August 2012

Cover, Contents & Departments

Viewport, Letters, What’s Up, Soundings, In the Museum, Above & Beyond, Oldies & Oddities

Sightings, Reviews & Previews, Credits, Forecast, Moments & Milestones

Features

Emissary

Never send a man to do a robot's mission.

By David Freed

Rover Tracks

For all its traveling, NASA's last Mars rover only covered about the same ground as a familiar theme park.

By Heather Goss

Invaders From Earth

Will any of these robots win a trip to Mars?

By Leonard David

First Neighborhood on Mars

The creator of The Sims imagines us on the Red Planet.

By Will Wright

Why Mars?

How stories, real and invented, keep pulling us back.

By Robert Crossley

Martians Among Us

In this rowdy assembly, you'll find at least one you know.

By The Editors

Mars Mike

An elder statesman of space exploration wants pieces of Mars brought here.

By Paul Hoversten

Mars Journal

From the people who know Mars best, a collection of close encounters.

By The Editors

Orville, Wilbur and Me

You too can fly a Wright aircraft.

By Phil Scott

Antonovs in America

Where the world’s biggest biplane is under-employed.

By Tom Harpole

Steinbeck’s Dispatches From Vietnam

In 1966, the author of The Grapes of Wrath met a new working class: Hueys, Hercs, and Spooky.

By The Editors