{"product_id":"the-mission-a-true-story","title":"The Mission: A True Story","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally absorbing and thrilling. ... Masterful. Nature A \"magnificent\" (Scientific American)  genre-defying narrative of the most ambitious science project ever conceived: NASAs deep space mission to Europa  the Jovian moon where might swim the first known alien life in our solar system In the spirit of Tom Wolfe and John McPhee  The Mission is an exuberant master class of creative nonfiction that reveals how a motley  determined few expanded the horizon of human achievement. When scientists discovered the first ocean beyond Earth  they had two big questions: Is it habitable? and How do we get there? To answer the first  they had to solve the second  and so began a vivacious teams twenty-year odyssey to mount a mission to Europa  the ocean moon of Jupiter. Standing in their way: NASA  fanatically consumed with landing robots on Mars; the White House  which never saw a science budget it couldnt cut; Congress  fixated on going to the moon or Marsanywhere  really  to give astronauts something to do; rivals in academia  who wanted instead to go to Saturn; and even Jupiter itself  which guards Europa in a pulsing  rippling radiation belta halo of death whose conditions are like those that follow a detonated thermonuclear bomb.    The Mission is the Homeric  never-before-told story of modern space exploration  and a magnificent portrait of the inner lives of scientists who study the solar systems mysterious outer planets. David W. Brown chronicles the remarkable saga of how Europa was won  and what it takes to get things doneboth down here  and up there.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946638078005,"sku":"ByrdShop_006265442X","price":27.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780062654427.jpg?v=1769958393","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-mission-a-true-story","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}