Planetary Adventures by Lou Friedman

As the Cold War was ending and the Soviet Union collapsed, Louis Friedman traveled to Russia more than 50 times. Between 1984 and 2005, he worked to advance international space cooperation to explore Mars and other worlds in our solar system. In this book, he recounts his personal stories from those adventures in Russia. Among them are observing a Submarine Launched Ballistic Mission on a Russian Navy ship in the Barents Sea, and testing Mars Rover prototypes on volcanic mountains in Kamchatka. He chronicles the times he travelled to the secret Soviet nuclear laboratory in Chelyabinsk-70 with Edward Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen bomb and he flew in hot air balloons on a Soviet airfield in Lithuania. These adventures were undertaken to advance the idea of the United States and Russia leading a world effort to explore Mars together. Included is a Chapter and Appendices on the politics, history and challenges of international cooperation for human exploration of Mars.