Author Andrew Chakin's Passion for Mars, this week on planetary radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

And this week, into the hearts and minds of explorers of the Red Planet.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

His earlier work, a man on the moon, has been called the definitive story of the Apollo program.

Now, Andrew Chaken has written a passion for Mars.

We're going to give it as much time as we could spare during today's show but there's much more of my

conversation with Andy at planetary.org slash radio the book has been beautifully

produced by Abrams it is chock full I love saying is chock-full, I love saying that,

chalk-full of images of Mars, artist concepts of how we've dreamed of getting

there, and portraits of the passionate scientists and engineers who have devoted their lives to its pursuit.

A great Q&A from Emily Lachtowala is still ahead of us,

as is our weekly What's Up visit with Bruce Betts, but let's get right to Andy.

He spoke to us from his home in Vermont.

Andy, this is a conversation I've been looking forward to for so long.

I'm, I can't tell you, I'm really pretty excited just to have you on the show should have done it years ago

Thank you for joining us on planetary radio. Thank you Matt. It's really a pleasure to be here

All right. I'm gonna start up front, make very clear my bias.

I finished the book two, three days ago.

I do not usually get the chance to speak in the first person plural on this show,

but folks, if you are a regular

listener to this show I have to tell you this is our book you need to read this book

if it were a song it would be the anthem of the Explorer and and by

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