reverse e...

Through the conversations of an eager teen who wants to go to Mars and an adult scientist, readers learn all the hurdles that need to be passed before humans are ready for a manned mission to Mars, from overcoming the headaches gravity poses to figuring out how to keep humans alive once they get there and everything in between. This is like a crash course in space flight engineering, but in graphic novel form and written in a way teens can easily grasp (and even motivated tweens). The science is...

Absolutely chocked full of information on the challenges of space flight, the limitations of the human body, the geology and chemistry of Mars, as so so much more...The book is targeted at teen audience, and yet it is pretty dense in form, even in the graphic format. It is all conveyed through expository dialogue between an intrepid teen (wants to be the first woman on Mars!) and a scientist who works for NASA as they hike around a desert landscape on Earth. Traditional panel format of comics wi...

Book blurb: Travel to deep space and back again with The Mars Challenge, a nonfiction graphic novel for teens about the science and logistics of a manned mission to Mars.I would have loved this as a teen, and I loved it as an adult. Getting humans to Mars is hard - especially if you are planning a round trip - and it's one of the things that annoys me about most stories about humans on the planet - there is so much to be worked out, and most stories gloss over the challenges. I loved that the hi...

Detailed but very readable discussing about what is needed to get humans on Mars.

Mars is hard.In fact, just the prospect of humans missions to Mars is so hard that even talking about why Mars is hard can be hard because, well, it’s hard.Alison Wilgus and Wyeth Yates’ The Mars Challenge is a shockingly good book on this topic.To say The Mars Challenge gets it right is an understatement.The prospect of sending humans to Mars is daunting, and the reasons for that get very technical very quickly. Try to explain it, and you start talking about things like the rocket equation and

Full of everything we know so far on what it would take to get humans to Mars, both what we have and what we still need to figure out, explained in an entertaining and accessible way. It doesn't pull punches on the issues of what's holding us back, but still manages to be both realistic and optimistic.

This was the most clear, concise, and colorful guide on space exploration I have yet to read. The author spent a huge amount of time researching and it definitely shows. I had to read this in chunks even though it's a fairly short read just because of how dense the information is (for someone who's not a space expert). The book consists of two people, a teen and scientist, walking around a Mars-like landscape discussing what exactly it would take to get us to Mars and back, but the landscape eve...

Nadia is a teenager with a dream to be the first woman on Mars. If she wants to get there, she has to learn about the science behind it and how to prepare. Luckily, She has a friend who works for NASA. The more she learns though the farther her goal seems. Will she be able to achieve her goal or even try? I personally enjoyed The Mars Challenge because it gave good information about space travel while giving the reader interesting characters and story to go along with it. Even without opening

This title gives a very detailed scientific exploration of the challenges facing any potential manned mission to Mars, from launching astronauts into space and landing on Mars to bringing them back home. The central focus of the story is a dialogue that takes place between a mission control officer, Ellie, and a teenage girl, Nadia, who hopes to someday be an astronaut on a Mars mission. The characters build a decent rapport, mixing in humor and banter among what can often be tough to understand...

Thorough and well-researched, The Mars Challenge describes the state of the art of work toward sending human astronauts to Mars through a dialogue between a woman who desperately wants to be among the first astronauts, and another woman who explains the technology we'll need and problems we haven't solved yet. There are a lot of challenges, and it's daunting. In the end, the wannabe astronaut almost loses hope, but delivers a stirring speech: "When we talked about building space stations back in...

This is the kind of graphic novel I would have absorbed while in high school...Nadia, a teen who aspires to be an astronaut in the future, and Ellie, her friend who is an Attitude Determination and Control Officer on the International Space Station, meet for a hike in the desert an mountains to discuss what is necessary to happen for an astronaut to travel to the planet Mars.Wilgus unpacks this topic step by step, beginning with explaining what and how humans have learned about the Red Planet, t...

The driving question in this well-drawn graphic novel is “What are all the conflicts that need to be solved before a space flight can be made to our next door neighbor, Mars?” The story is told in a series of conversations between Nadia, a teen who wants to be the first woman to Mars, and her mentor, Eleanor, an Attitude Determination and Control Officer (basically, a rocket scientist!). Eleanor guides Nadia through a hypothetical journey to the red planet. From the major difficulties of gravity...

Join ambitious high schooler Nadia and her mentor, ISS Pilot Eleanor, as they discuss the main problems that are face us today in getting a manned mission to Mars. The topic is presented as a conversation between the two with various diagrams and “trips” to the International Space Station, Mars, and others as Eleanor describes the hurdles scientists and engineers have to overcome. Some of the issues include the Rocket Equation, the formula for calculating how much fuel you will need to get the m...

I was given an advanced copy from the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.First, this novel is said it is for Young Adults, I feel like it fits more in the advanced Young Readers section, regardless, it still had a great deal of information and understandable. It is just a little bit cheesy in some ways, which is why I feel it is pitched more for young readers.This non-fiction graphic novels takes you through a conversation between a young girl and her mentor as they learn what it may t...

This book took a while to feel like I wasn't reading a really long informational pamphlet with cartoon characters to try to make it feel more relatable. I'm still not really sold on the vehicle of the people/characters/conversation used to relate the messages, but the messages were still interesting. Learning some of this history was absolutely fascinating--and the pictures did occasionally help to understand things. When I was reading about the "space wars" and how our progress was so fast duri...

Framed as a conversation between an enthusiastic teenager and an experienced astronaut, this book does an able job of exploring the many obstacles that stand between us and Mars. To do this at the reading and interest level of a high school student while still being incredibly informative is no small achievement. There's a lot of ground to cover, and Wilgus is able to thoroughly explain each subject (fuel, landing, etc) without getting overly technical. And although Wilgus makes it very clear th...

This book was VERY good! I have never been a fan of graphic novels so was a little turned off by that but WOW! I loooved reading this book and I couldn’t put it down! This story is a non-fiction account of a mentoring relationship whereby the mentor discusses with her mentee the many challenges of getting humans to Mars & back safely! The main characters are female and non-white which should help inspire the next generation of diverse space enthusiasts! I will certainly be reading this book agai...

This book is absolutely packed with detailed information which manages to be both technical and digestible. I found it extremely engaging and informative.The framing is curious, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. The challenges we face in the endeavor of sending human beings to Mars are explained in the form of a conversation between an aspiring astronaut and an expert (engineer, I think?). Concepts are illustrated, but a good deal of the art shows ... two people talking while they w...