First Landing, a 2001 novel by Robert Zubrin

First Landing: a Novel, by Robert Zubrin (2001)

At left: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 2002), 262 p., $6.99. Cover art by Bob Warner. Here's the piece from the back cover:

Five are chosen for the landmark mission to Mars -- to become the first humans to walk upon the Red Planet. But when their findings set off a wave of controversy and political upheaval back home, public opinion turns against the Mars mission -- and an ineffective government leaves the team stranded. As their situation becomes more desperate, all trust is lost in NASA Mission Control. With differences dividing the crew into warring cliques, life-threatening accidents begin to look like sabotage. Yet somehow the crew must try to pull together. Because if they don’t save themselves, no one will...

Originally published in 2001, First Landing was reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Elisabeth Carey of the New England Science Fiction Association, and Wil Owen of Rambles, a cultural arts magazine, amongst others. Booklist concluded that "Space advocates, especially, will warm to it, but Greg Bear's, Geoffrey Landis', and, above all, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels make more satisfying reading."

An astronautical engineer, founder of the Mars Society, and activist for the colonization of the Red Planet, Dr. Zubrin has received a considerable amount of attention over the years.