The Open Road Blog

Earlier this summer, the creative folks over at Myouterspace.com rolled out a flash fiction contest inspired by NASA’s Phoenix expedition (the 2008 unmanned mission to Mars). Fittingly, the judge—and muse—for the contest was Andrew Kessler, whose new book, Martian Summer, details what it was actually like to work on this mission.

Through what he calls “winning the nerd lottery,” Kessler was able to spend three months alongside some of the most brilliant and under-recognized planetary scientists in the world, becoming the first outsider ever to be granted unfettered access to NASA’s mission control. The drama, excitement, tension, and ...

Fizz, Cartagram and Planetary are neat tools by Bloom, a company that is pairing visualization tools with elements of game design. Fizz lets you see your Facebook or Twitter feed develop via big or small bubbles, indicating people and updates, and swarming hives. Cartagram displays instagram photos in a map layout. While Bloom's cool projects are news from earlier in 2011, the update is that Planetary, which looks the neatest, will be available on Monday. It is described as "an all-new, stunningly beautiful way to explore your music collection." They have some examples with Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, ...

Have you heard? One spacey author has stocked a bookstore with 3000 copies of his own book; he's a monobookist. On April 22 the Open Road crew gathered at Ed's Martian Book in the West Village to celebrate the release of Martian Summer, Andrew Kessler's thoughtful, witty non-fiction account of his summer spent working on the Phoenix Mars mission. Check out photographs and video footage from the event below, and stop by 547 Hudson to visit Kessler's monobookstore.

You can also click here to watch a documentary-quality, two-minute video about the project and grab links to the ebook ...

In 2008, Andrew Kessler, a Brooklyn-based writer with virtually no space background, spent three months in mission control with 130 top NASA scientists and engineers as they explored, photographed and dug up Mars. Kessler was the first outsider ever granted unfettered access to such an event, and Martian Summer is his non-fiction account of the journey. A mission-to-Mars exclusive, Kessler’s riveting read is an unconventional, humorous and non-technical adventure story for anyone who has ever wondered about the scientific implications for the survival of humanity. “Readers will thrill to this slightly offbeat firsthand account of scientific determination and stubborn ...