The Curiosity rover, NASA's most ambitious Mars mission to-date, has received plenty of attention since it blasted off from Cape Canaveral in November 2011, but The New Yorker's Burkhard Bilger has put together what may be the definitive account of the mission. Bilger tells not only the story behind Curiosity and those who worked on it, but the history of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The story puts the daring mission in the context of man's fascination with Mars and the long line of programs that have sought to explore the planet and explain profound questions about the origin of life.