Includes index.

Seven minutes of terror -- The Red Planet fixation -- Joining the Mars adventure -- Avoiding splat -- The birth of MSL -- Looking ahead to putting people on Mars -- The challenges of landing -- The right kind of crazy -- Scientists at work -- The challenges of instrument creation -- Where the devil lives -- It's all about the people -- Bad to worse -- Up against a brick wall -- Shutdown and restart -- The final stretch -- Gremlins -- On Mars! -- The scientific findings.

In Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, Rob Manning, the project's chief engineer, tells of bringing the groundbreaking spacecraft to life. Manning and his team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tasked with designing a lander many times larger and more complex than any before, faced technical setbacks, fights over inadequate resources, and the challenges of leading an army of brilliant, passionate, and often frustrated experts.