杏吧原创

Space is a seductive place. That鈥檚 why Colin Pillinger, professor of
planetary and space sciences at Britain鈥檚 Open University, revels in it pretty
much all his waking hours. When not working on Beagle 2, ESA鈥檚 Mars lander
project due to launch in 2003, he spends a lot of time reading about space
exploration鈥攊n fiction as well as fact. He is looking forward to Stephen
Baxter鈥檚 Icebones, (Gollancz, 2001) a sci-fi story set on Mars which
the author has dedicated to the Beagle 2 team. He enjoyed Baxter鈥檚 previous
book, Voyage (HarperCollins, 1997), which envisages how NASA鈥檚 Mars
exploration programme might have developed had President Kennedy not been shot.
The space race aside, Pillinger sometimes opts for another kind of contest. 鈥淚
have always been fascinated by the sport of kings,鈥� he says, and is currently
working his way through A History of Newmarket by Laura Thompson
(Virgin, 2000).