The Viking Mission to Mars / Viking Press Handbook [Inscribed]

Item Details

Martin Marietta Corp, 1975, 3-ring binder

1st edition, Fine

The Viking Mission to Mars / Viking Press Handbook

Signed on the day of the Viking 1 landing by four legendary science/SF writers

3-ring binder, looseleaf pages accompanied by 8-1/2x11 printed press book. [Collations below]

The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes that landed on Mars in 1976. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the Viking 1 lander touched down on the Martian surface on July 20, 1976.  It was a momentous occasion and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL] invited a number of special guests, including these giants of science literati. Keith Burns, now a partner in Armadillo & Dicker, but then both a space-junkie / news editor for KNBC television, Los Angeles, was also present – and he had the foresight to get his copy of the Pressbook signed.

Although autographs of Sagan, Bradbury, Heinlein, and Sturgeon are generally available, their connections to the historic Viking program – and that these signatures help witness the first landing -- make this an especially desirable and singular artifact for collectors of space memorabilia. 

Astronomer/science writer Carl Sagan had a deep connection to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He was a Distinguished Visiting Scientist who played a key role in designing and managing several Mariner, Viking, and Voyager missions. In 1997, a NASA Mars lander was renamed in his honor to the "Carl Sagan Memorial Station.”

Ray Bradbury. The author of The Martian Chronicles among other SF classics was a frequent guest at JPL events and was in the mission control room for both the Viking 1 and 2 landings.  In August 2012, NASA named the landing site of the Mars rover Curiosity as "Bradbury Landing”

The connection between Robert A. Heinlein and JPL was through his friendship with Jack Parsons, one of JPL's founders. His fiction, of course, is another matter: Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein was later honored by the naming of an asteroid after him: 6312 Robheinlein. 

Theodore Sturgeon's connection to Mars is mostly found in his science fiction story, "The Man Who Lost the Sea," which is told from the perspective of a dying astronaut who has crash-landed on the red planet. But he was also a close friend of JPL director Bruce Murray, who later wrote that he admired the author's ability to capture the human element in exploration. 

The Viking Mission to Mars is a 3-ring binder published in 1975 by the Martin Marietta corporation for distribution to the press and to visitors of JPL. Text. I: The Mysterious Planet; II: Why Explore Mars; III: Viking Mission Description; IV: Index. PP: v, 16 (3), 32 (3), 96 (3), 6 (1).  Supplemented with the official Viking Press Handbook for the scheduled July 1976 landing; NASA Release no. 76-116; looseleaf, 86 pp.

CONDITION: Fine [The signed title page of the Pressbook is detached and in a protective sleeve.]