Dan Dare fans inspired by his adventures might well be interested in Professor Colin Pillinger’s new book, My Life on Mars.
Colin gained his PhD from the University of Swansea, Wales, in the late 1960s , and became one of the lucky few Britons to work on the lunar samples brought back by the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission. Later, at Cambridge and the Open University, he developed techniques for classifying meteorites according to their chemical composition, and has worked on a NASA mission to collect a sample of the ‘solar wind’, and ESA missions to investigate how meteorites erode in space.
He’s perhaps best known for his work on the European Mars Express project and the the Mars Lander, Beagle 2 and his experiences surrounding its development are a major part of the new book.